George Cook Daniels
b. April 7,1800, Newport, New York, d. April 28, 1875 , Port Washington, Wisconsin
George Moves to Hammond, Saint Lawrence County, New York
Map Showing George Cook Daniels Movements in 1820
Click on image to enlarge
1820, 20 year old George Daniels moved from his family's home in the Newport / Poland, New York area to Hammond, Saint Lawrence County, New York. Located 120 miles to the north of Newport Hammond is just south of the St. Lawrence river an major route to the great lakes. An early map shows his property in district 12 south of the village in 1820. In the years following his mother's (Ann Cook Daniels) death George's father married Susan Enos and by 1820 George had 8 step sisters and brothers.
Note: Based on court records upon Susan's death it's clear there was tension in the relationship between George and his step mother.
Daniels - Baker Marriage
Sometime prior to the fall of 1824 George met and married Maria Louisa Baker (those knowledgeable with local records speculate the name Baker may have been recorded as Belanger). Maria was born April 22, 1803.
Forming a Family
Over the next 20 years Maria would give birth to 8 children: 6 sons and 2 daughters.
June 25, 1825, Maria Daniels, at the age of 23, gave birth to her first child, a son they named
Nahum
after his grandfather.
Step Brother Nahum Daniels Arrives in Hammond
1829, Nahum, George's step-brother moves to Hammond area. Over time Nahum becomes a large land owner in the Hammond area.
Forming a Family
1832, Marion Daniel is born
1832, October 30th, Jerome Bonapart is born
About 1834, Baron S. is born
About 1836, Cordelia is born
Note: Cordelia is not a name common to the Daniels Family and is likely a family name in the Baker line
Birth of Jasper Sargent Daniels
1838, October 4th, Jasper Sargent Daniels was born. The fifth son of George and Maria, Jasper would become my great grandfather.
Two additional children were born after Jasper:
1842, Ann Jane
1845, Stewart
Hammond Town Records
While living in Hammond, George Cook Daniels was active in civic affairs. Beside his terms as supervisor, (1836 - 1837) George also served as an inspector of schools and elections and as an assessor and path master. In November 1829, he received one vote for Justice of the Peace.
Source: History of Hammond, NY
THE BOSTON HISTORY COMPANY, PUBLISHERS 1894
Family Moves West
As we have seen numerous times in the family history, a Daniels son leaves behind all that is familiar to live in a frontier settlement.
1844, George and Maria moved their five sons and two daughters 850 miles west to what was then Old Milwaukee (Ozaukee today) County, Wisconsin, settling on the banks of the Sauk Creek near the western shore of Lake Michigan. Only 13 years earlier, the land George occupied was the home and hunting grounds of the Menominee Indians. Ceded to the whites in 1831 the land was first visited by French explorers and missionaries. Worchester Harrison had purchased the land from the government in 1836 for development of a town where the Sauk Creek empties into Lake Michigan. The village, with a home and a few additional buildings developed by Harrison, went bust in 1837; however, Harrison returned to reclaim his abandoned home and additional buildings in 1843. That same year a pier was built to allow the arrival of passengers and cargo at the village. Soon others followed. The majority, like the Daniels, came from the eastern states having roots going back to the original colonial families. It is very likely that the Daniels traveled to the village via the Great Lakes.
Map Showing George Cook Daniels Movements in 1844 & 1846
Click on image to enlarge
Naming the Village of Port Washington
That year [1844], the name of the old Sauk Harbor village, which had been called both Washington City and Sauk Washington, was officially changed to Port Washington.
The name was changed largely as a result of the leadership of George C. Daniels, who stated that the name "Sauk Washington, which was commonly used at that time, was "uncouth."
Port Washington - Incorporated
1846,
The Town of Port Washington, incorporated on January 21, 1846, comprised towns 11 and 12, ranges 21 and 22, including the present towns of Fredonia, Saukville, and Belgium. The first poll list totals seventy-six voters.
