PIATT FAMILY RESEARCHERS' CONFERENCE Delaware Valley College, Doylestown, Pennsylvania June 28, 2001 Present: Elizabeth "Liz" Branstead, Beth Ann Lauer, Kenneth Lawrence Lauer & Mary Joan (Piatt) Lauer, David Conrad Piatt, James Donovan Piatt and Edith (Ross) Piatt, Joseph Howard Piatt & Pauline (Carpinelli) Piatt, Laverne (Ingram) Piatt, Richard O. Piatt and Mary (Keiper) Piatt, Ira "Skip" Piatt, Sharolynn Pyeatt, Christine Webb, Elizabeth Webb. Liz and David started their day by going over to the Spruance Library. Liz was stunned by the architecture of the Museum. The artifacts are actually stacked three stories high---one buggy on top of another. It was just extraordinary. They did find Census Reports there, but they did not have Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania's section. >From there, their day went downhill. Liz and David decided to set out for Pottsville and got within a few miles of the place before David's alternator died. Their next stop was the auto dealership, where they spent quite a bit of time and found no Piatts. Not even in the phone book. Once the car was fixed, they felt they really could not bear to leave, having come so close, without at least going on into town. Naturally, they arrived after everything had closed for the day. So, they drove through, turned around, and started back . . . and got lost on the return trip! David did say that he found the geographic proximity of the Piatt locations near Pottsville very intriguing. It can't be more than 30 miles from where John Pyatt has a Tax Lien on him at Catawissa in 1798 to Ephraim's (b. 1781) burial place at New Columbus to David's 1830 location in Port Carbon (near Pottsville). Liz and David both feel that the fact that all of these Piatts lived so close together may imply a more than coincidental connection. Richard and Mary went to the Hunterdon County Court House to look for leads on Elijah and his Tavern License. After lunch they went back to the Hall of Records for awhile, then went down to the Historical Society to talk to a friend, Roxanne, who is extremely knowledgeable about Hunterdon County history. She told Richard that she does not believe anyone has ever made a complete listing of the Tavern Licenses in the county and the original record is still lost---just as stated in the secondary source Laverne found earlier in the week. Ken reported that the Lauers spent the morning in the Michener Room at the Art Museum, looking at everything on display there in detail. They also found a copy shop and the local Post Office and had a great lunch in downtown Doylestown. In the afternoon, Jo, Ken & Beth proceeded to the Archives at Trenton. Jo was able to track down a lot of interesting information on Joseph Paxton, who was a solid citizen and active with both the local government and his church. They also found some estate information since Joseph Paxton died before his son James attained his majority. But they couldn't find any Piatts around. It could be, though, that Joseph Paxton had a daughter who married a Piatt and then named her son Joseph. Since this was the era before family members were identified in the census, one would have to approach this theory via Bible Records or perhaps a Paxton genealogy. Beth finished getting the property records about Thomas Pyatt that she hadn't had time for on Tuesday. In the process she discovered a new spelling for Piatt: Piyat. The deeds confirmed that James was the father of Thomas Pyatt. Since there was not a lot of time left, Beth went back and read Thomas Pyatt's Will and estate papers. The will names all kinds of relationships. Thomas is the father of Asa. His wife is Martha, and his mother is Ruth. He also leaves a bequest to First Day Baptist church of Christ at Piscataway, the church that Sharolynn researched on Wednesday. Joe and Paulie went to the archives in the Federal Building at Philadelphia, a branch of the National Archives. It was hard to find the location, because no one on the street seems to be aware that The Archives are there. They did not have much luck finding the information they wanted. Then they had trouble coming home and ended up taking two trains and two buses to get back. Paulie looked at some material from the General Index for servicemen in the Revolution. The material is most likely familiar to many researchers, but she was interested to see just how many Piatts fought in the war, and she wanted to look under as many variant spellings for Piatt as she could find. An unusual finding included "Joseph Piolt/originally filed under Piot, Joseph." Other records of interest included: Payt, Jacob "originally filed under Payte," 7th Virginia Regiment; Peat, Elijah, Vermont Regiment;" Peat, Benjamin, "originally filed under Pyatt;" Peat, Lemuel, 7th Connecticut; Peat, Robert, "originally filed under Piat;" Paulie also found Peatt, James, the 4th New York Regiment; Peatt, Jerems; Peatt, Lewis; and Piatt, Lemuel "originally filed under Peat, Lemuel." Jim reported that Edith Ross Piatt had to go see the Betsy Ross house in Philadelphia. They enjoyed the tour very much and were also excited by their visit to Independence Hall and The Liberty Bell beforehand. Edith said that she was especially thrilled to stand where Abraham Lincoln had stood when he watched the raising of the flag (right next to George Washington's statue). They had a rough trip home, afterward, though. They ended up walking about nine blocks back to meet Joe and Paulie due to trouble making their bus connection. And after that they took the train plus two buses along with Joe and Paulie, experiencing the bounciest ride they had ever had on a train. (Paulie commented that, just for fun, she recommends that people try to get the seats on the part of the bus that articulates. It is an amazing experience, but not nearly as bouncy as the train was.) Christine and Elizabeth went to 84 Lumber, bought pliers, and managed to get the seat belt fixed in their car. Then they went to the Mercer Museum and the Public Library. They were amazed by the amount of concrete in the Museum building. Next they went to New Hope and had a generally good time having lunch and wandering in and out of shops. They also crossed the river to Lambertville for awhile, then came back to campus to relax. Sharolynn and Laverne went straight to the Alexander Library at Rutgers and worked their fingers to the bone until five o'clock. They xeroxed a lot and looked a lot, but haven't had time to piece it all together. Laverne reviewed all seven volumes of Ora Eugene Monnette's First Settlers of Piscataway and Woodbridge. She said that she didn't really know if they had found anything new today, but she did copy large amounts of information that she had heard of but never seen before today. There is an amazing quantity of information in that collection, and she doesn't know if any of it will ever be published elsewhere. She noted that there were three pages on Huguenots entitled "The Weavers Company of London," and a Frances Florey (Fleury) appears in the 1667 list right after Frances Defore (Devore). After they left the Library, Laverne and Sharolynn decided to go up to Samptown/Sampton to try to find some cemeteries. They didn't have any good information about where to go, however, so they ended up going around in circles. They stopped at a library to ask about one of the churches that they thought might still be active, and by using the yellow pages they managed to locate the St. James Episcopal Church, located just a stone's throw from where they were yesterday. That cemetery is very overgrown with tulip poplars, grapevine, briers and raspberries. You couldn't even photograph some of the stones that Laverne wanted to get, but then Laverne realized she had left her camera back in the dorm. Fortunately, Sharolynn had brought hers. Sharolynn commented that they were "on every side of the town" while looking for cemeteries, and Richard said that he thought they had probably been on portions of the original Rene Piatt lands during their sojourn. Notes by Beth A. Lauer