The Rev. Caleb Rich (1750-10-01 – 1821-10-18) and Caleb Rich Jr. (1786-09-05 – 1813-12-04) are a father and son of the same name who are the most likely candidates to be my most recent male-line ancestor named Rich, as the father of Nathan Ryder Jr., who had been documented as the son of Deacon Nathan Ryder Sr. (
See Ryder paternity for a fuller discussion of the evidence more generally for there being an NPE around this time. Caleb Rich Sr. was the great-grandson of Nicholas Rich.
My Y chromosome is not a match to the Ryder colonial immigrant who my documented line goes back to, but instead matches several families named Rich. The conclusion is that one Ryder male was in fact fathered by a Rich, almost certainly a male-line descendant of Nicholas Rich. DNA evidence suggests that I am descended at least from William Ryder, and likely either William or his father Nathan Jr. was the son of a Rich.
Geographical evidence supports this narrowing. William and Nathan Jr. were both born in Addison County, Vermont, and several Rich men from the right family settled in that area around this time. By contrast, Nathan Jr.’s father Nathan Sr. was born in Southeast, New York, and no Rich families appear to have been anywhere near there at the time.
We can be more specific. The contiguous towns of New Haven and Bristol were settled by this Ryder family, and the Rev. Caleb Rich moved to New Haven around 1802, and also bought and sold land in Bristol. Thus, these families were basically neighbors for about 19 years. William was born in 1839 and would have been conceived in 1838; Nathan Jr. was born in 1806 and would have been conceived in 1805. No other Rich family lived in these towns during this time⟮1⟯A Thomas Weeks Rich, a descendant of the colonial Thomas Rich who is not descended from Nicholas but has close DNA, is found buying and selling land in Bristol from 1809 to 1810, but never lived there, living in Monkton at the time, and had only moved to Vermont from Massachusetts in 1806; he died in 1826., and indeed no male Riches were left after the death of Caleb (Sr.) in 1821.
While we cannot exclude the possibility that a more distant Rich fathered this child, the direct contact between these families at the time of Nathan Jr.’s conception, with nothing comparable at any other times, weighs in favor of Caleb‘s family as the source of the NPE. Furthermore, only one son of Caleb, Caleb Jr., could have been the father of Nathan Jr.
Caleb Rich Sr. was a Unitarian preacher, and indeed often credited as the founder of American Unitarianism. He was born in Sutton, Massachusetts, the son of Elisha Rich and Mary Davis, and married 1779-01-22 in Warwick, MA to Electa Doolittle. He was ordained there in 1781. Elisha was the grandson of Nicholas Rich.
He was still in Warwick on 1802-04-13 when he sold land there and was called Caleb Rich of Warwick; Caleb and Electa acknowledged the deed on 1802-07-06.⟮2⟯FamilySearch
Biographies say he moved to Shoreham, but I can find no record of him there; he may have had a short stay.
He had settled in New Haven, VT by 1803-02-01, when a land purchase of his there calls him “Caleb Rich of New Haven”.⟮3⟯FamilySearch
He had 11 children, all but the last born in Warwick, MA:
Nine were daughters, so if one of his sons was the father of a Ryder, it could only be Hiram or Caleb. Hiram was 6 years old at Nathan Jr.’s conception, and in 1823 married Susannah Patterson and had moved to Norfolk, NY by 1827 when a New Haven land sale refers to him as “of Norfolk, St. Lawrence County, NY”⟮10⟯FamilySearch (restricted), and is still there in the 1840 census⟮11⟯FamilySearch, and so is unlikely to be the father of William Ryder.⟮12⟯Hiram and Susannah eventually settled and died in Minnesota.
Land records show that Caleb made donations to New Haven of land for the purpose of schools for the town’s youth.
I consider Caleb Sr. less likely to be the illegitimate father. He was a visible member of the community and apparently a devout preacher, so an affair with a local woman would be unexpected. His health was intermittently poor later in life, and in 1805 he had several young children to care for; there is some indication he travelled often to preach. None of this is certain disproof, but the son on balance is more likely.
Caleb Rich Jr. was born in 1786, and died in 1813 at the age of only 27 in Plattsburgh, New York while enlisted.
Caleb Jr. was still in New Haven on 1807-12-07 when he purchased land from his father for $1000.⟮13⟯FamilySearch This purchase is a bit strange; that is substantial money at the age of 20. The land is described as being bordered on one side by the Bristol town line, putting Caleb Jr. right in the center of this area.
Caleb Jr., along with his sister Patty, was a witness to his father’s sale of land on 1812-12-03.⟮14⟯FamilySearch
On 1813-08-20, he enlisted in the Army for the War of 1812 for a term of one year, serving in the 30th Infantry Regiment under Captain Daniel Farrington.⟮15⟯FamilySearch He did not survive his term; the record says he died 1814-12-04. I have not found his cause of death, which may be in archived records not readily accessible. The 30th saw little action⟮16⟯ so it may not have been combat.
Caleb was the son of a preacher, and perhaps was less devout. A relationship with the wife of a deacon is believable.
There are many ways by which a child may have mis-assigned father. One is through quiet adoption. This may of a non-relative, but is often of a relative, such as a nephew or grandson, possibly orphaned or illegitimate and so taken in.
However, adoptions usually leave behind some paper trail. Also, consider the sequence of children reported for Nathan Sr. and Ireana:⟮17⟯FamilySearch
This looks like an ordinary pattern of children for a couple, whereas an adoption will often stand out, usually for being much younger, but sometimes suspiciously close in age to another child. There is no indication of this for Nathan Jr.
Thus I conclude that Ireana likely birthed Nathan Jr. Autosomal DNA evidence connecting me to her relatives would support this, but so far I have not found anything definitive. There remains uncertainty about all of this.
By the above arguments, all or some of these may be my ancestors. The pedigree is tiered from the speculative to the nearly certain.