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The history of modern day Ackerlys began somewhere in England in the 1500's when Henry and Robert Ackerly, brothers, and Henry's wife, Ann, left England to come to the Colonies. They landed in New Haven, Connecticut in 1638 where Henry and Ann remained.
A Bit About Oyster Ponds
Thomas R. Bayles - 1970
The first settlers of Southold town, of which Orient is a part, came from England in 1638 and remained near New Haven until 1640 when the group of thirteen men chartered a vessel and sailed with their families across t h e Sound, landing at Southold.
This group of pioneers were under the leadership of Rev. John Youngs and the thirteen men were Rev. John Youngs, Barnabas Horton, William Wells, Peter Hallock, John Tuthill, Richard Terry, Thomas Mapes, Matthias Corwin, Robert Akerly, Jacob Corey, John Conklin, Isaac Arnold, and John Budd.
According to tradition the first man to spring ashore was Peter Hallock, and the spot where they landed has been known as Hallock's Landing. All except Peter Hallock had their wives and children with them. He had left his in England.
On their approach the Indians looked upon them as rare curiosities but were inclined to he friendly. (From Griffins Journal.) Peter Hallock is supposed to have made the first purchase of land in Orient in 1641. He afterward returned to England for the purpose of bringing over his family, but as he was gone a long time the Indians sold it again to other parties.
The first settlers at Orient about 1646 were John Tuthill, John Youngs, Jr., Israel Brown, Samuel Brown and John King. The following description of Orient is taken from "Historical Sketches of Suffolk County" published by Richard M. Bayles in 1874.
"Orient is a village of about seven hundred inhabitants occupying the peninsula formerly called Oyster Ponds, and by the Indians Poquatuck. The peninsula is about five miles long and two to three miles wide. Farming operations, which occupy most of the people, are successfully carried on and the soil kept in a high state of cultivation. On its eastern extremity a fort was erected in 1776 by Col. Livingston, with a view to prevent the landing of British troops on this part of the Island.
"The principal village of Orient lies on the shore of Orient Harbor, on the western part of the peninsula. The village is rather compact, and contains two churches, three stores, two hotels, two boot and shoe shops, and a few other tradesmen. A commodious steamboat wharf projects into the harbor, and the village school is well sustained. A wind grist mill stands near the shore.
"The name of the village was changed to Orient in 1836, and according to Griffins Journal contained six families in 1650; in 1750, forty-five families, and in 1855 136 families. The first church is supposed to have been commenced about 1717 and completed about ten years later. This belonged to the Congregational order. This building is said to have been a peculiar type of construction, resembling a series of squares piled one upon the other, and the whole surmounted by a spire and a sheet iron weather vane representing a game cock.
"This church was torn down in 1818 and a larger one built, which did not prove satisfactory, so in 1844 another much larger and more handsome building was erected. (This is the church in use today and contains beautiful stained glass windows). The old village Burying ground lies across the road nearby, and a much more ancient burial place lies near the Sound shore, north of the village, in a deep valley. The Methodist church, standing near the center of the village, was built in 1836.
"Orient Point is the eastern extremity of this peninsula, and about 25 houses are located along the road to the point, where a steamboat wharf is located, and near it a large summer boarding house which was built in 1834, with accommodations for 250 guests.
"Plum Island lies across Plum Gut, about a mile east of Orient and is about three miles in length, containing some eight hundred acres. This island was purchased from the Indians by Samuel Wyllys of Hartford, Conn. in 1659 for one barrel of biscuit, one hundred muxes, and a few fish hooks.
The historians tell us of a singularly poised rock, which was found upon this island that was roundish in shape and about ten feet in diameter. It stood upon the edge of another larger rock on the extreme edge, and looked as if a small effort might dislodge it from its resting place. During the war of 1812, while Commodore Hardy was stationed in Gardiners Bay, a number of officers and men went on shore with crowbars and wedges, and with much effort succeeded in dislodging the rock.
"A light house was erected on the west end of this island in 1827 and refitted in 1856. The tower is thirty four feet high and stands on a hill which gives the light an elevation of sixty three feet above the water level.
"A few miles east of Plum Island are Great Gull and Little Gull islands. These are composed almost entirely of rock. Great Gull contains about fifteen acres and Little Gull only one acre. A very important light is located on this island which marks the entrance from the ocean to the Sound. This light was established in 1806 and refitted in 1857, and is seventy four feet above the water, with a fixed light, visible for thirteen miles."
Griffins Journal tells the following amusing story which illustrates the dispatch with which people in olden times used to transact their important business:
'It was on a pleasant day in the summer of 1780 that Doctor Joshua Clark, a respectable physician in the parish of Mattituck, mounted his horse and rode east to Southold village, about six miles, and stopped at the dwelling of a Mr. Chase, who was a poor but respectable man with a wife and two daughters, Polly and Ann.
The doctor was a widower, about 70 years of age at the time. His business was urgent, being no less than to obtain the hand of Polly as a wife, with the consent of the parents, and without further courtship. His proposals were generous and frank if she would willingly consent. She modestly assented, although only in her seventeenth year.
