Judy Westcott Fregoe sent us photos of head stones and markers in the Olin Cemetery in Canton, New York, where her three-times great-grandfather Stukely Westcott, Jr. and eleven other Westcotts are buried. Canton is in St. Lawrence County, about 25 miles southeast of Ogdensburg and the St. Lawrence River. This no longer active cemetery is located along Sykes Road about four miles north of Canton. (From U.S. 11 in Canton, take Route 27 north for two miles to Sykes Road; continue on Sykes Road for about another two miles; the cemetery in on the right.)
Views of Olin Cemetery shared by “Frank K.” on Find A Grave
Stukely Westcott Jr.
The fallen stone of Stukely Westcott, Jr. (1769 to 1865) in the Olin Cemetery, Canton, N.Y.
In 1859, Stukely Westcott, Jr.’s youngest son reported that his then 90 year-old father and namesake “has not been confined to the house in three years, and his chief business is taking good care of himself; walking as much as a mile a day.” (See account in Roscoe Whitman’s History and Genealogy of the Ancestors and Some of the Descendants of Stukely Westcott, Volume II, page 361). Good care indeed, as the elder Stukely lived to the age of “96 yrs, 3 mos, 1 dy” inscribed on his stone.
Stukely was a descendant of Stukely and Juliana Westcott in the sixth generation: Stukely6 Westcott, Jr., Stukely5, Stukely4, Stukely3, Jeremiah2, Stukely1. He was born in Coventry, Rhode Island on July 23, 1769, the ninth of Stukely Westcott and Anna Wells’ 14 children. At age ten, the family moved to Berkshire County, Massachusetts, the start of the large migration of Westcotts from Rhode Island to western Massachusetts that continued on to Vermont and northern New York.
It was in Berkshire County that Stukely married (“before he came of age,” according to Whitman) the first of his three wives, Lydia Greene (1771-1801), with whom he had seven children: Stephen, Dyer, Benjamin, Barbara, John, Calvin and Stukely. Lydia was a descendant of Surgeon John Greene, who, like the first Stukely, was one of the “12 good friends” of Roger Williams who settled Providence, Rhode Island. Stukely and family lived on a farm in Savoy, Massachusetts. He would later marry Mary (Hanks) Waterman and after her death, Clarissa (Mather) Covell. All three women were widows when they took the Westcott name.
By 1810, Stukely had moved the family to Charlotte, Vermont, where he was received in the Baptist Church. In 1835, he followed his sons Dyer and John to Canton, New York, and bought a large farm adjacent to Dyer’s farm. He would later deed the farm to his youngest son Stukely. He died on October 27, 1865 surviving Clarissa by almost eleven years, and was buried in the Olin Cemetery, with Clarissa and his son Dyer, who had had passed earlier that spring. Stukely’s marker, which has fallen and is worn, notes that he was a “deacon” (in the Baptist Church).
Clarissa Westcott and her Daughter Julia
 Clarissa Westcott’s stone in the Olin Cemetery reads: “CLARISSA Wife of Dea[con]. Stukely Westcott died Dec. 18, 1844 Ae 72 y 11 m & 25 d.” |
 The stone for Clarissa’s daughter, Julia Ann (Covell) Westcott, is inscribed “JULIA A. wife of S. WESTCOTT died May 24, 1882.” |
Stukely’s third wife was born Clarissa Cordelia Mather on January 12, 1772, in Lanesborough, Berkshire County, Massachusetts. (Other genealogies give different birth places in Berkshire County and nearby Connecticut.) Whitman notes that she was a descendant of “Cotton Mather (1663-1728), Colonial divine and author.” Clarissa was the widow of the Reverend Lemuel Covell, who was probably the pastor of the Baptist gathering in Chester where Stukely and Lydia were accepted in January 1801. Lemuel and Clarissa had several children including Julia Ann Covell (June 29, 1800 to May 24, 1882), who would marry Stukely and Lydia’s youngest son Stukely. The younger Stukely and Julia are also buried in the Olin Cemetery.
Dyer Westcott
Dyer Westcott’s stone is inscribed “Died Apr. 20, 1865 Ae 73 y’rs.”
Dyer W. Westcott, a descendant of Stukely and Juliana Westcott in the seventh generation, was born on November 24, 1791, the second child of Stukely Westcott, Jr. and Lydia Greene on the family farm in Savoy, Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
In about 1810 the family moved to Charlotte, Vermont, where he would marry Harty “Hattie” Smith (November 15, 1792 to July 27, 1877) on October 28, 1813. In the following year Dyer, Hattie, and Alma Amanda, the first of their 13 children, moved to a farm in Chester, Vermont. In the 1830s the family headed west to Canton, New York, where Dyer’s younger brother John had settled in 1810.
The Westcott-Olin connection was more than settlers working on close-by farms. Dyer and Hattie’s oldest child Alma Amanda (1814-1902) married Justin Samuel Olin, Jr. on August 22, 1833, while second child Henry Smith Westcott married two Olins: Naomi (1813-1844) on October 5, 1837, and then Hulda (1824-1893) on October 3, 1845. Dyer’s niece Barbara (1819-1841), John’s daughter, married Peleg Olin on December 29, 1837.
Sources: Westcott memorials on Find A Grave.
Edna Lewis, The Westcott Family Tree, 1999 (index number 251, 442, 443, 445)
Roscoe Whitman, History and Genealogy of the Ancestors and Some of the Descendants of Stukely Westcott, Volume II, page 361-366.
September 28, 2023.
Corrections and additions welcome at historian@sswda.org.