Page
Early Van Buren Land Records
Lot 11. Survey of 1790.
State designates Lot No. 11 as one of those reserved for school and gospel purposes.
Mar. 8, 1813. William I. Vredenburgh of Marcellus Town to Chester Molby of Camillus Town for $750. Part Lot 11 being subdivision No. 2 agreeable to the survey of the Surveyor-general, containing 139 acres more or less.
Recorded Aug. 25, 1828. Book NN, page 101
The John Wigent family came about 1796 to Onondaga County from Marl borough, N.Y., near Newburgh, where their history is interesting. Zora Wigent Martens (Mrs. W. Martens, 4763 Spokane Avenue, Detroit, Mich.), wrote (1958) that the D.A.R. has accepted her proofs that our John Wigent served in the Revolutionary Army. He is not to be confused with his cousin Lieutenant John who married Catherine Powell. Our John married Mary Burr, daughter of Samuel Burr of Balmville, near Marlborough, I think. Please turn to page 76 for more of this historic family, Wiegand, etc.
Mrs. Martens gives Sally as the third child of our John Wigent, and the wife of Chester Molby. Burr Wigent, of Baldwinsville, whose name is on many documents, is given as the eighth and last child of John and Mary Wigent. John Wigent died in Onondaga County, N.Y., 1823. E. Burr Wigent was supervisor of the Town of Van Buren in 1850, succeeded in office by Samuel Molby in 1851.
After Chester Molby's death his widow married Israel Slauson, and they went to Reading, Michigan. We have no other data on Slauson. The grave of Sally adjoins the graves of daughter Susannah and son-in-law Truman Hart, in a Methodist Church yard in Reading. Her tombstone is inscribed "Sally, Wife of Chester Molby," with dates of birth and death. Some of the descendants told me that Chester was a staunch Methodist, and a temperate man.
Emma M. Wormuth (Mrs. Charles E.) King, 31 Downer St., Baldwinsville, N.Y., a granddaughter of Harrison Rouse and Harriet Molby, said that she has a little peach pit basket that Ashabel Fox made and gave to her mother over 90 years ago. In 1853, she thinks.
Land records in Hillsdale, Mich., show that a number of the Molbys in Van Buren, N.Y., bought land in Hillsdale Co., Mich., between the years 1840 and 1850. In several instances they resold the land, usually for the same price or a little more than they had paid for it. Miner Maltby also is on record as having bought and sold a piece of land in Hillsdale Co., Michigan.
It has been said that there is a correlation between the land and the people who live on the land and got their subsistence from the land. These Van Buren Molbys were farmers. It is of interest to us to know the opinion of the writer of Clayton's History of Onondaga County from 1615 to 1878. He said Van Buren Town had the best farm land in Onondaga County. (See Prof. W. W. Clayton's 429-page History, at page 327 and following pages.)
*Information from Sally Wigent Molby's Bible, now in the possession of Fred A Molby, Baldwin, Kansas.
**Birthplace is not known with certainty. Some of the deaths were not recorded in the old Bible.
HOME