A message was sent to Judge Samuel Landon, who lived within thirty rods. The judge, who was more than eighty years of age, soon arrived, and with a dignity and gravity natural to old age, he performed the ceremony of pronouncing them man and wife. The entire time was not more than one and a half hours. The drama closed with the Doctors exit with his young bride mounted on the same old roan horse with him."
In the old cemetery north of Orient, which has been abandoned as a burial place for over a hundred years, we find a gravestone with the inscription: "Mr. John Youngs, Minister of the Word and first settler of the church of Christ in Southold on Long Island. Deceased the 24th of February in the year of our Lord 1672, and of his age 74."
First appearing in the LI Forum 1970 No Copyright Information Data Found
Robert Ackerly sailed to Long Island, New York in 1640 landing at Southold which the settlers named after the town in England they left. Robert, as one of the founding fathers of Southold, was a landowner and became a "free man" prior to the Revolutionary War. He left Southold and settled in New Jersey later in his life.
It is thought that the name Ackerly [Accorlie, Acarly, Acarley, Acerly, Acerley, Acherly, Acherley, Ackerley, Ackley, Akerly, Akerley, Akerlye, Ackersley, Ackerslaye, et al] comes from the town of Acre, England. All appear to be just variations of the original name.
More to follow...
From Genealogical Dictionary of New England Settlers Volume 1, page 7:
Ackerly, Accorley, or Acrely, Henry, New Haven 1640, stamford, 1641-53, Greenwich 1656, died at Stamford, 17 June 1658, which is the date of his will. His widow, Ann, was 75 years old in 1662. Haz. II. 246. Robert, Brookhaven, L.I. 1655, freem. of Connecticut jurisdiction. 1664. See Trumbull, Col. Rec. I. 341, 428. Samuel, Broiokhaven 1655, perhaps brother of the preced.
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Henry Accorly, died at Stamford, June 17, 1650. The Inventory of his estate, dated Jan. 4th, 1658. He was by trade a "house-carpenter and farmer."
Ackerly, Robert, was one of the petitioners in 1659, at Setauket, on L. I., to be united to the Colony of Connecticut, upon the same terms with South and East Hampton, L. I. He was made free by Connecticut, in 1664.
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ACKERLY FAMILY
(Sometimes spelled Akerly and Accorlie, with other variations.)
(Vide, ante, PART FOUR, p. 582.)
A very important article on the Ackerly family with some decidedly new and interesting ancestral facts concerning the OLIVER Family:
No one of the name was a prominent settler in Piscataway, although it is believed that WILLIAM ACKERLY (1697), hereinafter mentioned, was temporarily there, and MARY OLIVER, widow of WILLIAM OLIVER of Elizabethtown, lived with her son-in-law, GEORGE DRAKE, before 1700 for a short period. However, the strain of the blood was in the Piscataway families, through intermarriages with the Oliver children of Elizabethtown, hence it is important to note some items concerning this family.
The lines of descent are from HENRY ACKERLY, who was of the Colony of New Haven, Conn., 1640; in Stamford, Conn., 1641-53, and at Greenwich, Conn., 1656. He died at Stamford, June 17, 1658, which is the date of his will, and he left a widow, Ann, who was seventy-five years old, in 1662, hence she was born about 1587. It may be be assumed that HENRY ACKERLY was born about 1585 and that they were married, say, 1606, which will give us some chance of estimating the birth date of the daughter, MARY ACKERLY, to be named below.
HENRY had a brother, ROBERT ACKERLY, who was first of the New Haven Colony, but soon removed to Long Island, settling first at Yennicock, afterwards the town of Southold, and later became a freeman of the township of Brookhaven, just adjoining. Both were taken into the jurisdiction of Connecticut in 1661. Authorities place Robert as at Southold in 1651 and Brookhaven in 1655. He was admitted a freeman of Connecticut in 1664 and he was a signer of the petition in behalf of Cromwell Bay, called Setauke, later Brookhaven, adressed to the General Court of Connecticut in 1659. He had a son Samuel registered at Brookhaven in 1665. It was claimed that the two ACKERLY brothers, HENRY AND ROBERT, came to Connecticut from Lancaster or Lancaster, England. ROBERT ACKERLY was living as late as 1675, when his name appears in a Brookhaven tax list. He was dead before 1683 because the list for that year does not mention him but does name his son, SAMUEL ACKERLY.
The coat of arms appears in Matthews' "American Armoury and Blue Book," Armorial Addenda, page 3, and is described as follows: "On a Mound the stump of a tree, thereon a dove holding in the beak a branch of laurel betw. two pine trees."
Descendants of these families scattered through Eastern New York and New Jersey and in September 16, 1697, there was a return of a survey of land for Richard Hall of 150 acres "adjoining WILLIAM ACKERLY." This was in West Jersey and not far from the Delaware River. It may be safely assumed that he was a brother of MARY ACKERLY-SIMPKINS-OLIVER, following.
A BENJAMIN ACKERLY was in Elizabethtown, and possibly in Piscataway, before 1729, who belonged to this same family, but the connection is unknown.
More than one authority completely establishes the proposition that MARY ACKERLY, daughter of HENRY ACKERLY of Connecticut, as above, married for her first husband, VINCENT SIMPKINS, the probable son of CAPTAIN NICHOLAS SIMPKINS (1634), immigrant settler, of Boston. VINCENT SIMPKINS was in Stamford, Conn. in 1641, and by his wife MARY had sons, John and Daniel Simpkins, and probably another son, Michael Simpkins, who became one of the first settlers of Elizabethtown, N. J. VINCENT SIMPKINS died in 1653 and his estate was probated in 1656. His father-in-law, Henry Ackerly, gave some of his property to his grandson, Daniel Simpkins, as appears in the inventory of the estate.
The New Jersey records show the following entry: "1679, September 10th. Letters of Administration on the estate of John Symkins of Elizabethtown, deceased, granted to his mother, MARY, now the wife of WILLIAM OLIVER, on behalf of her other son, Daniel Symkins." This shows the second marriage of MARY ACKERLY, daughter of HENRY, to WILLIAM OLIVER. WILLIAM OLIVER was one of the patentees of Elizabethtown, N. J., and took the oath of allegiance there in 1665.
It was alleged by Hatfield, in his "History of Elizabeth," that he was either the son of JOHN OLIVER, who died in 1646, or THOMAS OLIVER, who died in 1652, at Boston. However, I am able to give an origin of WILLIAM OLIVER, heretofore unknown, although not ready to dispute the alternative of Hatfield's statements. He also says that he married the widow, MARY SIMPKINS, in Elizabethtown, which is not true.
WILLIAM OLIVER came to Elizabethtown from Connecticut and the proof lies in the fact that WILLIAM AND MARY OLIVER were both witnesses to the will of HENRY ACKERLY of Stamford, Conn., dated June 17, 1658, so that they were married before that date and undoubtedly at Stamford. The records there show WILLIAM OLIVER to have resided there and to have been chosen "Warner to warne ye toune" as late as December, 1664. They also show births of a son to WILLIAM OLIVER in 1659, registration of a child born in 1657, and another son, born 1662. (Vide, ante, PART FOUR, p. 623.)
Another entry shows the latter to have been the son, SAMUEL OLIVER, afterward of Elizabethtown, which forever settles the question that he was the son of WILLIAM OLIVER SR. and not his brother, as is commonly supposed. This emigration of the Oliver family from Stamford, Conn., to Elizabethtown is now printed for the first time and will be interesting to the descendants. I am working upon the supposition that WILLIAM OLIVER was the son of THOMAS OLIVER, first at Fairfield, Conn., before 1661, and that the latter, in turn, was the son of the first THOMAS OLIVER of Boston, but have not satisfied myself as to the proof of this.
The Piscataway families, who received the ACKERLY blood, were those coming from the marriage of ELIZABETH OLIVER and ZERAH HIGGINS, 1680; MARY OLIVER and GEORGE DRAKE, 1677; MARY OLIVER and JOHN MOORE, 1717; REV. BENJAMIN STELLE and MERCY DRAKE, (?) daughter of GEORGE DRAKE, and possibly others to be later discovered.
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SOUTHOLD, LONG ISLAND
This is the north division of the eastern end of Long Island from Riverhead boundary to Orient Point, a distance of twenty-three miles. Located as a part of Suffolk County, (vide, ante, p. supra).
Its settlement was headed by its illustrious founder, REV. JOHN YOUNGS. He was at New Haven, Conn., in 1640, and there he organized a church, to be located at SOUTHOLD, October, 1640. From that year till 1654, the following appeared in and became residents: (nearly all, or their sons, rem. to N. J.--O.E.M.)
ROBERT ACKERLY
Richard Benjamin
THOMAS BENEDICT
JOHN BAYLEY
JOHN BOOTH
Thomas Brush
JOHN BUDD
HENRY CASE
Roger Cheston
Richard Clark
John Conklin
THOMAS COOPER
Matthias Corwin
PHILEMON DICKERSON
Jeffry Easty
JOHN EL(S)TON
WILLIAM FROST
Charles Glover
James Haines
Peter Hallock
John Herbert
Josiah Hobart
Barnabas Horton
Thomas Hutchinson
John Ketcham
Thomas Mapes
THOMAS MOORE
Humphrey Norton
Thomas Osman
Isaac Overton
PETER PAINE
Edward Petty
John Peakin
William Purrier
James Reeves
Thomas Rider (Reeder)
William Salmon
THOMAS STEVENSON
John Swezy
Richard Terry
Thomas Terrill
JOHN TUCKER
Henry Tuthill
John Tuthill
John Underhill
Jeremiah Vail
William Wells
Abraham Whittier
BARNABAS WINES
REV. JOHN YOUNGS
COL. JOHN YOUNGS
JOSEPH YOUNGS
Stephen Bayles
Benjamin Horton.
(ROSS, Vol. I, pp. 1013 et seq.)
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