Port Washington - First Town Meeting
1846, George C Daniels and George W. Foster were appointed Justices of the Peace at the first Town Meeting in the school house in April of 1846,
Builds House in Saukville
1846 "The first European style house used as a residence in the Village of Saukville was built for George C. Daniels, ... The location of the Daniels' house may be pinpointed by using the following description:
Beginning at a stone in Elm Street, said stone is 58 rods South from the North [Section 35] line, and 28.16 rods West from the East line of the section [35], then S. degrees-00'W.220 rods, then S.2 degrees-00'W.60 rods to the center of the Road near Mr. Daniels corner.
According to this description, the Daniels' house was
located
on the corner of present-day Cedar-Sauk road and present-day south County Highway O a portion of the Green Bay Road at that time. No record could be found showing that Daniels had title to the land. It is likely that he was a 'squatter.' allowed to build there by Jabez Foster, who held the land title. Foster was William Payne's business partner during that time when Saukville was the principal village in ''old' Washington County."
Source:
Document
Wisconsin Becomes 30th State, Township of Saukville Formed
May 29, 1848, Wisconsin was admitted to the Union as the 30th state.
Two years after Daniels built his house; enough other people inhabited the Saukville area that in 1848 the Township of Saukville was created. That same year the State of Wisconsin established an immigration office in New York that promoted population growth in Wisconsin and Saukville. From the years 1848 through 1853, Saukville had grown to a population of 250.
1854, George C. Daniels was one of three Court Commissioners appointed by the United States District Court
Daniels Boys in the Civil War
5 Daniels boys served Wisconsin and the Union during the Civil War.
Baron Stuban Daniels, Corporal - Company D, 19th Infantry
Jasper Sargent Daniels, Private - Company A, 2nd Infantry &
Sr. 1st. Lieutenant Company I, 1st Heavy Artillery
Nahum Daniels, Captain, Company I, 3rd Infantry
Stewart Daniels, Corporal, Company G, 16th Infantry
Marion "Daniel" Daniels Private, Company H, 3rd Cavalry
Daniels in the Civil War Article "Ozaukee County's
War History"
by Daniel E. McGinley
as extracted from THE PORT WASHINGTON STAR
January 16, 1897
As stated in a former chapter, two Saukville boys, Stewart Daniels and Thomas Murphy, served as the regularly detailed foragers for the company on the march to the sea and during the Carolina campaign, and as such performed the arduous and dangerous duties of the forager with great credit to themselves and to the satisfaction of their commanders.
Although Stewart Daniels' home was in the town of Grafton, it was so near to the town line and to the village of Saukville, that he has been always reckoned as a Saukville boy by his comrades. Stewart was the first white child born in the territory now included in the town of Saukville, he first seeing the light in 1845, in his father's log cabin, which stood upon the site of the village of Saukville and was the seventh son in a family of nine children. Shortly after Stewart's birth his family moved nearly a mile south of the village, to the homestead on the banks of the Milwaukee river which for nearly thirty years was known as the "Daniels' farm," and which is now owned by the Opitz family.
Here Stewart lived and thrived in the wilderness, and as he grew in years and stature attended the village school in Saukville in the winter months; but though a bright boy who learned easily, he did not make the progress in his studies that he might have done, he caring more for hunting, fishing, trapping and such sports. He grew up a manly, healthy boy, with a frame remarkably well developed and knit, and although but sixteen when the war began he considered himself large and strong enough to undertake the life of a soldier in the field.
His father, Capt. George Cook Daniels, a pioneer of Puritan blood and a veteran of Indian wars, was a man of more than ordinary intelligence and ability, rough in appearance and speech, but a good neighbor, an upright, worthy citizen, and patriotic clear through. The names of the sons Nahum, DeWitt Clinton, Marion, Jerome, Baron Steuben, Jasper and Stewart, were nearly all taken from America's roll of honor and show the love of country possessed by the parents.
