Ichabod Stafford’s gravestone in the Waterville Cemetery, Waterville, New York (photos by Bill Stafford)

In an episode of the PBS series Finding Your Roots, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explored the ancestry of three prominent American scientists including your cousin and National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins, who led the Human Genome Project. As Gates presented census records, estate inventories and other documents, the guest and the viewers learned that Collins’ ancestors included a Maryland landowner who freed his slaves in 1804 and a Revolutionary War patriot who escaped a prisoner of war ship in New York Harbor and rejoined his unit to serve until the end of the war. What was not revealed in the show is that Francis Collins is a descendant of William Stafford and Freelove Westcott and that William and his sons (known as “the Big Staffords”) have quite a Revolutionary War record of their own.

Dr. Francis Collins appearing on Finding Your Roots

Two years ago, the show’s producers enlisted the aid of Louise Aitcheson, Lynn Hulkow, Susan Morris and myself to dig up primary sources that proved the connection between Stukely and Juliana Westcott and an unnamed guest who was a descendant of a certain Ichabod Stafford. That lineage is clearly mapped out in Judge Bullock’s 1886 Incidents In The Life And Times Of Stukekely Westcote, With Some Of His Descendants and later in Roscoe Whitman’s two volumes on the descendants of Stukely Westcott. The Stafford-Westcott thread was not included in the script because we could not find birth or death records, court filings or other documentary evidence that met the show’s strict criteria for proving the final link between Freelove and Ichabod. But here is our version of the story and we are sticking to it:

The history of the Westcotts is marbled with the story of Thomas Stafford, who migrated from Warwickshire, England to the Plymouth Colony in or before 1626. He was New England’s millwright and built the first water-powered grist mill in the colony. He built similar mills in Providence and Warwick, R.I. Stafford was declared a Freeman in Newport in 1638. He moved to Providence, and then in 1652 to Warwick, where he became a Freeman in 1655. Three of his six children married children of Stukely and Juliana Westcott, and when you read the early records of Warwick, the importance of family soon becomes obvious as there is a Westcott or Stafford (and sometimes one of each) on almost every jury, surveying team and special committee.

Sometime before 1750 Thomas Stafford’s great-grandson William married Sarah Wheaton and like other descendants of Thomas settled in the area west of Warwick in Coventry, R.I. After the birth of their daughter and Sarah’s death, William married Freelove Westcott and the two had eleven children: Stukely (1751), William (1753), David (1755), John (1759), Ichabod (1762), Elizabeth (1765), Ananias (1767), Freelove (1770), James (1772), Sarah (1773) and Andrew (1775).

Offspring of William Stafford, Jr. (1711/12-1803)

Freelove is the great-great granddaughter of Stukely and Juliana Westcott on two counts as she is the daughter of cousins Stukely Westcott, Jr. and Bethiah Westcott. The Stafford line and the double shot of Westcott proved to be a robust combination not only in the number of children but also in their size as the boys were known locally as “the Big Staffords.”

Ancestors of William Stafford and Freelove Westcott (Sources: Charles Warner Stafford, Stafford Index, The Family of Stafford of Warwickshire. Stuart, Florida: <Self-published> Volumes 1 & 2, 1967; Volume 3, 1973; J. Russell Bullock, Incidents In The Life And Times Of Stukeley Westcote, With Some Of His Descendants, Bristol, R.I.<Privately Published>, 1886)

Patriots All

Accounts of the Big Staffords’ Revolutionary War service come from Ichabod’s great-great grandson Martin Stafford, who gathered family stories and records at the end of the 19th century. Most, but not all, of the accounts are verified in Rhode Island muster rolls and Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, 1800-1900 [Pensions] as sourced from Ancestry.com.

The account begins: “At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War William enlisted in the regiment of John Topham and served for a short time, but his age [64] prevented him from continuing long in the service… he enlisted in 1776.” There is no pension record for the elder William – he served too short a time to qualify, and he and Freelove were dead decades before the pension law was enacted (1832). There was a claim by the heirs of William’s brother Thomas for the benefit, but the application was short on facts and unsuccessful.

The records of service by the sons of William and Freelove are more definitive:

William enlisted in the Rhode Island militia in Captain Parker’s Company, Colonel Ezekiel (“Old Snarl”) Cornell’s brigade in August 1777 and served for a total of 18 months. He saw action in August 1778 during General Sullivan’s retreat from Newport in the Battle of Rhode Island [Pensions, 10024].

David was a midshipman serving aboard the privateer brig Washington when he was captured by the British and held prisoner in Portsmouth, England until October 12, 1783. After his release he lived in various places in New England and New York before settling in Erie, Pennsylvania [Pensions, 23960].

John enlisted in 1777 in Captain Potter’s Company, Colonel Angel’s Regiment (Second Rhode Island) and served until his discharge at Morristown, N.J. in 1780. After the war he moved to Augusta, N.Y, where he died in 1834 [Pensions, 42410].

Stukely, according to one genealogy, was “taken prisoner by the British during the Revolutionary War. He was sent to England and never heard from again.” Other Stukely, Stukley and Stutely Staffords appear in the muster rolls and pension records, but none appears to be the eldest son of William and Freelove. The case is still open.

Ichabod had multiple enlistments starting in 1777 in various Rhode Island regiments, mostly serving as a fifer. After his final stint in 1779, he returned to Coventry; in 1781 he married Humility Green of Coventry [Pensions, 19406]. They had at least five children including Mary, the three-times great-grandmother of Francis Collins.

After the Revolution, William and Freelove along with sons William and Ichabod migrated north and west finally settling in Jefferson and Oneida Counties, N.Y. After William’s death in 1803, Freelove moved in with Ichabod “on the East hill in the Town of Augusta, probably where the village of Oriskany Falls is now located” (Whitman, Volume I, page 38).

Tragedy struck the following year: “In April 1804, an extraordinary freshet deluged the valley of Oriskany. It swept away every dam and caused great destruction of property. Soon after the village was visited by a severe epidemic, which carried off a number of its settlers, among whom was Ichabod Stafford.’’ Ichabod was buried in the Waterville Cemetery.

According to Judge Bullock and others, Freelove died in Augusta in 1809, but there is no trace of her in the records of Oneida County and neighboring counties. But we’ll keep searching, while welcoming Francis Collins to the family.

David Wescott Smith
SSWDA Historian

With the help of Bill Stafford of Edinboro, Pennsylvania, fifth generation descendant of John Stafford.
David Smith, 24 Castle Road Narragansett, RI 02882; dsmithmark@cox.net, 401 783-5344