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Reuben Bisbee

Male 1776 - 1865  (89 years)

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  • Name Reuben Bisbee  [1]
    Birth 27 Jul 1776  , Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 2] 
    Gender Male
    Census 4 Aug 1800  Pembroke, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [3] 
    Census 7 Aug 1820  Smithfield Town, Madison, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [4] 
    Census 1 Jun 1830  Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [5] 
    Census 1 Jun 1840  Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [6] 
    Census 10 Sep 1850  Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [7] 
    Census 1855  Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [8] 
    Census 28 Jul 1860  Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [9] 
    Census 1865  Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [10] 
    Last Will and Testament 6 Mar 1865  [11] 
    Death 12 Sep 1865  Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 12, 13] 
    Burial Lebanon Village Cemetery, Lebanon, Madison, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 12] 
    Reuben Bisbee    		 Reuben Bisbee
    Photograph by William F. Bisbee
    Person ID I28  Bisbee
    Last Modified 15 Jun 2010

    Father Reuben Bisbee,   b. 20 Jul 1725, Pembroke, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 17 Mar 1803, Kingston, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 77 years)
    Mother Eunice Jackson,   b. Abt 1737, Middleboro, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Yes, date unknown
    Marriage 18 Mar 1775  Middleboro, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [14, 15] 
    Family ID F33  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Lydia Cushman,   b. 25 Sep 1775, Kingston, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 4 Sep 1856, Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 80 years)
    Marriage 10 Oct 1797  Kingston, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 16] 
    Children 
    +1. Sophia Bisbee,   b. 21 Nov 1797, , Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 12 Dec 1889, , Cortland, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 92 years)
    +2. Reuben Bisbee,   b. 24 Jan 1801, , Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 24 Mar 1883, , Crawford, Pennsylvania, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 82 years)
    +3. Joseph Cushman Bisbee,   b. 5 Jun 1803, , Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 24 Dec 1873, Amity Township, Erie, Pennsylvania, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 70 years)
    +4. Hiram Bisbee,   b. 4 Jul 1806, , Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 15 Apr 1889, , Madison, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 82 years)
     5. Ebenezer Bisbee,   b. 2 Aug 1808   d. 12 Oct 1818, , Madison, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 10 years)
    +6. Lydia Bisbee,   b. 26 Jun 1811, , , New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Aft 1880 (Age 69 years)
    +7. Elijah Bisbee,   b. 24 Aug 1813, , , New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 21 Mar 1879, West Windsor, Eaton, Michigan, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 65 years)
    +8. Betsy Louisa Bisbee,   b. 30 Jan 1818, , Madison, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Yes, date unknown
    Family ID F31  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 6 Dec 2009

  • Event Map
    Link to Google MapsBirth - 27 Jul 1776 - , Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsMarriage - 10 Oct 1797 - Kingston, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsCensus - 4 Aug 1800 - Pembroke, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsCensus - 7 Aug 1820 - Smithfield Town, Madison, New York, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsCensus - 1 Jun 1830 - Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsCensus - 1 Jun 1840 - Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsCensus - 10 Sep 1850 - Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsCensus - 1855 - Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsCensus - 28 Jul 1860 - Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsCensus - 1865 - Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsDeath - 12 Sep 1865 - Lebanon Town, Madison, New York, USA Link to Google Earth
    Link to Google MapsBurial - - Lebanon Village Cemetery, Lebanon, Madison, New York, USA Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 
    Pin Legend  : Address       : Location       : City/Town       : County/Shire       : State/Province       : Country       : Not Set

  • Notes 
    • No direct evidence of Reuben's parentage has been found, but his parents are thought to be Reuben Bisbee (son of Elijah of Plympton) and Eunice Jackson (daughter of Nathaniel Jackson of Middleboro). The evidence is scant and circumstantial, and consists of the following:

      1) Reuben Bisbee (son of Elijah) and Reuben Bisbee Jr. were both "of Kingston" at the time of their marriages. These are the only two Reuben Bisbees known to have been in Plymouth County at those times. It should be remembered that the title "Jr." did not always mean a father-son relationship--it was sometimes used to distinguish between a younger and older man of the same name living in the same vicinity.

      2) Our Reuben Bisbee was born the year following the marriage of the older Reuben Bisbee and Eunice Jackson House. An exhaustive study of the census fails to find any other family in Plymouth County that could reasonably have been Reuben's parents. Those families were either in the wrong generation or had other children during the same year that our Reuben was born.

      3) The names given to some of our Reuben's children suggest the connection: Reuben, Joseph and Elijah were all names of children born to Elijah and Eleanor Pierce Bisbee, and not commonly found in other Bisbee lines.

      There is a story passed down by Reuben's eldest daughter Sophia to her grandson, Lee Kibbe. Lee was very interested in his family's genealogy and was known far and wide as a man who hated liars; presumably, his account of his grandmother's story is accurate. "Reuben Bisbe, Sr., was a sailor fisher on New England. Went out for a two week voyage, got shipwrecked, was picked up by African Pirates, being a good sailor helped them with their plundering and running their ship and faired well till he got foot on English soil, then goodby pirates, worked his way home. Gone over two years: never went to sea again." Sophia after she was 90 would tell of sitting on her mother's bed watch(ing) for her father's ship, until they give up that he was lost. --"Lee G. Kibbe, The Man and The Mill," by Hope S. Klee, 1965, College Paper, New York State University, Cortland, N. Y.

      In a followup conversation with the Author (Hope Stanton Klee), she recalled more of the story: While Reuben was missing and given up for dead, another person was courting Lydia. When Reuben returned, Lydia did not recognize him. Reuben vowed never to go to sea again.

      Reuben's second son Joseph was born in 1803, and his next child was not born until in 1806. If the story is true, he was probably shipwrecked in 1803.

      In 1800, Reuben and Lydia were living in Pembroke, Massachusetts. Sometime later, they moved to New York State, possibly Jefferson County. In 1815 they settled in the Town of Smithfield in Madison County, New York. There they were members of the First Baptist Church at New Stockbridge, and they owned property in the Town of Lebanon, about 18 miles to the south. In 1816 they were present at the founding of the First Baptist Church of Lebanon. According to the census, The whole family moved from Smithfield to Lebanon about 1824.

      Mrs. H. L. Hammond in her 1872 book, "History of Madison County, State of New York" (pages 558-9) writes, "It is remarkable with what facility and rapidity the land in Lebanon was settled. We have before us a map drawn by Silas Seymour, Surveyor, in 1815, which locates the lots, and every farmer then living on them. ...In the south border of the quarter and of the town (Lebanon) were Joseph and Reuben Bisby...." Silas Seymour's original map appears to no longer exist, but land records show that the area referenced by Mrs. Hammond was indeed Bisbee Hollow. Note that in 1815 Reuben Bisbee's sons, Reuben and Joseph Bisbee, were only 14 and 12 years old, respectively, and presumably too young to own property.

      Reuben was active in the affairs of his church. From the minutes of the First Baptist Church of Lebanon, we learn that he made visits to faltering Brothers and Sisters, provided recommendations about excommunications and letters of dismissal, contributed to the Church's annual minutes, and pledged firewood to the Church and to the Elder. In 1839 Reuben Bisbee was exempted for the time being from paying into the Church treasury. A few months later he was among those appointed trustees of the "Singing School." The possibility must be noted that some or all of these records actually pertain to Reuben's son, Reuben, Jr.

      After Lydia died in 1856, Reuben continued to live on his farm with son Elijah, Elijah's wife Calista, and their six children. According to the census, Reuben owned 212 acres of improved land and 20 unimproved acres with a total value of $5240. He had three horses, six milk cows, five other cattle and one swine having a total value of $396. He produced wheat, oats, Irish potatoes, butter, hay and maple sugar. During his final days in 1865 Reuben lived in the village of Lebanon with his son Hiram. A life-long resident of Lebanon recalled to this compiler (2007) that Hiram's house was right across the street from the entrance to the Lebanon Valley Cemetery. The house is no longer there.

      In his Last Will & Testament (Madison County Probate File No. 2621), made March 6, 1865, Reuben Bisbee bequeaths to his daughters, Sophia Kibbe, Lydia Reynolds and Louisa Damond (sic), and to his sons Reuben Bisbe and Hiram Bisbe, and appoints his grandson, James M. Bisbee, executor.

