Cornelius Rich (c.1720 – bef 1801) and Rhoda Fish (say 1725 – after 1801) were my 6th-great-grandparents, being the parents of James Rich Jr. They married 1747-06-17 in Falmouth, Massachusetts^⟮1⟯, and had probably seven sons and an unknown number of daughters. They moved to Chatham, Connecticut, later renamed to East Hampton.

Origins

Cornelius was the son of Thomas Rich and Mercy Knowles, who married 1702-07-23 in Eastham, MA. Thomas had twelve known children by Mercy; Cornelius is mentioned in his will but there is no birth record of Thomas’s three youngest known children including Cornelius. Since the youngest recorded Samuel was born in 1718, Cornelius was likely born a couple of years later.

Thomas’s father was Richard Rich of Eastham, whose parents are unknown.

DNA has shown that this Rich family is not connected to that of Nicholas Rich, as they have very different Y chromosome signatures.

There seems to be no record of Rhoda’s origins beyond her maiden name, but her name is distinctive. There is a Fish family in Cape Cod, that of Nathaniel Fish Jr. and Deborah Barrows, who had several Fish sons, some living in Falmouth. Largely through process of elimination, I settled on Bartholomew Fish as the strongest candidate for Rhoda’s father. He lived in Falmouth, and his family is not well-documented. He had a known son Lemuel, not a common name, which a son of Rhoda’s was named (however, Cornelius had a cousin named Lemuel). Rhoda’s marriage appears in town records between marriages for Dorcas (Fish) Hamlin and Hannah (Fish) Fish, also suspected to be daughters of Bartholomew. Hannah also named a son Lemuel.

Family

Contemporary documentation of this family is scarce, and it took considerable collation from Rich genealogists to piece it together. The following seven sons are assigned to Cornelius and Rhoda:^⟮2⟯

• Cornelius (c.1748 – 1823-12-30), married Keziah Goff(?), died in East Hampton.
• John (✝c.1779), killed in the Revolutionary War.
• Nathaniel (✝1779-07-11), killed in the Revolutionary War at Norwalk, CT.
• Joseph (✝1775×9), killed in the Revolutionary War.
• Thomas. Listed by Evelyn Rich with no details; not included by earlier researchers.^⟮3⟯
• Lemuel (✝1838-08-26), married first Deborah Taylor, second Sally Quinn.
• James (c.1754 – 1812), my ancestor.

Cornelius later pleaded for James to be released from service, having lost three of his sons already. See James’s article.

A record in 1801 indicates Cornelius also had daughters, although none have been identified.^⟮4⟯

Death

In 1801, land was granted to Rhoda Rich, her husband no longer living.^⟮4⟯

Ancestry

… of Cornelius

… of Rhoda, speculated

See above. Hannah Harding’s father Maziah/Amaziah was executed in 1734 for killing her mother. Bethia Cooke is the sister of Elizabeth (Cooke) Newcomb, ancestor of the wife Mary Blodgett of Gale Cole.

Footnotes

1. ↑ https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPZF-RTGN
2. ↑ https://www.americanancestors.org/DB202/i/11658/275/23510972
3. ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=idgUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA226
4. ↑ ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=idgUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA227