THE CROSIER CROSSETT CONNECTION
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In 1738 the Crossett family, which had been in the Province of Massachusetts Bay for around 22 years, bought land in a tract of wilderness about to be developed as a town for Scotch Irish Presbyterians. They were settled there by 1742. The settlement was known as New Lisburne but the name was soon changed to Pelham. In the spring of 1749 John Crosier mortgaged a 100 acre parcel of land in Pelham that the deed says he inherited. There is no mention of Johns wife’s name in the town records. When the French and Indian War ended and raids in southern New England ceased the Crosier boys, Arthur and John, with their brother Robert moved to Halifax, Cumberland County New York, later to become Vermont. The youngest brother Alexander remained in Pelham and farmed with his father. In 1764 several Crossett boys moved to Turners Patent in Washington County, New York, with others from Pelham. In New York they mixed with a congregation of Seceder Presbyterians from Ballybay, County Monaghan, Ireland led by Rev Dr. Clark. One of these settlers was John Crosier who soon married Agnes Darragh. John Crosier of Dedham was born around 1750 of undetermined parents. When the Revolutionary War ended he was a Lieutenant. He and his family moved to Partridgefield, which later became Peru Massachusetts. He moved again and is buried in Euclid, Ohio. The Crosier Crossett Confusion In 1878 Dr. Asa Fitch when writing the history of Washington County N.Y. states that the pronunciation of Crosier and Crossett is the same. Later genealogists treat the name Crosier as a variant of Crossett and assume that it is all one family. The New Salem Massachusetts First Parish Church records, but not the civil records, list Robert Crossett born 1723 and his family of 10 with a last name of Crosier, probably due to ambiguous handwriting. This has resulted in at least two questionable genealogies with Crossett ancestors for Lt. John Crosier of Peru. The town records of New Salem were burnt in 1855.
In 1937 Miss
Frances Plimpton considers John Crosier who
married Martha Lindsey in Kings Chapel,
Boston on January 13, 1735/36 to be a
missing John Crossett, son of William
Crossett and Martha Hamilton; he is then
considered the patriarch of the
Pelham/Halifax Crosier line. She puts John’s
date of birth in 1714 to make it work in the
Crossett line but according to the militia
records John Crosier of Pelham was 59 years
old when his son Arthur was 19 setting his
birth date at about 1695. The Crosier Crossett Disconnection The Crossett family had numerous marriages with the families of Macklam. Gray, Savage and Hamilton. The Crosier boys married into none of these families. When the time came to leave Pelham the Crosier boys went north to Halifax and the Crossett boys went west to Washington County, N.Y. The verifiable descendants of the Robert Crossett that were called Crosier in the New Salem church records are now Crossetts.
The most provable evidence
separating the Crosier family from the
Crossett family comes from DNA. YDNA samples
of two living Crossett males are in the data
base. One descended from William
Samuel Crossett’s son Robert and grandson
Edward and the other
from William Samuel Crossett’s son Archibald
and grandson Jacob,
they match being Haplotype I1 This indicates
that the children of Robert in New Salem are
indeed Crossetts. On the Crosier side
there is one sample from the line of John,
his son John, and grandson Philip. This
Crosier sample is a match with two other
Crozier samples, one from Northern Ireland
with a common ancestor ~1650, the other from
Pennsylvania with a common ancestor ~1575.
They are all Haplotype R1b1a2. Who is Confused
The Crosier Crossett
Confusion affects the John Crosier of
Pelham/Halifax line and the Lt. John Crosier
line. Lines that may also be affected are
the John Crosier family of Ballybay/Washington
County N.Y. and the Crosier family of
Addison County Vermont. Crosier
Crossett Confusion Detection. The most
efficient, and provable method of resolving
Crosier Crossett confusion is to do a YDNA
test. The Crosier Crossett Connection Conclusion The Crosiers and the Crossetts are not the same family, nor are they genetically related, they did however share residence in the town of Pelham during the 1700’s. The Crosier and Crossett names are not interchangeable. Here are links providing more background on the above discussion: Church and Religion of the Crossetts of Pelham Records of New Salem, Massachusetts More info Washington County N.Y. Crosier pedigree More info
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