PETER SKIDMORE Alias FLEET (C.1780-1847), SLAVE to ISAAC SKIDMORE at HUNTINGTON, LONG ISLAND

Peter Skidmore alias Fleet Skidmore/ Scudamore One-Name Study

PETER SKIDMORE alias FLEET (c.1780-1847), SLAVE TO ISAAC SKIDMORE AT HUNTINGTON, LONG ISLAND

This account appeared originally in Thirty Generations of the Scudamore/Skidmore Family in England and America by Warren Skidmore, 2nd edition 2006. Linda Moffatt, custodian of the Skidmore/ Scudamore One-Name Study can be contacted via [email protected]. Web address www.skidmorefamilyhistory.com

Peter Skidmore is unusual among the Negroes who bore the surname in the early 19th century. He is the first black Skidmore whose history from the cradle to the grave can be recovered from the surviving records. He was succeeded by a number of other unrelated black families who took the name of their Skidmore masters after the Civil War in several of the states of the Confederacy. Alas, the posterity of Peter Skidmore seems to be extinct but blacks of the name with roots in the old South still flourish.

PETER SKIDMORE alias FLEET was born a slave to Isaac Skidmore at Huntington, Long Island, about the year 1780. He remained as his servant until he was about ten when he was sold to Gilbert Fleet taking Fleet as his surname for a time. In 1800 Peter Skidmore (the name he used thereafter) and his wife were living as free coloreds at Flushing in Queens County where Peter was probably employed as a boatman. He would appear to be, by elimination, the Peter Skidmore who served in the 64th and 93rd Consolidated Regiments of the New York State Militia from Queens County in the War of 1812. In 1817 he was in New York City, a boatman, living on Chrystie Street near Broome where he remained until 1823 when he moved to 44 Hicks Street, Brooklyn. He was there through 1829 and then disappeared until the 1840 census when his family was enumerated twice as free blacks. They are first found in the Tenth Ward of Manhattan, and then a few weeks later at Flatlands in Kings County, New York. At the latter place he is enumerated in the column for those employed in the navigation of canals, lakes, and rivers. Peter may have settled at Flatlands as an employee of Timothy Skidmore (a son of Isaac of Huntington) who was with his sons interested in boating about the Bay. He is probably the man mentioned in Henry R. Styles' History of Kings County (page 194): “In 1842 the [Peter?] Skidmore family living on Ruffle Bar, concluded to remove their house, in sections, to a new site on the shore of Dooley's Bay, Barren Island. The house was accordingly taken down piecemeal, and most of it carried across the bay and piled up near its future site. The moving was not quite concluded on the day appointed. On the foundation of their old home had been left the wooden ceiling of an upper chamber, in one piece or section. During the night a violent storm drove the tide up to an unprecedented height; and, in the morning, when Jacob [sic] Skidmore arose he was surprised to find that his chamber-ceiling had been brought over by the tide, from Ruffle Bar to Dooley's Bay, without injury.” In 1843 and 1844 Peter Skidmore was back in Manhattan at 63 Norfolk Street where he is identified as “colored” and a whitewasher. His surname is badly mis-stated but he is probably the man aged about 70 who died on 23 October 1847 in New York City. The death record notes that he was born on Long Island and that his remains were removed from the city for burial. Peter Skidmore married 1stly Mary (who was 19 when she married him). They had a large family about whom a good deal can be learned from the records of the Overseers of the Poor at Huntington, Long Island, and the New York City vital records. He married 2ndly Sarah Ederson on 20 February 1821 at the Willett Street Methodist Church. Had issue by his first wife, 1. James, born 1804. He may be the James Skidmore, a black, who died on 18 March 1864 “age 84" at the Old Home on Long Island although his age does not agree. He was buried in the City Cemetery. 2. Isaac Watts, born 1806. 3. Benjamin, born 1808. 4. David, born 1811. 5. George, born 1817. 6. John, died 20 August 1817 aged four months. His home was on Chrystie Street according to his death record, and he was buried from the Asbury African Methodist Church in Manhattan “a black.” 7. John, born 1818. He died on 21 March 1820 as an infant aged one year and eight months. His home was at 122 Cherry Street, and his funeral was from the Asbury African Church. 1. Charity, born 1801. She was living “in ill health” at Huntington on 29 June 1829. She died soon after at 122 Chrystie Street in New York City described as aged 31 and born on Long Island.

