[192-10b] MELCHIOR WAGENER, same as above, m 2nd time, Jan. 6, 1806, ALPHA WIL- KINSON, b Oct. 12, 1784; d Feb. 12, 1857; dau Jeptha and Lucy Wilkinson. Lived in Pulteney, N. Y.
Children (11):
““Melachor Wagener, Sr., came from Pennsylvania in 1792 and settled about four miles below Penn Yan on the outlet. His father, David Wagener, came about 1790 with millwrights and built a mill at the above location, and subsequently built one at Penn Yan. He also kept the first public house there. A son of Mrs. Abraham Van. Wagener remembered well to have seen the French Duke, Liancourt, at his father’s inn. Melachor Wagener came to this town in 1811, and settled on the farm now occupied by his son, Melachor, where he built a grist mill in the gully. He was twice married. His second wife was Alpha Wilkinson, distantly related to Jemima, the prophetess.”” [| Hist. of Steuben Co. (N. Y¥.), p. 479.]
Alpha Wilkinson was born in Cumberland, R. I., and at the age of twenty years went to Penn Yann, N. Y., with her widowed mother. Here she married Melchior Wagener and moved to Pulteney, N.Y. Later he settled in Penn Yan, and built the first saw mill in the town of Pulteney in 1810, and the first grist mill in 1814. [Memoirs of the Wilkinson Family; Landmarks of Steuben Co., p 14.]
Jeptha Wilkinson was born Apr. 3, 1757, and died Aug. 15, 1803. He was the son of Jeremiah Wilkinson and Elizabeth Amy Whipple of Cumberland, R. I. He was also the brother of Jemima Wilkinson, the religious enthusiast. Jeremiah Wilkinson lived in Cumberland on the farm long known as the “‘Old Wilkinson place.”” He was a distinguished inventor. Jeptha was married Mar. 25, 1780 to Lucy Smith of Groton, Conn. He was a natural mechanic and found employment in the surrounding villages and cities. He was one of the ‘‘Minute Men” of Boston in the time of the Revolution, and engaged in the strife for independence. He died in 1803 of yellow fever in Jersey City, N. J., leaving his wife and children to contend alone with an unfriendly world.
Two years after this, his widow emigrated from Cumberland with six of her children, leaving Nancy and Arnold to settle her business in Rhode Island. She started for the wilderness of New York, stopping first in the Town of Milo, three miles east of Penn Yan. Here she remained about a year and soon afterwards purchased an eighty-eight acre tract of land in Jerusalem where she built a log cabin and engaged in farming. She also purchased a share in a carding machine and was joint owner with Capt. Lawrence. She was a person of great energy of character and with her industry and a small pension allowed her by the general government she made herself and family comfortable and educated her children. She nearly attained her one hundredth year, retaining her faculties to a remarkable degree. She died in Pulteney, Steuben Co., N. Y.. and is buried in the Wagener burying ’ ground. Her grave is marked by a blue marble stone, erected by her daughter, Nancy, as a tribute of affection to a departed mother. [Memoirs of the Wilkinson Fam.]
Children’s own families: