Children:
Harriet Vail
Born: 1802, Morristown, Morris Co., New Jersey
Died: 1828, Morristown, Morris Co., New Jersey
Alfred Vail
Born: 1807, Morristown, Morris Co., New Jersey
Died: 1859, Morristown, Morris Co., New Jersey
George Vail
Born: 1809, Morristown, Morris Co., New Jersey
Died: 1875, Morris Co., New Jersey
Sarah Louise Davis Vail
Born: 1811, Morristown, Morris Co., New Jersey
Died: 1887, Morris Co., New Jersey
Marriage: 1829, Morristown, Morris Co., New Jersey
First Husband:
Dr. Silas Condict Cutler
Born: unknown, Morris Co., New Jersey
Died: 1829, Morristown, Morris Co., New Jersey
Died: 1843, Morris Co., New Jersey
Second Marriage: 1854, Morristown, Morris Co., New Jersey
Second Husband:
Whitfield D. Hurd
Born: unknown
Died: unknown
Stephen Vail and Bethia Youngs. The paintings
are by telegraph inventor and painter Samuel Morse, whose inventioned was
backed by their son Alfred.
A daguerrotype of Stephen Vail and a grandchild.
STEPHEN VAIL AND BETHIA YOUNGS
Morristown was a very small community at the time of the
American Revolution when Bethiah Youngs was born, probably in or near
what we now call Whippany. Her father, Ephriam Youngs, was a carpenter
born on Long Island in 1749, and earned special notice from the
Continental Congress for rescuing the records of the Proprietors of
East Jersey at Perth Amboy before the British could destroy them. Her
mother was Phoebe Cutler, daughter of one of the first settlers of
Morristown.
Bethiah lost her mother when she was only eight years old, leaving her
father with four young children. The eldest, Stephen, was almost
twelve, but Abijah was only five and little Phebe was still a baby just
over a year old. It would only be two months, though, before Bethia's
father married again. His choice was Dinah Lee Cutler, his widowed
sister-in-law, the wife of Phebe's brother Abijah who had,
coincidentally, died on the day Bethiah was born. Dinah's son Joseph,
Bethiah's first cousin, became her step-brother. Three more children
were born to Ephriam and Dinah before Bethiah's father was accidentally
drowned building a bridge near Newark when she was fifteen years old.
Bethiah's brother Stephen was the first to marry, in 1898. Joseph
Cutler married Betsey Cook from Hanover two years later. In 1801,
Bethiah married the promising young blacksmith Stephen Vail. The next
year, her little brother Abijah married Betsey Cook's sister.
Bethiah's first child, Harriet, was born in 1802. That same year,
Joseph's first son, Silas, was born. Twenty-seven years later, Dr.
Silas Condict Cutler would marry Bethiah and Stephen's
eighteen-year-old daughter, Sarah Louise.
Bethiah and Stephen had two other children, Alfred and George, who were
to distinguish themselves in science and politics. They can be studied
in other sections of this website.
Here are some family brainteasers:
* Alfred and George Vail were Joseph Cutler's nephews (stepsister's sons)
* Uriah Cutler was grandfather of both Bethiah Youngs (mother's
father) and Joseph Cutler (father's father)
* Joseph Cutler's daughter-in-law was his niecce (stepsister's daughter)
* Stephen Vail was Joseph Cutler's brother-in-law (stepsister's husband)
To make matters more complicated, after Bethiah Vail died in 1847,
Stephen remarried the widow Mary Lidgerwood. One of the Lidgerwood boys
married Silas and Sarah's daughter. . . . But that's a story for
another family's website.
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