Rev. Ranna Cossitt (1744–1815), my 5th-great-grandfather

The Cossitt line is four generations of my ancestors, three named René Cossitt leading down to my 4th-great-grandmother Phebe, mother of Mary Eliza Gesner.

Ranna was an alternative form of the French name. There are also variant spellings of the surname, such as Cossette, Cossit, and Cosset.

Generations

René¹

René Cossitt (1686-10-05 NS – 1752-08-11) was my 7th-great-grandfather who immigrated to Connecticut. There are varying stories of why he came to America, some saying that it was involuntary.

Tradition has him born around 1690 in Paris, specifically Place Vendôme, and educated at the University of Paris. However, more recent evidence published in 2013, including from DNA,^ref suggests that he was born in Quebec in 1686^ref, the son of Jean Cosset and Marguerite Héloy dit Auby, where Jean was an immigrant from Saint-Étienne-des-Loges (now Saint-Hilaire-des-Loges), Vendée, France. In any case, René eventually settled in Granby, Connecticut.

He married Ruth Elizabeth Porter (1692–1770) and had ten children.

In 1977, a descendant Thomas C. Cossitt (1923–2015), a Canadian MP, erected a stone in his memory in Granby.^ref

René²

René Cossitt (1722-09-03 – 1810-03-21) was my 6th-great-grandfather and a Revolutionary War soldier (on the American side). He is sometimes called René Jr.

During the Revolution, he served in Capt. Bates’s company, 18th Regiment of Militia, commanded by Colonel Phelps.^ref

He married three times. First was to Phebe Hillyer (1720-12-17 – 1786-01-22), by who he had all of his nine children. Second was to the widow Martha Holcombe (née Griffin). Third was to the widow Martha Barber in 1798, who however in 1807 stole his valuables, ran up debts in his name, and fled with two children from her previous marriage.^ref

He lived his whole life in Granby.

Rev. Ranna³

René or Ranna Cossitt (1744-12-29 – 1815-03-13) was my 5th-great-grandfather, a prominent Episcopal clergyman, and a politician. There are conflicting claims as to whether the variant name Ranna was his own invention, more likely; or also used by his father.

Ranna was born in Granby and studied at Rhode Island College, and then travelled to England to study theology and was ordained there in 1773. He then returned to America, settling in Claremont, New Hampshire, and later that year became the first rector of the new Union Church in Claremont.^ref His affinity for England, however, brought him into conflict with the Revolutionaries, and he refused to sign a statement for independence, but he nevertheless remained in Claremont throughout the war.

In 1786 he accepted a job offer in Sydney, Nova Scotia, to oversee the ministry in the newly formed Cape Breton colony. He became involved in local political squabbles, and in 1798 spent three months in jail over an alleged debt to a political opponent’s son. In 1807 he took a new position as rector in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and there he lived until he died in 1815.

Ranna married Thankful Brooks (1756-03-15 – 1802-10-11) in Claremont in 1774, and with her had ten children. Their first child was named René, but he never married nor had children.

Phebe

Phebe or Phoebe Cossitt (1781-12-30 – 1863-04) was my 4th-great-grandmother. She was born in Claremont, NH, but moved as a small child with her father to Cape Breton, along with her other six siblings who were born in NH. She was presumably named after her paternal grandmother. She died in Mira, Cape Breton.

Phebe married James Hill, son of William and Rebecca Hill, on 1798-10-23, and with him had 7 children:^ref

• Anna Sophia (1800-04-02 – 1815-04-26), drowned in Muggah Creek aged 15.
• René/Ranna William (1802-09-17 – 1876-10), married Flora Brown.
• Mary Eliza Gesner (1803-11-05 – ⊥ 1890-07-17), my great-great-great-grandmother.
• John Lewis (1805-10-20 – after 1875), married Margaret White.
• James Clement (1807-09-10 – after 1881)^ref, unmarried.
• George Germaine (* 1809-05-29), married Albertina Dumaressy in 1833.
• Frances Emily (1811-07-01 – 1838-04-08), unmarried.

Misinfo

The Find a Grave pages for René² and others^ref contain a lot of wrong information (as of 2023-06-08), including mixing facts of his life up with his son, and also mixing up details of his last two wives.

DNA

There is a Cossitt DNA project with ten visible testees as of 2024-04-16.^ref ref Eight match each other, and two match each other but not the others. The matches include members of the Cossette family of Quebec and even a Corsette, which had not been known to be related, a discovery which led to considering that René came from Quebec rather than France.

Descents are provided for six testees, and two are from René² with none from Rev. Ranna. So these matches only confirm descent for these earlier generations, and for example don’t show that Ranna is René’s son.

Although there is a fair selection of STR results, only one testee took a SNP test, and all it showed was being in R1b. If there were negative results, the project does not show them. Curiously, the inferred haplogroups were more specific, as R1b-M269.

However, I personally have an autosomal DNA match to a male surnamed Cossitt who has had shallow (23andMe) Y chromosome testing, which shows him to be in group R1b-L51; this is consistent with the above data. This is still not that specific, and so is only weak evidence connecting me all the way to the French Cossets.

I have several autosomal matches to descendants of the Cossitt family, providing corroboration for my descent from them. However, due to the interrelatedness of Cape Breton families, in most cases I have other documented relations to these people, so this evidence is not as definitive as I would like.

Phebe is the matrilineal ancestor of my great-grandfather Robert Huntington and thus shares his mtDNA haplogroup U2e1a. It traces back to Elizabeth (née Welbourne) (Carpenter) (Orvis) Bronson, whose last will is dated 1694.

An alleged matrilineal second cousin, 7 times removed of Ranna tested as mtDNA haplogroup H3v2.^ref However, one generation in this connection may be uncertain.

Ancestry of Phebe

Her immigrant ancestor George Pardee (✝1700) is a great-grandson of Richard Cox.

See

• The Cossitt Family book at archive.org.
• The Cossitt Family Association.
  • Descendants page that includes “Emily Frances Gessner”.
• Rev. Ranna Cossit in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, which has considerably more detail.
• Cossitt DNA Project at FamilyTreeDNA.