It is no wonder then, that when their country and flag was in danger these boys were nearly all ready to risk life and limb in their defense. Nahum, Marion Daniel, Baron Stuban., Jasper Stewart and Stewart all entered the army, each in a different regiment. Baron S. died in the field, and the others remained in the service until the close of the war, Nahum becoming a captain and winning fame as Sherman's chief signal officer, and Jasper fighting his way up to a first lieutenancy. Jerome engaged in a fistic battle with a Copperhead in 1861, in which he lost a thumb, a loss that barred him from becoming a boy in blue.
Stewart being so young, and so many of his brothers being willing to go, his father thought that Stewart ought to stay at home, at least a year longer. But Stewart thought otherwise and October 28, 1861, he went to Port Washington and enlisted in the Ozaukee Rifles. He being under age his father took him home again, but Stewart ran away at the first opportunity and rejoined the Rifles. Taking the sheriff with him, his father brought Stewart home handcuffed and chained him to his bed. But that night he managed to loosen the chains from the bed, jumped out of a window, went to a neighbor's whom he induced to cut off the handcuffs, threw them and the chain into the river and was soon back to the company. After the Rifles reached Camp Randall his father made another attempt to bring Stewart home but the colonel would not let him take his boy without an order from the governor. For some unknown reason the governor did not issue the order, and the father went home alone.
Stewart made a fine soldier, following the fortunes of the gallant Rifles from its muster in to its muster out, participating in all the battles and campaigns in which his regiment took part, never missing a day's duty, and always ready to volunteer for any dangerous or exciting task. After the close of hostilities, Stewart returned home, but was not contented there, and was soon wandering over the great northwest. He has been a lumberman in Wisconsin and Minnesota, a Fenian member of the unfortunate Louis Reil's army, a scout for Generals Sheridan and Custer on the plains, one of the first adventurers at Pike's Peak, a volunteer soldier in several Indian wars, a ranch owner in Arizona, a prospector and engineer in Colorado, Idaho, Arizona, New Mexico, California and Mexico, and a contractor in several places. In 1895, after making a prospecting journey across the great American Desert, he came east to visit his Ozaukee county friends, after an absence of twenty-seven years. During the past summer, Stewart joined a company of Americans bound for Cuba to assist the patriots there, and if still living is doubtless taking an active part in the struggle for liberty that is being waged in that unfortunate island. Although but fifty-one years Stewart has had a wonderful and varied experience, which if properly told would overshadow the wildest fiction, and hundreds of his old comrades and friends will wish him a safe return from his new field of adventure.
Ozaukee County Old Settlers' Club
1873, The Ozaukee County Old Settlers' Club was organized by a number of pioneers surviving at the time. A listing of the clubs members, (and year of arrival) since its founding was published in 1881. The list included the following entry: George C. Daniels, 1844.
George Cook Daniels Dies
April 28, 1875 George C. Daniels died. George and Maria had been married for 59 years.
Sometime prior to his death George Cook Daniels prepared a will in the presence of Henry L. Coe and L.E. Moore, both of Port Washington.
The Milwaukee News
The following information regarding George's death was published in the Milwaukee News on May 4, 1875George C. Daniels, one of the oldest pioneer's of Wisconsin, died at his residence in this village on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 28th. The Captain, as he was familiarly called, was widely known in the State and elsewhere. He was "a man of indomitable energy and stern will; when not crossed in his purposes was genial and sociable."
A Masonic Square may be found at the top of his headstone located in Port Washington's Union Cemetery.
Maria Louisa Baker Daniels Dies
January 22, 1883 79 year old Maria Louisa Baker Daniels dies and is buried in Union, Cemetery next George. Sometime prior to her death Maria prepared a will in the presence of Chas. E. Chamberlain, and L.E. Moore, both of Port Washington. In her will, Maria provided money and securities to 3 sons, Nahum Daniels, Jasper S. Daniels and Stewart Daniels: each of said sons to received one third part of said moneys and securities for moneys remaining after her death.
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