Almost forty years ago a daughter of Meniabel Murgittroyd started researching the Murgittroyd Family Tree. One of the people she was referred to by family members was a W. Scott Peloubet who was known to be kin of the Murgittroyd family with knowledge about the families Athens, NY roots. The main problem was that no one was sure how the two families were related and as it turned out Mr. Peloubet was not exactly sure either. I have read the letter over time and time again and as I have learned more about our family history have come to realize that much of the information is very accurate. In the letter Mr. Peloubet could not identify Mary F. Briggs, the wife of our Nicholas Murgittroyd as a child of Capt. Henry Briggs and Mary Jane Minnerley. It seems understandable that this would be a difficult connection since Nicholas and Mary had both died long before anyone then living was born.
The real fun of the letter is the window it opens on the life of our family in Athens, NY and our shared ancestry. As an added bonus the letter contains one line that seems to say that one of the Murgittroyd family members once tried to claim all of the town of Haverstraw, NY as part of an American Indian land claim. Such amazing information is given with barely any comment. I have tried unsuccessfully for years to find more about this claim. I would be happy to give back all of the land if I could find genealogical information for the basis of the claim.
It seems that the original Peloubet letter has been lost and what I have published is an exact typewritten copy of the letter. Many of the words in the original letter could not be made out and blanks or question marks were inserted. The letter is sometimes differcult to make out but I think you will find it to be worth the effort.