In 1648 John appeared at Setauket in present-day Brookhaven Township, Suffolk County, Long Island. He may have been Constable there in 1662 and a Commissioner in 1664 (5). From there the John Ketcham family moved to Huntington, and in 1665 he was a representative from that town at the Hempstead Assembly. By 1666 John Ketcham was a lieutenant, and he was 1 of 8 freeholders listed as grantees in the first English patent for Huntington, issued by Governor Richard Nicholls on November 30, 1666 (6).
The Ketcham family moved to Newton, Queens County two years later. James Riker, Jr. (see 7) had this to say:
"Coming to Newton in 1668, [John Ketcham] was the next year
elected constable [Apr. 4, 1669
- p. 422], from which time he was much in the public life and enjoyed
a large of popular confidence[candidate for magistry, Aug. 24, 1673 - p.
232, and elected Town Clerk, 1675 -
p.419]. He bought the purchase right of Edward Jessup in
the Newton lands and owned the farms now [1852] of George I. Rapelye and
Benjamin Moore near Newton village. His sons were John, who continued
at Huntington; Philip, who remained in Newton, and left issue; Lieutenant
Samuel, who also left a family in this town; Nathaniel who removed to Westchester
County; and Joesph, who settled at Christiana, Delaware."
Records of the land purchases mentioned by Riker have been preserved in Queen County (see 8) and appear as:
Elizabeth Jesop, of Westchester widow ... sells 1/2 salt meadow ... near the mill in Foster's Neck in Newton ... to John Ketcham of Huntington 1 March, 1666, Witness: Jeremiah Burroughs and John Ketcham.
James Lorison sells to John Ketcham of Huntington land in Foster's Neck, bounded west by the Creek , south by Capt. Coe, north to the mill at the head of Foster's Spring. Witness: Thomas Robinson 21 December 1667.
John Ketcham was a Newton taxable in the records of 1675: John Ketcham, 3 males land and meadows 45, 1 horse, 4 oxen, etc. (12). Another record: 1694, July 2. Assignment by John Ketcham senior and wife Berthia of Newton, Queens Co., N.Y. to Thomas Stathem of West Chester Co. of "the within specified Deed." (13).
References:
1. Torrey, Clarence A., New England Marriages Prior to 1700. Baltimore 1985, p. 435.
2. Bishop's transcripts of the Parish Registers of St. Andrew the Great, Saint Nicholas Society, Genealogy Record, vol. 4, New York, 1916, p. 100.
3. American Genealogist, vol. 30, Jan. 1954, p. 2-6.
4. Jacobus, Donald L., History and Genealogy of The Families of Old Fairfield, vol. 1, New Haven 1930.
5. National Society Colonial Daughters of the Seventeenth Century, Lineage Book, New York 1979, p. 164.
6. Street, Charles R., Huntington Town Records, Including Babylon, Long Island, New York: 1653-1688. vol. 1, Huntington 1887, p. 93.
7. Riker, James Jr., The Annals of Newtown, in Queens County, New York: Containing Its History from Its First Settlement, etc., New York 1852, p. 89, note 1.
8. Hoff, Henry B., ed. Long Island Source Records: From
the New York Genealoical and Biographical Record, Baltimore, 1987,
p. 116, 129.
9. O'Callighan, Edmund O., New York Marriages Previous
to 1784, Baltimore 1968, p, 212.
10. Mead, Spencer P., History And Genealogy of the Mead Family of Fairfield County, Connecticut, Eastern New York, Western Vermont and Western Pennsylvania, New York 1901, p. 124-125.
11. New York Wills, vol. 1, p. 64.
12. O'Callighan, Edmund O., Inhabitants of Colonial New York: Ecerpted from the Documentary History of the State of New York, Baltimore, 1979, p. 85, 132.
13. Book No. 6, Salem County, New Jersey, Deeds (New Jersey Colonial Documents, Wills, Vol. 1, 1670-1730), p. 619.
14. Brumbaugh, Gaius M., and Hodges, Margaret R., Revolutionary Records of Maryland, Part I, Washington 1924.
15. Crothers, Bessie S., Oaths of Fidelity to Maryland, vol. 1, Chesterfield, Missouri, (no date) p. 60.
16. DAR Patriot Index, vol. 1, 1966, p. 384.
17. Nelson County, Salt River district, Jan. 5-6, 1786, Book 2, pp. 195-197.
18. Early Kentucky Tax Records: From the Register of the
Kentucky Historical Society,
Baltimore 1984,
p. 94 & 242.
19. Reminiscences of Col. John Ketcham of Monroe County, Indiana,
by his Pastor, Rev. T.M. Hopkins of Bloomington 1866, p. 7-10.
20. Banta, Richard E., The Filson Club History Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 3, July 1948, p. 173-179.
