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- From: Leaver7@aol.com
Subject: [TRIMMER-L] Jacob DUFFORD & the Indian maiden
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 07:47:31 EST
For those that have a Trimmer that married into the Dufford family, I would like to share this story, and for others that just like an interesting story: Quoted from the Schwachamer-DuFord Genealogical Society Newsletter, Summer 1998: Jacob, the Disinherited, by George S. Dufford, Family Historian, dated 30 January 1935: (Note) Excerpts from a paper written in 1935 by George S. Dufford and presented at the Dufford Reunion at their regular meeting. The paper covered among other things, the marriage of Jacob Dufford to the Indian maiden known as Elizabeth (Leni Lenape).
"In the very beginning of our family history, Philip Dufford, Jr., out of the family group as does his son George Stephen. But in Philip, Sr.'s will, dated Feb 6th, 1767 and probated Feb 1st 1769, he names as heirs Catherine, his wife, Adam and George, sons, a daughter Mary Magdelena and Grandson George Stephen, son of Jacob. Jacob disinherited and not even mentioned. The reason for Jacob's disinheritance, which had been a family tradition for years, was verified in 1890, while your historian was living at Nolan's Point, Lake Hopatcong. Rudolph Schaffer, then 90 years old, told me the following story, when he found my name was Dufford. He asked if I belonged to the family of Duffords in Dutch Valley. When I replied in the affirmative, he said - ' My father often told me of seeing a man by that name fishing with the Delaware Indians in the lake, who had married a Delaware Indian maiden and had been cut off in his father's will because of this fact.' When we recall that the present Sperry's Springs on the Sussex County side of the lake, was the Tribal Headquarters from the Delaware Nation, we can perhaps visualize the visits of Jacob and his wife to the scene of a tribal dance or feast. "Perhaps at this time, it might be interesting to record when and how marriage into the Delaware Nation was conducted; an account of which I found in an old document among many such, stored away in the old Surveyor General's office in Perth Amboy, N.J. established during the reign of William Franklin,the first Colonial Governor of East Jersey, and still maintained by the descendants of the Land proprietors of that day.
"Their courtship needs no description. When the age old story had been poured into listening ears and they had pledged each other to marry on
the full of the moon chosen, the bride, coming form one direction and the groom from the other, would meet in front of the Chief's wigwam, the groom carrying a bone, signifying he was to furnish the meat; the bride carrying an ear of corn, signifying she was to furnish that. After the exchange of these symbols, they clasped right hands and stood for a moment in the moonlit silence, after which came 'Bless You My Children' from the Tribal Chief. They then departed for the home of the groom. While their ceremony was pagan to Philip, Sr., and incurred his life long enmity, Jacob Dufford and his Indian bride were faithful to their vows until the end of life's journey, and today sleep in unmarked graves, probably placed in the sitting position, by their brothers of the red, rather than the white."
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1715 - 
(Age ~ 74 years)