SAMMIS, ALEXANDER (1743-1809). Signer, Huntington’s 1775 Articles of Association. According to his online family tree posted on Ancestry.com, Alexander was born in Huntington, New York, on October 16, 1743. His parents were Silas Sammis Jr. (1700-1779) and Ruth née Bryan (1714-1780). His Find A Grave page lists siblings Silas (1731-1803); Ruth (1735-1795); Jesse (1736-1816); Phebe (1745-1766); and Mary (1748-1769). As per the Honorable Henry C. Platt’s Huntington Address in 1876, John Sammis of Connecticut was the first Sammis in the region, arriving circa 1663 with a land grant for parts of Cold Spring Harbor. Many of his descendants settled in West Neck and in the “Town Spot” in Huntington.
As per Frederic G. Mather in his scholarly text, The Refugees from Long Island to Connecticut (1913), Alexander was a signatory of Huntington’s Articles of Association. On May 8, 1775, 403 men, most of them Huntington residents (a few were from Islip), “shocked by the bloody Scene” that had occurred just weeks before at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, where patriot Minutemen and British regulars had engaged in a bloody armed struggle, put their signatures on Huntington’s Articles of Association. Only 37 Huntington residents, either Loyalists or those wanting to stay out of the fray, refused to sign. The Articles noted that the signers affirmed their “Love to our Country,” agreed “to whatever Measures may be recommended by the Continental Congress; or resolved upon by our Provincial Convention, for the Purpose of preserving our Constitution, and opposition to the Execution of the several arbitrary, and oppressive Acts of the British Parliament,” and prayed for “a Reconciliation between Great-Britain and America.” The actions of these associators were seen by both patriots and the British as a step towards rebellion. The fact that these men signed these Articles, placing themselves in danger of British retaliation, including imprisonment, seizure of their property, and exile from Long Island, is proof of their patriotic service.
In addition to being an associator, Huntington Town Records of October 13, 1777, list Alexander as being among Huntington residents who were called upon, during the British military occupation after the Patriots humiliating loss at the Battle of Long Island (Battle of Brooklyn) on August 27, 1776 to serve as a member of Captain Cornelius Conkling’s militia company, to toil for the occupiers. Most of Huntington’s citizens unwillingly signed the Oath of Allegiance to the Crown and were forced to work and/or give up property to the British occupiers. Huntington Town Records of February 27, 1779, show that Alexander provided one wagon and four horses for service to the British. Records of February 18, 1780 include a petition by Alexander Sammis to Major General Tryon, Governor and Commander in Chief of the Province of New York. In that petition, Alexander states that he is the proprietor of about fifteen acres in Huntington and had given permission to cut down thirty-six cords of wood to be shipped before the severe frost sets in. However, it appeared that permission to cut 300 cords of wood was approved. Sammis asked that that order be revoked. Huntington Town Records of November 5, 1782, show that Alexander was among Huntingtonians who were called to work on the construction of Fort Golgotha on the site of the Old Burying Ground and provide axes, wagons, and horses. The fort was built in about fifteen days of which Alexander worked four days and provided one wagon. The “Assessment of Property in Huntington About the Close of the War” in 1782 shows that Alexander’s property was valued at £120, about the middle of residents listed.
Alexander married Amy Adeline Gould (1761-1838) in Smithtown on January 18, 1782. The couple had many children: Ezra (1783-1871); George (1785-1825); Daniel (1787-1869); Charles (1789-1872); Alexander Jr. (1789-1872); Henry (1791-1792); Sarah (1793-1793); Ebenezer (1796-1821); and Amy Adeline (1801-1870). Their marriage record is on microfilm at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The 1790 census shows that Alexander headed a household in Huntington that comprised seven residents. The household consisted of two free white males over 16, four free white males under 16, and one free white female. It is unclear who the male over 16 is other than Alexander since his eldest son was born in 1783. The U.S. Tax Assessment Rolls of Real and Personal Estates, 1799-1804, show that in 1799 Alexander had real estate valued at $2,950 and $172 in personal estate, totaling $3,022 and paying $3.20 in taxes; this placed him among the top of his contemporaries. As per the 1800 census, there were nine household members: three white males under 10; two white males aged 10 through 15; two males over 45; one female aged 16 through 25; and one female aged 26 through 44. Again, it is unclear how the second male over 45 and the female under 25 are related to Alexander.
Alexander Sammis died July 10, 1809 in Huntington. His obituary in the Suffolk Gazette reports on the circumstances of his untimely death (original spelling and usage):
The fatal misfortune which led to his melancholy death was truly affecting. On Monday about nine o’clock in the morning he went to remove a young horse that was tied at pasture in a field near his house; he took the extreme end of the rope in his hand which had a noose fixed to place over the stake, the horse took fright and the noose caught round his hand; the horse took a few circles around him while thrown on the ground, after which taking a course, drew him across the field with such violence that he was taken up speechless and senseless–and remained in that situation until ten o’clock the succeeding evening, when he expired. He has left a wife and large family, together with numerous acquaintances to lament his untimely death.
Although Alexander’s gravestone is no longer visible, the original inscription was recorded in Cemetery Inscriptions from Huntington, Long Island, compiled by Josephine C. Frost in 1911. The inscription: “Alexander Sammis, died July 10, 1809, in his 66th year.” Many other Sammis’s are interred in Huntington’s Old Burying Ground.