Coldengham, New York
Store of Cadwallader Colden, Jr.
Mr. Punderson
Samuel Sly deposited 40 shillings at the Colden Store on this day, 250 years-ago. In addition, he deposited four shillings "for use of Mr. Punderson to go to England." That second part of Sly's transaction was crossed out.
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| Colden DayBook Entry for Samuel Sly on June 10, 1768. Image Courtesy of New-York Historical Society. |
This cryptic mention of the name 'Punderson' hints of a story relating to the community. The remainder of the blog is mostly speculation regarding that story, but I hope you will find it interesting.
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This article is one in a series of a daily accountings of Colden Store transactions. Be sure you read the first installment for an introduction to the store. You should also read this article which appeared in the Journal of the Orange County Historical Society.
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My suspicion is that the Mr. Punderson mentioned in this entry was thirty-three-year-old Ebenezer Punderson Jr. of Norwich, Connecticut. Punderson was not a common name and Ebenezer was a member of the Punderson family acquainted with the Coldens.
Colden's father had admitted Punderson's father as Rector of the Parish of Rye, New York only five years earlier. Perhaps they were also acquainted through the common artistic interests of Colden's sister, Jane, and Ebenezer's wife, Prudence Geer.
Punderson's father had died a few years earlier and was a well known itinerant (traveling) Episcopalian minister in Connecticut and New York from 1732 to 1753. Perhaps he had preached at St. Andrew's Church in Wallkill, the home congregation of Cadwallader Colden Jr.?
Reverend Ebenezer Punderson (1705-1764) graduated from Yale in 1726 and served as a Congregational Minister in Groton, Connecticut before he conformed to the Church of England and began his twenty years of itinerant preaching. In 1753, he settled in the Episcopal Church at New Haven (his home). Shortly before his death in 1764, he moved to the congregation at Rye, New York. [O'Callaghan, Documentary History of New York, Vol. 4, p334. ]
His son, Ebenezer Jr., was also a graduate of Yale. He is described later in life as a merchant, but Yale was predominantly a training ground for ministers, so I suspect Jr. was also a minister for a while. The DayBook entry seems to support that as Episcopal ministers often needed to be sent to England as part of their training. The four shillings paid by Samuel Sly is a tithe of the forty shilling he deposited. Of course these could just be coincidences.
I could not find any records of Ebenezer Jr.'s activities until April 27, 1775 (about seven years after this date at the store) when he published a plea in the Norwich Packet newspaper. He had been censured by the Committee of Observation at Norwich for violating the boycott of British Tea and speaking ill of the Continental Congress. This plea was his public request for forgiveness, apparently done out of fear for his family's safety rather than a true expression of a political change of heart. He would later seek safety in New York City with the British (as did Colden) eventually spending most of the war in England. After the war he returned to claim parts of his confiscated estate. He died in 1809 in Preston, Connecticut.
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| Gravestone of Ebenezer Punderson (1735-1809), New Poquetanuck Cemetery, Preston, New London, CT Image courtesy of WMitch6 |
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