      The village of Lebanon, once known locally as Toad Hollow*, is surrounded by lush, rolling farm land. In Reuben's time it was heavily treed and much of it remains so. No doubt, if left alone, the countryside would soon return to forest. Coming into the village from the north, the road descends a long hill, passing the well-maintained Lebanon Village Cemetery on the right. Lydia and Reuben are buried there, side-by-side, near their son Hiram. Although no Bisbees remain in Lebanon today (1998), the road to their former property is still signed, "Bisbee Hollow Road."

      *James H. Smith, History of Chenango and Madison Counties, D. Mason & Co, Syracuse, 1880.

  • Sources 
    1. [S2309] Viola Drake Bisbee, compiler, Geneology of The Bisbee Family (I) - Viola Drake Bisbee, (June 2000, Bisbee Family Connection, Decatur, MI), p. 5.

    2. [S1339] Margaret J. Bisbee, Bisbee, Reuben (I28): Family Bible List, (Erie, Pennsylvania. Self published, 1974: pp 1-2.).

    3. [S1541] Bisbee, Reuben (I28): 1800 US Census, (www.ancestry.com (2004): National Archives and Records Administration micropublication M32, roll 16; page 31, line 3; image downloaded 8/14/2008.), 1800-Pembroke.1.jpg.

    4. [S1540] Bisbee, Reuben (I28): 1820 US Census, (www.ancestry.com (2004): National Archives and Records Administration micropublication M33, roll 73; page 47, line 14; image downloaded 8/14/2008), 1820-Smithfield.11.jpg.

    5. [S1542] Bisbee, Reuben (I28): 1830 US Census, (www.ancestry.com (2004): National Archives and Records Administration micropublication M19, roll 93; page 351B, line 4; image downloaded 8/14/2008), 1830-Lebanon.21.jpg.

    6. [S1543] Bisbee, Reuben (I28): 1840 US Census, (www.ancestry.com (2004): National Archives and Records Administration micropublication M704, roll 295; page 130, line 17; image downloaded 8/14/2008), 1840-Lebanon.1.jpg.

    7. [S1545] Bisbee, Reuben (I28): 1850 US Census, (www.ancestry.com (2005): National Archives and Records Administration micropublication M432, roll 527; page 119, line 36, dwelling 2017, family 2061; image downloaded 8/14/2008), 1850-Lebanon.7.jpg.

    8. [S1546] Bisbee, Elijah (I44): 1855 NY Census, (LDS Family History Library, Salt Lake City, dwelling 70, family 72).

    9. [S1288] Bisbee, Reuben (I28): 1860 US Census, (www.ancestry.com (2004): National Archives and Records Administration micropublication M653, roll 781; enumerator page 22, master page 928, line 15, dwelling 996, family 978; image downloaded 8/14/2008), 1860-Lebanon.22.jpg.

    10. [S1547] Bisbee, Hiram (I42): 1865 NY Census, (LDS Family History Library, Salt Lake City, family 26).

    11. [S1232] Bisbee, Reuben: Last Will and Testament, (Madison County Courthouse, Wampsville, New York. Probate File # 2621).

    12. [S1230] Gravestone, Lebanon Valley Cemetery, Lebanon, NY, photographed 2007 by William Bisbee.
      "Reuben Bisbe / Died / Sept 12 1865 / Aged 89 Years"

    13. [S1231] Mrs. E. P. Smith, editor, Births, Deaths, and Marriages From Madison County, New York, 1818-1886, (Mt. Airy, Maryland: Pipe Creek Publications, 1991.), 34.
      "Democrat Republican, Sep 13, 1865: In Lebanon, Reuben Bisbee, age 89."

    14. [S1454] Barbara Lambert Merrick et. al., ed., Bisbee, Reuben (1725): Marriage to Eunice-2, ((The Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1986), vol 2, p 87).

    15. [S1455] Ed. Frederic W. Bailey, Bisbee, Reuben (1725): Marriage to Eunice-3, ((Baltimore Genealogical Publishing Co., 1968), 103).

    16. [S1233] Athrop Foster, editor, Vital Records of Kingston, Mass. to 1850, (Boston: New England Historical and Genealogical Society, 1911.), 176, 204.
      Under Marriages: "Bisbe, Reuben [int. Reuben] Jr. and Lydia Cushman [int. 2nd], Oct 10, 1797; Cushman, Lydia [int. 2nd] and Reuben [int. Reuben] Bisbe Jr., Oct 10, 1797."