Officer in the Continental Army

Family tradition says he was a captain and served at the famous battle of Stony Point. May have been an orderly sergeant in Col. Willit’s Regiment.

Possibly appointed to a c’tee to ensure no Tories came back into Bedford after the peace.

She married secondly Simeon Clark, of Clarksburg, Erie County, on 7 September 1828.

Thankful St. John was admitted to the Bedford Presbyterian Church in Bedford, Westchester County, New York, on 4 November 1787 {1}. The baptisms of their daughters Mary and Anna were performed in the Congregational Church of Greenfield, Saratoga County. {7, 8}

The First Presbyterian Church of Orchard Park, Erie County, New York, was organized on 16 January 1817. Thankful St. John was one of the original fourteen members {11}. This church became Congregational and its present records date from that change in 1853 {34}.

4.2. Migrations
Judging from the sparse records, this family first lived in Bedford, Westchester County. There he witnessed an apprenticeship indenture of James Burrell on 18 March 1790 along with Ebenezer Lockwood {30}. The 1790 census of New York lists the family in Poundridge, Westchester County, with one man over 16, two boys under 16, and four females. This is the only listing for a Samuel St. John in the State of New York.

Shortly after the census they moved to Greenfield, Saratoga County. There the family appears on the 1800 Census as follows: 1 male over 45, 1 male 16-26, 1 male 10-16, and 1 male under 10; 1 female 26-45, 1 female 10-16, and 1 female under 10. The family appears in Saratoga County on the 1810 Census with the expected statistics relative to the age of the members. In this Census another Samuel St. John appears in Delaware County as the head of a younger family.

Then, about the time of the War of 1812, the family moved to the township of Hamburg or Eden in Erie County, New York.