Elizabeth Caldwell David

According to family-based resources, the wife of Albany resident Peter David was Elizabeth Caldwell who was born at sea in May 1764. She is said to have been the only daughter of Joseph Caldwell, a British Navy officer and his wife, Rebecca. On the other hand, she may have been the relative of the Albany Caldwell brothers.

Twenty years later, in July 1784, Elizabeth married Albany resident Peter David. By 1800, seven children had been christened in Albany. Several more children were born afterwards. One son was christened "Joseph Caldwell David."

Elizabeth Caldwell David is said to have died in September 1808. She would have lived for forty-four years. We seek information on the later life and passing of her husband and the lives of her children.

Sources: The life of Elizabeth Caldwell David has not been assigned a CAP biography number. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources.

The following biography was copied from an online source and is said to have been taken from the The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2.

BARNABAS BRODT DAVID.
By Rev. J.G. Davis, D.D.

In the early records of the French Protestant Church of New York City, appears the name of John David, a Huguenot, an emigrant, who married Elizabeth Whinehart. They settled in Albany, and had eleven children, of whom only five attained majority. Peter David, the sixth child, born March 11, 1764, married Elizabeth Caldwell, born May 24, 1764, the only child of Joseph Caldwell, an officer in the British navy. They also lived in Albany and had a large family of eleven children; Barnabas Brodt David, born August 8, 1802, the subject of the following sketch, was the ninth child and fifth son. On the death of his mother, which occurred September 17, 1808, the family was widely scattered, and the lad Barnabas found a home for the next five years with a family named Truax, in Hamilton Village, New York.

At the end of this period he was taken into the family of an older brother, Noble Caldwell David, who resided in Peterborough, New York. Of his previous opportunities of instruction we are not informed, but during his stay of two years in Peterborough he was permitted to attend school part of the time. The death of Caldwell David's wife became the occasion of a third removal, which brought him to Keene, New Hampshire, into the care of an older sister, Mrs. David Holmes. The journey was made in the winter, in an open sleigh, without robes, and being poorly clad, the hardship and exposure were vividly remembered. He was interested in his studies, and enjoyed the privileges of the schools in Keene, so far as they were open to the children of the town. The question of an employment coming up for decision, it was determined by his friends that the lad should go to Boston and enter the shop of his eldest brother, John David, as an apprentice to the art of whip making. At that time no machinery was employed in the business, and the apprentice was taught every part of the craft.