PHEBE PRUDEN CARMAN

A family history, with historical and genealogical notes on branches of the Carman, Machet, Pruden, Kitchel and some related families.

Compiled by

Albert Pruden Carman

Urbana-Champlain, Illinois

1935

FOREWORD

This little book is dedicated to my three nieces

Frances Thompson Carman

Phoebe Pruden Carman

Jane Dice Carman

It gives the family records of their paternal grandparents and other ancestors and also some family connections. The most of the record of the Bordentown Carmans, I have transcribed almost directly from a manuscript prepared in the year 1881 by my father, the late Reverend Thomas C. Carman (1829-1899). The tracing of the line of our grandfather, Ludlow Pruden (1804-1869), was largely done by my sisters, Elizabeth G. Carman and Emma P. Carman. They found much of this record in the valuable collections of the public library of Morristown, N.J. For the early Kitchel record, we are all indebted largely to the monograph of H.D. Kitchel, "Robert Kitchel and his Descendants". We also have a fine presentation of Kitchel genealogy in G. C. McCormick’s, " John Kitchel and Esther Peck". In each case, these resources have been supplemented by search of family letters and papers, and of books and papers found in the libraries of Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington, Morristown, British Museum, and elsewhere. I am especially indebted to the help of my wife, Maude Straight Carman, who added items that her skill in library science enabled her to discover.

In this story of three centuries of family lineage, we have followed the records from parents to children for nine or ten generations, practically all of them in America. It has been most interesting to trace the family connections, finding them in old books and papers, wills, deeds, worn bibles, family letters, and church records of baptisms, memberships, marriages, births, and funerals. For the most part, it is simply a record of the externals of life, lists of names and dates, with few glimpses of personalities. But we must think of these people as men and women with feelings, thoughts, and aspirations, and of ourselves as inheritors of many characteristics of mind and body which make the human individual. They are in the very special and peculiar sense "our folks".

A. P. C.,  Urbana-Champlain, Ill.

April, 1934

Biographical Sketches of Thomas C. Carman and Phebe Pruden Carman 7

Children and Grandchildren of Thomas C. And Phebe Pruden Carman 9

Carman Genealogy in America of Thomas C. Carman 11

Machet Genealogy in America of Thomas C. Carman 13

Pruden Genealogy in America of Phebe Pruden Carman 15

Kitchel Genealogy in America of Phebe Pruden Carman 17

Historical and Genealogical Notes on the Carman Family 19

Historical and Genealogical Notes on the Pruden or Prudden Family 39

Historical and Genealogical Notes on the Kitchel Family 49

Index 60

Biographical Sketches of Thomas C. Carman and Phebe Pruden Carman

excluded at this transcription

Children and Grandchildren of Thomas C. And Phebe Pruden Carman

excluded at this transcription

Carman Genealogy in America of Thomas C. Carman

John (1), son of John and Abigail Carman; b. 1606, at Hemel Hempstead, England; landed at Roxbury, Mass., November 4, 1631; d. 1653 at Hempstead, L.I.; m. 1629-1630, Florence Fordham (d. 1661).

Caleb (2), fourth or fifth child of John(1) and Florence Fordham Carman; b. Jan 9, 1645, at Hempstead, L.I.; d. 1693, at Cape May; m. Elizabeth ..................

James (3), son of Caleb(2); b. 1677; d. Oct 29, 1756, at Cranbury, N.J., where he was minister of the Baptist Church; m. first, Margaret Duwys; m. second, Sarah Frazier.

Caleb (4), son of the Rev. James(3) and Margaret Duwys Carman; b. June 28, 1708, at Middletown, N.J.; d. July 20, 1807, at Bordentown, N.J.; m. Elizabeth Wood, daughter of Kiah Wood.

John (5), son of Caleb(4) and Elizabeth Wood Carman; b. 1748, at Bordentown, N.J.; d. Jan 31, 1791, at Bordentown; m. Rachael Flithian (1754-1847).

Thomas (6), ninth child of John(5) and Rachel Carman; b. Sept 7, 1791, at Bordentown; d. June 29, 1864, at Bordentown; m. Rebecca Machet (1794-1877).

Thomas C. (7), only son and fifth child of Thomas(6) and Rebecca Machet Carman; b. Oct 31, 1829, at Bordentown; d. May 2, 1899, at Bradley Beach, N.J.; m. April 12, 1860, to Phebe C. Pruden (1837-1897) at Rockaway, N.J.

[ Illustration - Carman genealogical tree ]

Machet Genealogy in America of Thomas C. Carman

William Machet, m. Between 1780 and 1790, to Mary Carman of Machaponix, Monmouth County, N.J. They had three daughters, Mary, Charlotte, and Rebecca. Rebecca Machet Carman told her son, Rev. Thomas C. Carman, that her father William Machet went to New York on business, became ill there, and that her mother went to look after her husband, and that both died there, leaving three small girls. Rebecca went to live with her uncle, Lewis Carman, at Cranburry, N.J.; she lived with her uncle until she was a young woman, when she went to live with her sister Mary, who was then living in Bordentown. There, Rebecca married Thomas Carman (1791-1864). Mary Machet married Joseph Wood, and later moved to western New York. Charlotte Machet lived in Bordentown and Philadelphia. She married William Biles and had a family of seven children. Mary Carman, mother of Rebecca Machet, had a sister Anna and brothers Lewis and John. About 1800 Lewis Carman moved from Machaponix to Cranbury, N.J.. He had four children, Samuel, William, Woodruff, and Catherine. About 1824 Lewis Carman moved to Almond, Allegheny County, N.Y., where he had a farm of 100 acres. William Carman, a son of Lewis Carman, married a daughter of John Davison of Machaponix. About 1862 he was on the farm at Hornsellsville, Steuben County, N.Y., and was ‘doing well’. The above information was given by Thomas C. Carman to W. S. Carman, and is found in the Carman manuscript volumes in the New York Public Library.

Very little is known of William Machet. The three little orphan girls were taken by relatives and grew up without definite knowledge about their parents. The name Machet is evidently French, and hence there arose a vague tradition that William Machet was a soldier who "came over with Lafayette." There are no facts known to sustain this tradition. Indeed there are reasons for thinking that William Machet was from a Huguenot family. In Baird’s "Huguenot Emigration to America" Vol I, page 231, we read that fifty or sixty Huguenot refugees from the French West Indies arrived in New York in November, 1686. In the list of heads of families of this group was one Jean Machet, a refugee from Tremblades and Bordeaux, France. He, with his wife and four children, fled from the religious persecution that took place at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. He wrote in his will, "we left our good furniture, our clothes, and fled, saving only our bodies." The name Machet or Machette, is found in central New Jersey, in the first part of the 18th century. Thus on Jan 3, 1739, Peter Machette of Middlesex, and Margaret Chambers of Trenton, were licensed to marry ( New Jersey Archives, Vol XXII, page 257 ). It seems most probable that William Machet belonged to the Huguenot family, though a detailed line is not yet found.

Pruden Genealogy in America of Phebe Pruden Carman

not transcribed in this webpage

Kitchel Genealogy in America of Phebe Pruden Carman

not transcribed in this webpage

not transcribed in this webpage

An original text of this book can be found in the closed stacks of the Los Angeles Central Library (among other places)

09/04/2006