Esther Cox married
Jacob Dillatash, son of
Henry Dillatash Jr. and
Geradina Van Wickle, c 1807. Email dated 3 January 2002 from Bob MacAvoy
My GGF, James MacAvoy is the reason this quest started many years ago. He was a civil war soldier at the age of 15 under the alias of James Avoy. I wanted to know more about him, so I started my search in Troy, NY where family legend has it that he lived as a lad, supposedly born on the boat on the way over from Europe. My elderly relatives said that he was a bound boy to a storekeeper in New Brunswick. Basically that is how my search began. Eventually I got hold of his CW pension papers from Washington, and in them he explained that he was a bound boy (apprenticed so to speak) to a Henry Dillatush in New Brunswick, and that the reason he enlisted at 15 and dropped the "Mac" from his surname was to get away from his "employer."
I never did locate any information on him in Troy, NY but I put a query on the Middlesex County GenConnect site and was contacted by Anita Bryant of Port Republic, NJ, a descendent in the Dillatush/Delatush/Dillentush etc. family who is related to Henry Dillatush--my ggf's mentor in New Brunswick. She sent me a Delatush descendency chart, but naturally it didn't mean much to me other than to show how Henry fit into the overall scheme of things. It said nothing about James MacAvoy. I checked the census for 1860 in New Brunswick and sure enough James was listed in the household of Henry Dilatush and his mother. I seemed to have dead ended at this point. Then several weeks ago while going through some additional pension papers for James MacAvoy I made two startling discoveries.
There is a letter from Eleanor D. Thompson of Boston, Mass. dated 11 April 1898. An excerpt from the letter states "have known James McAvoy since he was seven years of age, at which time my mother (Esther Cox Delatush) took him in our family, and he lived in the family until my mother's death in 1861. We were then living in Jamesburg, NJ. When he was about 12 years old, we moved to New Brunswick, NJ."
There is another letter from James T. Dillentush dated 7 April 1898. An excerpt from this letter states "I have known him since he was a boy and he was bound to my Uncle Henry Dillentush."
By checking the descendancy chart for Henry Dilatush, I believe the following is correct. It looks to me that Eleanor Delatush (1826- ) married 1st George VanHorn, and 2nd ____ Thompson. Her father was Jacob Delatush and her mother was Esther Cox. Henry Dillentush (the man my GGF James was bound to) was the brother of Eleanor (Delatush) Thompson. James T. Dillentush was the son of John Delatush and Martha Sutphen, and was the nephew of both Eleanor (Delatush) Thompson and Henry Dellentush.
Recently I put a query on the Cox GenForum page and received only one response which proved irrelevant to my search.
So, where does that leave me? Well, I have many questions to answer. Esther Cox's husband Jacob Delatush died 13 December 1852, and in 1853 Esther took in my GGF James MacAvoy to live with her and her children. Why? Was he an orphan? Was he homeless? Esther had grown children by then. Was James an illegitimate child of one of Esther's daughters? Was he the child of one of Esther's sisters, cousins, etc.? Did James mother (a relative?) die young? Was his father a bum and dumped him off? In the 1870 Middlesex County Census for New Brunswick James states that he was born in "NY" and that both his parents were born in NY. Is this true? I have no reason to doubt it because he had no reason to lie, but am I being naive? How does this all fit in?
Esther moved to New Brunswick in 1859 to live with her son Henry Dillatush (eventually James' mentor) who ran a "canal store" there. Esther died in 1861, and that is pretty much where I stand right now. (If anyone has information that might be helpful to Bob...please email him at macavoy@ix.netcom.com or me at john.vanwicklin@houghton.edu.).