Peter Skidmore alias Fleet Skidmore/ Scudamore One-Name Study

Services were at the Asbury African Church. 2. Ann, born 1813. She is probably the black person of her name “aged 60" in the poorhouse at Flushing in the 1860 census. 3. Bathsheba (also known as Bast or Elizabeth), born 1815. She was married (as Betsey) to Jacob Townsend by the Reverend Marmaduke Earle at Oyster Bay. 4. January, born 1819.

NOTES.

GEORGE SKIDMORE, who may have been black and the father of Peter Skidmore, first appears in the New York City directory for 1815, a boatman, living on Delancy Street at Corlear's Hook in the 13th Ward. He is there in 1816 (on Broome Street) at Corlear's Hook and then disappears. It is perhaps significant that Nathaniel Skidmore, a son of Peter Skidmore's former master at Huntington, also first appears in New York City in 1815.

SARAH SKIDMORE, aged 90 and a mulatto, was the head of a family in 1850 in the 13th Ward of New York City. She died aged 95 on 1 October 1856 at 63 Norfolk Street in the 13th Ward. Peter Skidmore died earlier at this address and Sarah may have been his mother.

RHODA SKIDMORE died 22 December 1799 aged 52 at Huntington, Long Island, according to her tombstone. Her will at Riverhead identifies her as a mulatto. Another RHODA SCIDMORE, born about 1832, was a black servant in 1860 in Huntington in the household of Elizabeth (Scidmore) Rogers. She was the widow of Lemuel B. Rogers and a daughter of Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Scidmore of Huntington.

STEPHEN SKIDMORE (free colored) was the head of a household in the 1840 census of Oyster Bay. He was over 55 and his wife was aged 36 to 55. In 1850 he was living in the Flatbush Alms House aged 54 and described as a pauper. His widow may be the SILVA SKIDMORE, a black domestic aged 80, living in 1870 at Oyster Bay.

MARIA SKIDMORE and Charles Townsend, coloured, were married at St. George's, Flushing.

JAMES SKIDMORE, a black aged 15, was a servant to Robert R. Boyd, merchant, in the Sixth Ward of Brooklyn in 1860.

JAMES SKIDMORE, aged 28, and a mulatto, was living at 393 Broadway in Brooklyn in 1880. His wife Elizabeth (age 21) had been born in the West Indies, and they had a son John T. Skidmore (age three). His widow had apparently married ______Farelly by 1900 and she and her son John G. Skidmore (born February 1876) were still living on Broadway.

RICHARD SKIDMORE, “ a colored man,” died 1 March 1840 aged about 50 at Poughkeepsie, Dutchess County, New York. He left no father, mother, brother, sister, nephew or niece living. He left his entire estate to Henry B. Southworth who was named executor of his will.

SAMUEL SKIDMORE, was born about 1795 in New Jersey. Free colored, he was enumerated with a wife age 24-36 in the 1830 census of Cornwall Township, Orange County, New York. They are not found there (or elsewhere) in the 1840 census. In 1850 he was living, a laborer but not identified as black, at Cornwall in Litchfield County, Connecticut; his age is given as 37 and his wife Hannah was 27. Hannah seems also to have been enumerated, aged 30, in 1850 as a servant in the household of Luke Wood at Peoria, Peoria County, Illinois. [Luke Wood was living in Cornwall Township, Orange County, New York, in 1840.] Samuel Skidmore was a day laborer in Deerpark Township back in Orange County in 1860. Also living in his household in 1860 was Sarah A. Skidmore (aged 29) and Carrie Skidmore (age 1).