I was on the fence with the title as this it might also be named as one of the Port Byron Family Tree series, but this is what will be in the August Citizen Mentz Column with a few added notes.
In prior columns, I have written about the Port Byron Family Tree project and the quest to discover the connections between family groups. The Duvall family is one of those early families with roots that run far and wide. Many researchers find William Orville Duvall as he was an ardent abolitionist with a station on the Underground Railroad at what is today Hayti Island.
In William’s day, the island was a hill surrounded on three side by the Seneca River and it had a open view to the south so that the family could see anyone who might approach. The local folks gave his farm the name due to the number of escaped slaves that found refuge there.
The reason many find him is that he was a very active letter writer to men such as Gerrit Smith and William Seward, and many of these can be found in those men’s archives. He also wrote letters to the editor and these are fun to read as they are peppered with sentences such as in this August 1856 column; “Beloved: Your vulgar, obscene, badly written and worst spelled note of the 27th ultimo, has just come to hand,” and then, “For God sake; have you no decent men among you?” to finish with, “Are you all ignorant, hollow-hearted, whiskey-guzzling ruffians?” You get the sense of what William was like and that he didn’t suffer who he considered to be fools.
William’s father, another William, was born in Hackensack, NJ. In his obit he is credited as being one of the early settlers of Auburn. His obit says that he built the first log cabin in Auburn but I am not sure if this is fact or folklore as he is not mentioned in Hall’s History of Auburn. His first wife was Abigail Crane, and her father, Ezekiel Crane, was one of the first settlers of Throop back when it was all Mentz. Have you heard of Crane Brook? On the 1853 map it has the name Cayuga Brook and on the 1859 map it is Cranes Brook. In the Crane family history, Ezekiel is noted as being a class mate of DeWitt Clinton, the man who would become the father of the Erie Canal. The Crane’s lived on the corner of McDonald and Donovan roads in Throop.
William and Abigail only had one child before she died. The son, Israel Smith Duvall, married Sallie Lewis Clark. One of their children was a son named John Swartout Smith Duvall. In 1834 John changed his name to John Smith Clark at the request of his material grandfather Benoni Clark. If you have heard of Clarksville or Clark street, this is where the name came from.
And if John Clark’s name rings a bell, you might have seen the historic marker along McDonald Road that reads; “Home of Gen. John S. Clark, born 1823, died 1912. Civil Engineer, Historian, Civil War Officer and First Supervisor of Throop.”
At the end of the 1800s, John was considered to be the authority on the Iroquois peoples. He was adopted by the Iroquois Confederacy and given the name “Pathfinder.” John’s work is often cited as he was able to interview descendants of the Native Peoples who could pass along first or second-hand history. In 1921 a book was written based on his unpublished manuscripts. You can find the “Clark Manuscripts; Aboriginal History of the Susquehanna” online if you want to read more about John. Sadly, the published history of the Crane family has a footnote that John was working on the history of the Crane branch in Cayuga County but died before he completed his work. After his death, the family never responded to the author about John’s work and that section is missing. John is often given the title General for his work in the Union Army during the Civil War. William Orville Duvall would have been John’s uncle.
My wife and I recently took a day trip to Peterboro, NY, and the Gerrit Smith Estate National Historic Landmark, and the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum. Gerrit Smith was the son of Peter Gerrit Smith who was the largest landholder in New York in the early 1800s. Using his considerable wealth, Gerrit became one of the leading abolitionists in the country and was a financial supporter of others efforts to free the slaves. He was a supported of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. Just down the road is the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum. I wanted to see if William Duvall had been inducted to the Hall of Fame as certainly he deserves to be. As he is not, we will begin the process of nominating him.