Ichabod Brush

Owner of Pln. Vigilance in Demerara in 1798, dying as of Huntingdon, Long Island c. 1811.

1. Will of Ichabod Brush [late of the colony of Demerary but at present residing at] Huntingdon on Long Island, State of New York North America [made in March 1808] proved 27/07/1811. Under the will he directed that his estate and 'slaves' in Demerary be sold. He noted that it was unlikely that 'prompt payment' could be obtained for the estate and that security for the consideration should therefore be taken in England or America. He left an annuity of $300 to his sister Truelove [?] Brush, and $5000 to his sister Fanny wife of Joseph Thomson. To his wife Euphemia and the child she was carrying he left his farm at Huntingdon and the proceeds of bills of exchange remitted to Messrs Tod [?] & Co of London for the sale of Pln Grove [?] in Demerary drawn by W.B. Panje [sic].

2. Ichabod Brush's son Henry Neilson Brush (b. 1810) developed Brushton, NY: 'Henry N. Brush located at Brush's Mills (now Brushton) in 1835. He was a man of finished education, an engaging public speaker, and a man of strong parts. ... His holdings of land were large, and the business and industrial development of the eastern part of Moira were due largely to his activities. He died in 1872.... The industrial enterprises of Moira were never numerous or large. The community is distinctively agricultural, but with two small unincorporated villages -- Brushton and Moira. Each is a station on the Rutland Railroad, and each is on an improved trunk-line highway. Almost with the first settlement in the town, Appleton Foote, as the agent of Gilchrist and Fowler, erected a saw mill at what is now Brushton, and a grist mill there in the year following, which was displaced by the present stone mill in 1823, built by Robert Watts, and later improved and enlarged by Henry N. Brush.'

1. PROB 11/1524/386.

2. http://www.onlinebiographies.info/ny/fra/brush-hc2.htm [accessed 02/02/2018]: Frederick Seaver Historical Sketches of Franklin County, NY (1918), pp. 518-519.

We are grateful to David Martial Alexander for his help with this entry.