BIOGRAPHY

The old Platt genealogy calls Jonas' wife "Sarah Scudder". The 1963 Platt genealogy called her "Sarah Scudder?" Jacobus calls her "Sarah Scudder."

The "Sarah Scudder" who married Jonas Platt is tentatively identified as Sarah (Brown) Scudder, daughter of Francis Brown of Stamford and Rye, and widow of Jonathan Scudder of Huntington. The evidence is entirely circumstantial. Two of Jonas' uncles were witnesses to Jonathan Scudder's will. They lived at Huntington, and Sarah was a widow with young children at the right time to have married Jonas Platt. The estimated birth dates of Jonas' children range from 1694 to 1715 -- a span of 19 years. If, however, Jonas' wife was the widow of Jonathan Scudder, she already had four children, born 1681 to 1688 -- increasing the span of childbearing to 34 years. Sarah (Brown) Scudder's birth is estimated as 1662, which would make her five years older than Jonas (if the estimates are correct), and 53 when the final child, Ruth, was born in 1715. This suggests the possibility that Jonas had more than one wife, and that this second, unknown, wife was the mother of the younger children. The will of Jonas' son Zebulon names brothers Obadiah, Amos and Timothy, but not the oldest two, Jesse and Isaac -- also suggesting two families. No one has named another wife, however, and there is no record of Sarah's death. The Abridged Compendium of American Genealogy, cited by Rondi Frankel on the Platt list 9/7/1999, says that the Sarah Scudder who married Jonas Platt was the daughter of Timothy Scudder. The Scudder Association Bulletin 19:14 says that Sarah Scudder, daughter of Timothy Scudder and Sarah Wood, married George Frederick Weiser, but they give few dates or other supporting information for Timothy's children. However, The Palatine Families of New York by Henry Z. Jones, pp. 1075-1078, cited by Bill St. George, confirms the marriage of Timothy's daughter Sarah to Georg Freidrich Weiser.