KETCHAM, SR., SOLOMON (1724-1781). Associator, 1775 Huntington Articles of Association. Solomon Ketcham was born in Huntington, New York Colony, on June 8, 1724, the son of Philip Ketcham (1691-1770) and Phebe Smith (1690-1738). Ketcham’s ancestors first arrived in America from England in 1637, migrating to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640), according to Robert Charles Anderson’s The Great Migration Directory: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1640.
Solomon was baptized in the First Church in Huntington on July 12, 1724. Cemetery records show that he had three sisters: Phebe Ketcham Young or Youngs (1721-1781); Sarah; and Mary Ketcham (1730-1750) and three brothers: Uriah; Philip; and Isaac Ketcham. Both Phebe and Mary are interred in Huntington’s Old Burying Ground. After Solomon’s mother’s death in 1738, his father, that same year, married Elizabeth Platt, born in Huntington in 1694, and the widow of Nathaniel Williams. On April 1, 1757, Solomon and his brother Isaac signed an agreement, held in the Huntington Town Clerk’s archives, to expand their family house, where Solomon was then living, to accommodate their father, Philip. Philip Ketcham died in 1770 and his second wife in 1773. Both died in Huntington and are interred in the Old Burying Ground there.
Solomon married Hannah Conkling (1727-1784) in Huntington’s First Church on January 30, 1750, as shown in the records of that church, and published in 1899. She was the daughter of John Conkling and his wife, Mary, and was born in Suffolk County, New York on March 24, 1727, according to cemetery information. They had ten children, all born, as far as records show, in Huntington: Phillip Ketcham (1752-1830); Mary Ketcham Sands (1751 or 1754-1795); Daniel (1755-1778); Solomon Jr. (1757-1851); Conkling (1758-1806); John (1763-1773); Sarah Ketcham Dickinson or Dickerson (1765-1806); Platt (1769-1800); Hannah Ketcham Conklin (1773-1815); and Elizabeth.
Solomon held many positions in the Huntington town government. As Huntington Town Records, 1776-1873, Vol. III (1889)show, he was the town clerk of Huntington from 1751 to 1781, as well as town treasurer from 1753 until his death in 1781. He was named a town trustee in 1764 and held that position until his death. For many years he was also the town surveyor, commissioner of highways, and town assessor. Several of his surveyance records exist today, including those of the Ebenezer Platte homestead, 1776, and Oakey (Oak) Neck and Seketogue (Secatogue) Neck, 1781, in what is now West Islip, Long Island.
Solomon was also a slaveholder. In The Documentary History of the State of New-York, Vol. 1, (1849), he is listed as owning one enslaved male in 1755. In his will, NY, Wills and Probate Records, 1659-1782, he left one “Negro girl named Leah” to his wife and one “Negro girl named Merea” to his daughter Mary. There is also a note that his “Negro James and his wife are to be given a pass to find a new master.” This generally meant that the enslaved person was being sent to find a new owner, hirer, or purchaser, often to be sold or hired out. Although that might seem to be giving the enslaved person an amount of autonomy, it was still an act of control that reinforced the owner’s legal property rights.
Solomon was an active participant in Huntington during the American Revolution. 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 fierce 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.
According to The Refugees of 1776 from Long Island to Connecticut (1913) by Frederic Gregory Mather, Solomon signed the Association in 1775. It appears that he remained in Huntington throughout the war. He was forced by the British to work on their fort on Lloyd’s Neck, as shown in Huntington Town records 1775-1873. Solomon’s name is included in the list of men, dated May 18, 1778, who were forced to build the fort. The fort was built to allow the British to monitor and discourage whaleboat attacks by Huntingtonians who had fled oppressive occupation for life in Connecticut, but conducted raids back into Oyster Bay and Huntington, as well as to provide a place for loyalists to shelter.
As written in Ancestors of Jacob Shaffer and his Wife Cordelia Hunt (1927), compiled by Josephine C. Frost, Solomon served on the War Committee, formed on January 29, 1776, with each member devoted to the rebel cause. However, it appears that Solomon, under British threat, signed the loyalty oath to the British Crown twice in 1778, as disclosed in the Huntington Town Records and the Huntington archives. Ancestors of Jacob Shaffer records claims, dating from 1777 through 1783, for property supplied to British Army officers “taken or destroyed and no receipts given.” These supplies included milk, cider, oats, hay, corn, pine boards, horses, and a wagon and were delivered to the British for their troops, including to a British military hospital. One of Solomon’s sons, also named Solomon (see), born in 1757, served as a rebel privateer during the Revolution, and served on the frigate Congress, as noted in New York in the Revolution as Colony and State, (1898), by James A. Roberts.
Solomon’s will, signed on September 20, 1781, reveals that he had substantial holdings, including a horse and riding chair, which were left to his widow, as well as cows, swine, and the enslaved woman Leah, previously mentioned. His children received furniture and money, and his sons were bequeathed land, although his widow was also given the use of half of the buildings where he lived and one quarter of his farm, providing she did not remarry.
Solomon died on September 21, 1781, and Hannah a few years later, on March 3, 1784. Both died in Huntington and are interred in Huntington’s Old Burying Ground, along with several of their children.
