Gideon Picket Babcock

Biography

Gideon Babcock carried an established Rhode Island household into a new commercial life in central New York. Born in 1744 to David and Dorcas Brown Babcock, he married Mary Chesebrough at Stonington, on Connecticut’s southeastern coast, on June 27, 1776. The Babcock genealogy places him in the militia of South Kingstown in southern Rhode Island as a lieutenant during 1775–1777 and later lists him as a justice of the peace from 1795 to 1799. These were separate periods of local responsibility, divided by nearly twenty years.

He also had a substantial part in his father’s affairs. David’s 1782 will appointed Gideon executor and provided farms for five surviving sons. The appointment placed Gideon at the center of settling an estate that included land, household property and enslaved people.

In 1799 Gideon moved to South Brookfield, in central New York. According to the family history, he acquired 640 acres and developed an interconnected group of enterprises: a gristmill, a sawmill, a distilling plant, potash works and a store. These were distinct operations, drawing customers and raw materials to a single locality. The settlement became associated with the Babcock mills; the genealogy reported that a mill was still operating there in 1902.

Gideon and Mary’s family extended across the move. Most of their children were born during their Rhode Island years, while their youngest son, Corrington, was born at Brookfield in 1802. The family history says that three sons went to sea and two, Amos and Henry, drowned. Its explanation that Gideon moved inland to discourage seafaring is a family interpretation; the commercial undertakings themselves are the more definite part of the account. Gideon died in 1826. His life joined militia and civil service, estate administration, and the creation of a substantial inland milling business.

Family records also use the middle name Picket for Gideon. Asa Babcock was among his children.