Edward Jessup

by


Edward Jessup was born in 1736. He was the eldest son of Joseph and Abigail James Jessup and the older brother and associate of Ebenezer Jessup. His family moved from his boyhood home of Stamford, Connecticut to "Nine Partners" in Dutchess County in 1744.

He was an officer in the last colonial war and was able to secure a number of military service tracts in northern New York.

In 1760, he married Abigail Dibble of Dutchess County. His wife was the sister of the wife of Ebenezer Jessup. His son, namesake, and successor was born in Albany in 1766.

In 1764, the Jessup brothers left Dutchess County and settled in Albany for the next decade while they substantiated their holdings on the upper Hudson. By the 1770s, the speculators had become developers and lumbermen with a base of operation at "Jessups Landing" on the upper Hudson.

Although his young family may have been absorbed within the historically visible Albany household of his brother, in 1766 Edward Jessup was identified as "of Saratoga" on a petition for land.

Like his brother, Edward Jessup was a loyalist who raised troops to fight along side the British in northern New York. Consequently, he too was attainted of treason by New York State in October 1779. Exiled from Albany and from his lands upriver, Edward Jessup sent his family to safety in Canada while he led loyalist rangers in two incarnations until they were disbanded in December 1783.

Following the war, Jessup and some of his soldiers settled along the St. Lawrence where, with his son, about 1810 he founded the town of Prescott.

In the years that followed, he was enfeebled and bedridden. However, Edward Jessup was nearly eighty when he died in Prescott, Upper Canada in February 1816.


biography in-progress


notes

the people of colonial Albany Sources: The life of Edward Jessup is CAP biography number 1132. This sketch is derived chiefly from family and community-based resources. Online: Wikipedia; Dictionary of Canadian Biography; Jodoin.




first posted: 7/30/09