Jacob Mantle - Jacob Mantle

I have been researching this Jacob Mantle I for over 40 years and can get nowhere. This is what I have. Do you have a document stating he was born in 1755 in New London, CT?

We first see him in 1785 buying land in Lebanon , CT. He marries Bethiah Langrill/Langrel Hills in Lebanon in 1787 and has children. His wife and children are baptized in the Goshen Congregational Church. He continues to buy and sell land in Lebanon and then disappears after 1830.

So we only see him in Lebanon , CT , and he is a mystery prior to 1785 and after 1830. His wife, Bethiah, dies and is widowed in 1850 in Watertown , NY .

The Lebanon Historical Society gave me what they could find.

Oral history has the Mantle family coming from England in 1685 (but I wouldn't rule out Scotland ) and settling in MA. Later drifting to CT, then Jefferson County , NY (around Ellisburgh) and then to Lewis County, NY, Harrisville in 1825.

This was part of the message I received from the Lebanon Historical Society with the results of their research:

My colleague Grace Sayles shared your emails with me and asked if I might have any suggestions regarding your genealogical brick wall. In looking through the material that both Grace and our volunteer genealogist Lindy have sent you, I have a few observations. Jacob Mantle arrived in Lebanon as a young man, married locally, bought land and had children but apparently did not himself become a member of the church in Goshen or Exeter Societies. The location of his land suggests that he could have belong to the Exeter Society which separated from Goshen Society in 1773. No-one has found any death or burial record for the Mantles in Lebanon, either. This likely means the family moved away, perhaps to Lewis County, NY where census and cemetery records reveal a Jacob Mantle who could have been the son. But, I suspect that you have already been through that.

I am most familiar with Mantle/Mantel as a Pennsylvania German name which would be consistent with someone baptizing his children in a Congregational Church. Mantle is also sometimes an Irish name and there were Scotch Irish Protestant families in Massachusetts.

I strongly recommend contacting the New England Genealogical & Historical Society. If their staff and volunteers cannot help you, they do have a "brickwalls column in their bi-monthly magazine "American Ancestors." Here in Connecticut, the Connecticut Historical Society Library in Hartford or the Godfrey Genealogical Library in Middletown might be worth a visit, at least on line, to see if they have any holdings related to this family. If you want to look into a Pennsylvanian connection the Bethelem, PA Historical Society or the Lancaster, PA Historical Society might be able to help.