DeJoux House

For the first time in a long time I have had a few hours to spare to investigate the relationship between Maria Deyo, the story of the murders on Springtown Road in 1800, DeJoux House and the Deyo family -  especially now I have both the complete family tree and ownership of the house.    My investigation started with the facts that we knew so far. 1) The document from the Library of congress that documents the murders and the names of the husband (Josiah) and the wife (Maria).   In this news DOCUMENT she is described as killing two children from a previous marriage. Also an infant daughter of 9 months old. (presumably the daughter of Josiah) 2)  The map of 1790 shows the only other Deyo owned house as being owned by C. Dojo 3)  The tax record of 1798  references a stone house, next door to David Deyo's house (Our house) that is "owned by"  Christian Deyo but was being occupied by "Josiah Deyo"  and is described as being "B...

When we arrived at the house we found a package delivered by Lee Reich from across the road.  Michael Clinton the painter had mentioned to Russell Gilmore one of the previous owners that he was working on the house and I think this prompted Russell to hand them on to us...For which we are eternally grateful. The package contained a file of documents relating to the house.  Most of these were the deeds we had already identified as existing but had never seen.   These deeds have the signatures of many of the people we have written about in the history pages this blog but I have never felt this close to them. These documents clarify how the house passed from David Deyo, who was the son of Christoffel, to his wife Rachel and then to Abraham Relyea who is named as the owner in a number of maps in 1800's.   There is also a document that is described as a "Release of Dower" from Abraham's second wife Maria Relyea to Jesse Elting who owned the house from 1862 and ...

I decided it was time to give up on hearsay and word of mouth and clarify once and for all the provenance of DeJoux House. The goal here is to review the facts as we know them, based on real documents that we have seen or have copies of. The only way to do this is to work backwards from the documents that we have. The contract of sale and the legal deeds of 374 Springtown Road list previous owners back to Jesse and Maria Elting who sold the house to Hiram W. Minard in 1872. The 1875 map of Sprintown also shows the property as belonging to H. Minard. Right on the border of Rosendale, opposite the church and the school. Other sales listed in this document are: George and Jeanne Fiorentino to Arthur and Lona B. Jorgensen in 1941 Arthur and Lona B. Jorgensen to Jane Little in 1960 Jane Little to Russell Gilmore and June Finer in 1984 (and then to us in 2009)... So, we know this was the Hiram Minard farm in 1872 and before that belonged to Jesse and Maria Elting. We have confirmed t...

My brother, inspired by the story of our house, sent a family tree of the Deyo family.