Catherine Hedges

It has long been claimed that Joseph Hedges' wife Catharine was the daughter of John and Annika [Erickson] Stalcop. This claim appears to date back to a document entitled THE HEDGES ESTATE, a report by Hon. Thomas A. Logan (1884), p.43, which stated:

"There is a tradition in the [Hedges] family which runs as follows: Catherine Stallcup dreamed that a young man called at her father's house for lodging and was informed that he could be provided for, but that they had no stabling for his horse, but at the stranger's suggestion his horse was turned into the cow pasture. In the morning when Catherine went to milk she found the horse in the cow pasture and on going to the house learned that the young man of whom she had dreamed was a guest in the house, and that her dream had actually transpired in the manner it had appeared to her in sleep. The young man proved to be Joseph Hedges the emigrant, and he and Catherine were subsequently married.

"Unfortunately the tradition does not give the time and place of this very romantic meeting and wedding, but it has been handed down as an occurrence between my grandparents (correspondent unknown)."

From this anonymous source, Samuel Gordon Smyth in his GENEALOGY OF THE DUKE-SHEPHERD-VAN METRE FAMILY (1909) added the parents as John and Magdalena Erickson Stalcop. Subsequent hedges and Stalcop genealogies rely upon Smyth to make the same claims.

To this writer, there is no substance to this claim. John Stalcop lived at Christina and it was on his land (sold to the church) that Holy Trinity (Old Swedes) Church was built. He died in 1700. There is no apparent connection between his family and that of Joseph Hedges:

The will of John Stalcop (the only evidence of which is a 1735 copy in the records of Holy Trinity Church) mentions four children: Jonas, Israel, Christina and Mary. No Catharina is among them. [Stalcop genealogists surmount this problem by presuming that Christina was Catharina.] The husbands, if any, of Christina and Maria have not been identified. Both Jonas and Israel Stalcop married. Joseph Hedges did not appear as a baptismal sponsor for [any of] their children and they never appeared as a baptismal sponsor for Joseph's children. It was customary at that time for a married couple to name their children after the couple's parents. Joseph and Catherine Hedges had nine known children: none were named John or Anbnika (Anna). John Stalcop's widow married John Giöding; "Catherine Stallcup" had no "father" at the time she allegedly met Joseph Hedges at her "father's house." In contrast, we do find the name of Joseph Hedges periodically shown in the baptismal records of Holy Trinity Church at Christina. On 2 August 1713 Joseph Hedges was present to be a co-sponsor (with John and Brita Hendrickson) at the baptism of Samuel Hall's daughter Elizabeth. (HTR, 2:22) Samuel Hall's wife was a daughter of Charles Spinger. On 15 May 1715 Joseph Hedges returned to Holy Trinity for the baptism of his own son, Joshua. Baptism sponsors were the pastor Hesselius and his wife, Anders Cock (son of John Anderson Cock) and John Hendrickson's wife Brita. (HTR, 2:53)

[After Joseph Hedges died, his] widow Catherine thereafter appears to have married Isaac Bloomfield, who in 1740 witnessed the transfer of "Hedges Delight" from Solomon to Charles Hedges [sons of Joseph of Monocacy]; witnessed the 1747 will of Jacob Julien (first husband of Joseph Hedges' daughter Catherine); and had died by 1751 when Thomas Douthitt swore for him at probate of this will. Joseph Hedges and Joseph Wood were "near of kin" at the death of Catherine Bloomfield in 1749 and Charles Hedges on settling her estate made payments to Thomas Doouthitt, John Bell, Joseph Wood and Stephen Julian. Among the debts due her estate were debts owed by William and Jonas Hedges. At the 19 Nov 1751 court, Joseph and Charles Hedges, farmers, owed Robert DeButts, executor of Isaac Bloomfield £12.19.8. (Information collected by John P. Dern)