Ancestors

Margaret Waterhouse

Margaret Waterhouse was born at Kingwood, in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, in March 1778. Her gravestone gives her age at death to the day, and it counts back to 12 March 1778. Later family records give May 1779.

Her father was Henry Waterhouse of Kingwood and her mother was Elizabeth Green, a daughter of Richard Green of Amwell. Her grandfather Joshua Waterhouse had come from Yorkshire as a fuller and built the family farmhouse on the Kingwood-Locktown Road in 1746. She was one of six children. Her brothers were Charles, a physician trained at Princeton who died in Virginia in 1793, John and Joshua, both Philadelphia merchants, and Richard Green, who went to Tennessee as a surveyor. Her younger sister Elizabeth married Hart Johnson.

She married Abraham Stryker, a young man from the Millstone valley in Somerset County. A compiled family record gives the date as 14 January 1796, at the Kingwood Presbyterian church. Her brother John's letter of 4 January 1802 suggests a later wedding: "Our sister Margaret has been married about three years to Abraham Stryker. They reside in Sussex Warren County NJ and have one child, a daughter about two years old." That daughter was Elizabeth Green Stryker, born on 22 May 1800 and named for Margaret's mother.

Soon after, in 1801 or 1802, Abraham took the family into the timber country of Wayne County, Pennsylvania. They settled at Cherry Ridge, near the later town of Honesdale, where he ran a tannery and a lumber business. Her son Abraham A. was born there in 1810.

Her family kept track of her. In the autumn of 1806 her brother Richard travelled from Hunterdon County to see her. On 29 November he wrote that he had "Crossed several creeks to Abram Stryker's, eldest sister Margaret's husband, in Wayne County ... Back Woods Country."

Her mother died at Kingwood on 15 May 1806. That September her father made his will, and she is in it: the residue of his estate was "to be divided between my 2 sons, John and Richard, and my 2 daughters, Margaret (wife of Abraham Stryker) and Elizabeth (wife of Hart Johnson)." The same will left her brother John "a mullatto lad named Bob" and ordered two enslaved men, Frank and Joseph, freed at thirty nine. Her father died in October 1808 and the will was proved that November.

About 1830 she and Abraham moved into Honesdale. A family record says her will was dated in New Jersey in 1828. She died on 16 September 1844 and is buried in the Old Honesdale Cemetery. Her stone reads: "In memory of Margaret wife of Abraham J. Stryker who died Sept. 16, 1844 aged 66 Ys. 6 Mo. & 4 ds." Abraham was buried beside her in 1846.

If Margaret Waterhouse is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Margaret Waterhouse (1778-1844)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/margaret-waterhouse-1778-1844-c6ab1f.