MAYBEE, Capt. Abraham: 1748 - 1832
Tile ordered and paid for by Mrs. Pull,* Adolphustown, Ontario, December, 1888
Abraham and his twin brother Isaac were born January 24, 1748, sons of Peter Mabie and Jannetje Hogencamp. Originally Dutch, the Maybee family had been in America for three or four generations before the American Revolution. When war broke out, the family was living in the Hackensack Valley between New Jersey and New York.
One historical account tells that the Maybee family “ran a mill on the Naurashan Creek, a tributary of the Hackensack River near Tappan, Orange County. Abraham set up a blacksmith shop on his father’s land and was living there in 1776 when war broke out. . . .He became an active agent and spy for the British almost from the beginning of the war and was a Captain in the Associated Loyalists.”(1) This group of Associated Loyalists on Manhattan Island was formed in preparation for evacuation from New York.
Abraham first married Gerritye Hogencamp. She and their family joined him in New York City. They had three children: Peter, born in 1775, who married Catherine Huff, and settled in Murray Township, Northumberland; Abraham Jr. born in 1777 who married Sarah Knapp and also settled in Murray Township; and Jane Maybee born in 1779 or 1780 who married Dr. Samuel Neilson. Following Gerritye’s death before 1781, Abraham married Ann Ackerman and they had three children: Robert McDowall, born in 1782 or 1783 who remained single; Isaac born in 1786, also single; and Elizabeth, born in 1787, who married Noxon Harris. Their daughter, Jane Harris Pull,* sponsored this tile for her grandfather.
Abraham and Ann left New York in the evacuation of 1783, then overwintered in Sorel, Quebec and arrived in Adolphustown, June 16, 1784. (Originally destined to settle with Peter Grass’ contingent at Cataraqui (Kingston), Maybee and a number of his men chose instead to settle with Peter Van Alstine in Adolphustown—half of Maybee’s men can be traced to the border Counties of Bergen and Orange in New Jersey and New York respectively.(2)) In Adolphustown, Abraham drew lot 21, concession 1 and in 1794 successfully petitioned for a small addition to this land, citing plans to build a saw mill. In October 1818, he was granted additional land in Camden Township.
Abraham’s twin brother Isaac remained in the United States after the peace: “Member of a strong Loyalist family he was residing in British-held New York when he married Sarah Post. He later had a saw mill at Montvale (New Jersey) and died there in 1835.”(3) Abraham’s brother Mindert also remained in the United States after the peace as did their father who died on his farm in 1797. Another brother, Casparus, who served with the King’s Orange County Regiment throughout the war, settled at St. John, New Brunswick, where he died in 1822.(4)
Abraham Maybee died in Adolphustown in 1832 at the age of 84.†
† Not age 96, as is mistakenly inscribed on the tile.
1. Revolutionary War Days: The Loyalists of Pascack County (Park Ridge, N.J., Pascack Hist. Soc., Vol. 17, No. 94).
2. Larry Turner, Voyage of a Different Kind (Belleville: Mika, 1984), p. 138.
3. Revolutionary War Days.
4. Revolutionary War Days.