TOM QUICK's RELATIVES:

AN INQUIRY INTO THE IDENTITIES OF PETER AND JACOB QUICK

This is a short treatment giving the genealogy of two particular relatives of Tom Quick, Jr., the "Indian Slayer" who will be referred to as "TQ" for the purposes of this file.

James E. Quinlan, in his Tom Quick (1851, p. 58) and History of Sullivan County (1873, pp. 156-8), refers to a "nephew" Jacob Quick as being a source regarding some of the TQ legends, and also refers to a "relative" called Peter Quick (TQ, pp. 58-9; Sullivan, pp. 371-2). I've attempted here to identify these men in the family tree of TQ as expounded in Arthur C. Quick's A Genealogy of the Quick Family in America, 1942. This is the sole authority I've used here for information regarding the Quick family genealogy.

We start with the first family of Quicks in America, and work our way down the tree:

 

A1    Theunis Thomaszen Quick, m Belijtge Jacobus 1625.

B7    Dirck Theuniszen Quick (1648 - bef 1702), m Hannah Jans 1672.

C44    Thomas Quick (abt 1690 - 1756), m Margriete Dekker 1713.

D82    Jacobus Quick (1716 - ?), m1 Maria Westbrook 1742; m2 Jannetje van Auken 1750.

E223    Petrus Quick (1747 - ?), m Hannah de Witt [date?].

F651    Jacob (1775 - ?), m Eleanor van Garden 1796.    P. 105 - "...built the first saw-mill in [Callicoon Center, Sullivan Co., NY]".    GRAND-NEPHEW

E225    Jacobus (James) Quick (1753 - 1847), m Johanna Pelton 1775.    NEPHEW of TQ, 19 years younger.

D89    Thomas Quick, Jr. = TQ (1734 - 1795 or '96), unmarried.

C45    Jacob Quick, m Francesca Consalus-Duk 1718.

D93    Jacobus Quick, Jr. II (1725 - 1806), m Annetje Oosterhout 1746.

E292    Jacobus J. Quick III (1751 - ?), m Christina Catrina Kleyn 1772.

E297    Jacob Quick (1760 - ?), m Annatje Boss (Bush) [date?]

D94    Petrus Quick (1728 - 1806), m Johanna Consalus 1748.    First cousin, 6 years older than TQ.

D96    Gerardus (1735 - ?), m Catharina Schmidt 1757.

E322    Peter Gerardius (1760 - ?), m ?.

 

So, what is one to make of all this? Since Quinlan gives no information on Peter, it's easy to use one's imagination and take an educated guess as to his identity; I choose Petrus, D94. He's a first cousin and comfortably at the right age.

Jacob is a much tougher case because Quinlan provides the specific detail that he was TQ's nephew, thus "boxing-in" the data. The only nephew of TQ called Jacob(us) is E225, as noted above. Quinlan states (Sullivan, p. 158) that he was married twice, and asserts his death year as 1852. There's a definite problem here because Quinlan spoke to Jacob personally as an informant (Ibid.) and his death was very close to the publication of his TQ book, so it is not likely that he would have misremembered the facts. Yet there are suspicious elements, like the fact that he cagily never mentions the name of Jacob's wives (calling the first only "Mrs. Quick"!), leaving one to wonder just how much he really knew of Jacob's circumstances. Further, the Quick Genealogy (p. 105) has F651 (a grand-nephew of TQ; see above) as the fellow who built the first saw-mill at Callicoon Center, NY. The Genealogy also says on p. 65 that although E225 originated in Minisink Country, he subsequently lived "at 'Quick's Bend' on the Susquehanna River where he spent his life and was buried in the Quick Cemetery at that place." Quick's Bend is near today's Sugar Run, PA. This area is indeed very far removed from Callicoon, NY.

Alfred Mathews, in his History of Wayne, Pike and Monroe Counties, Pennsylvania, 1886, p. 898, col. 2, has a fairly extensive section on the Quick family and refers to a Jacob Quick, Esq. Treeing both up and down using Mathews' information proves absolutely that the Jacob he refers to is F651--but here, Mathews has the saw-mill "on Quick Creek, at Quicktown." Quicktown is 17 miles east of Scranton and about 65 miles east of Quick's Bend. I further note that E225 appears to be of a suitable age, 42 or 43 years old as of TQ's death, while F651 was only 20 or 21 years old, making it less likely that he was TQ's boon companion, but still not impossible. Overall, I think F651 is the more likely choice, as long as Mathews' references to Quicktown are discounted, or one is willing to allow that Jacob could have had a mill at both locations, but at different times.

Corrections to Mathews are: Peter Quick, referred to as "probably a brother of his", was actually a grandson (E223) of Thomas Quick, Sr. (C44), via Jacobus (D82). The footnote quotes Peter A. L. Quick as saying that "Peter Quick settled about one-half mile from the Delaware in 1770, and that his wife was Margaret Westbrook", yet the Quick Genealogy states that Peter's (E223) wife was Hannah de Witt. Interestingly, it was Jacobus, D82, a brother of TQ, who had married a Maria Westbrook and who had married a second time, to Jannetje van Auken. The only recorded wife for Jacob, E225 was Johanna Pelton, while the only recorded wife of Jacob, F651 was Eleanor van Garden, as noted in the above tree.

Thus, we have some apparently conflicting data which probably resulted from confusing different generations and losing track of exactly who was the son of whom. It would require additional work with more Quick sources to fully resolve these conflicts.

 

JR of JRBooksOnline.com    --    3 Dec 2016

 

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