Isaac Woodruff, ^

1781 - 1813  (32 years)

• Name	Isaac Woodruff  [1]
  Suffix	^
  Birth	1781  [2, 3]
  Gender	Male
  Death	5 Nov 1813	drowned at Fire Place, Brookline, Long Island, NY, USA   [2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
  	He was one of eleven men from Fire Place who drowned in a fishing incident in the Atlantic Ocean off of Fire Island, opposite Fire Place Neck.
  Burial	Oakdale (St. John's Cemetery), Islip, Suffolk, NY   [2, 8]
  Person ID	I11226	My Genealogy
  Last Modified	17 Sep 2023

  
  

  Father	Matthew Woodruff,   b. 1745, Brookhaven, Suffolk, New York, United States d. 1791, Bellport, Brookhaven, Suffolk, New York, United States (Age 46 years)
  Mother	Abigail Curtis,   b. 1759   d. 30 Apr 1807, Stamford, Fairfield, Connecticut, USA (Age 48 years)
  Marriage	1770
  Family ID	F8737	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Hannah Terry,   b. Abt 1781   d. Yes, date unknown
  Marriage	2 Mar 1807	Riverhead, Suffolk, New York
  Children	1. Amanda Woodruff,   b. 2 May 1813   d. 2 May 1835, Brookhaven, Suffolk, New York, USA (Age 22 years)
  Family ID	F5050	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	27 May 2025

  
  

• Notes

  No connection to the Woodruff families of either Bellport/western Fire Place, or Yaphank Neck (South Haven), Town of Brookhaven, Long Island, NY has yet been found. Isaac was among those whom the Long Island Star identified as having left a family. That he was interred, or a memorial monument erected, in the St. John's Church Cemetery in Oakdale suggests that he likely was of that community. In the same row of gravestones at that cemetery were two other Woodruffs and a Morris which may provide clues to the present Isaac's family -- in order from Isaac's stone, north to south: Anna Woodruff, d. May 24, 1835 aged 22 years, 4 months, 12 days; Jacob Morris, d. February 15, 1855, AE 86 years; an unmarked gap; and Isaac Woodruff, d. Jan 10, 1838, AE 28 years, 3 months, 26 days. Anna and the latter Isaac are of an age that they could have been the present Isaac's children; Anna would have been an infant at the time of her father's death. Jacob was likely the Capt. Jacob Morris who ran a coastal schooner between Sayville and New York City hauling firewood; no connection to the Woodruff's has yet been found.

  
  

• Sources

  [S28] Osborn Shaw, History of Brookhaven Village: A paper written by Mr. Osborn Shaw of Bellport for the Fireplace Literary Club, and read by him at the Brookhaven Free Library, October 5th, 1933. (Unpublished manuscript (transcription this site). 1933), p. 8 https://brookhavensouthaven.org/category/osborne-shaw-paper/. [S1300] St. John's Episcopal Church Cemetery, Oakdale, Islip Town, Suffolk County, NY. [S177] Ancestry.com, U.S., Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current (Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012). [S80] Stephanie Bigelow, Bellport and Brookhaven: A Saga of the Sibling Hamlets of the Old Purchase South. (Bellport-Brookhaven Historical Society. 1968), p. 5. "A major tragedy that affected the people of Fireplace occurred on Friday, November 5, 1813. A crew of eleven fishermen went through Smith's Inlet [Old Inlet] to fish from a "dry shoal" several hundred yards out in the ocean. While busy with their nets they did not notice that their boat was insecure and had floated away. It had been caught in the current running through the inlet as the tide began to change. As the water deepened over the sandbar, the men called for help, but none heard or came, and all were drowned. Six widows were left. One had said she was sure she had recognized her husband's voice shouting for help, but no one had believed her. The men were William rose, Isaac Woodruff, Daniel and Lewis Pearshall, Benjamin Brown, Nehemiah Hand, James and Henry Homan, Charles Ellison, James Prior and John Hulse." [S40] George Borthwick, The Church at the South: A History of the South Haven Church (Mattituck, N.Y. : Cutchogue Presbyterian Church, 1989.. Written c. 1940 in manuscript form.), p. 180-181. ... eleven men, namely, William Rose, Isaac Woodruff, Henry Homan, Charles Ellison, James Prior, John Hulse, Daniel and Lewis Parshall, Enjamin Brown, Nehemiah Hand, and James Homan went off South Beach in their small boat to fish. Accordingo the tradition, the men landed on the sand bar several hundred yards off shore, which at low tide is above water, to shake the sea-weed out of their nets, and hauled their boat upon the sand. They carelessly failed to anchor it, with the result that in the darkness they did not see that the rising tide was washing around it and lifting it, until finally a wave carried it off the bar. When they made the discovery that their boat was gone, and felt the tide rising about their feet, they began to shout so loudly that they were heard across the Beach and Great South Bay by people on the mainland at Brookhaven. It was a beautiful, calm night. One woman went to her neighbor's and remarked that she thought that something was wrong at the Beach as she was sure she had heard her husband's voice. It has always been a mystery why a rival fishing crew, which that night was in a house on the Beach, did not hear the men's cries and rescue them. One tradition declares that a man who had heard the shouting of the stranded fishermen, broke into the house to ask them to get the men. They evidently had been drinking, for one man drunkenly replied in answer to the intruder's plea: "Damn'em, let 'em drown." All eleven were drowned, and the next morning there were eight widows in the parish of South Haven. [S100] Long Island Star (Brooklyn, NY) 17 November 1813, as quoted in: Parshall, James Clark. The History of the Parshall Family from the Conquest of England by William of Normandy, A.D. 1066, to the Close of the 19th Century. Syracuse: Crist, Park and Parshall. Melancholy Occurrence — Rarely, indeed, has it been our painful duty to record a more melancholy occurrence than one which recently took place in that part of Brooklin [sic, Brookhaven] called Fire Place. On the evening of Friday, the 5th instant, eleven men, belonging to that village, went to the South Shore with a seine for fishing, viz: William Rose, Isaac Woodruff, Lewis Parshall, Benjamin Brown, Nehemiah Hand, James Horner, Charles Ellison, James Prior, Daniel Parshall, Harry Horner and John Hulse. On Saturday morning the affecting discovery was made that they were all drowned. It is supposed the whole party embarked in one boat, and went out to the outer bar, a distance of two miles from the shore, and which at low water is in some places bare, but that by some accident the boat was stove or sunk, and the whole party left to perish by the rising of the tide, which, at high water, is eight or ten feet on the bar. The boat came on shore in pieces, and also eight bodies. The six first named have left families. Long will a whole neighborhood lament this overwhelming affliction, and the tears of the widow and orphan flow for their husband, father and friend. [S101] Long Island Forum: journal (http://genealogycds.com), August, 1946. p. 149ff. [S28] Osborn Shaw, History of Brookhaven Village: A paper written by Mr. Osborn Shaw of Bellport for the Fireplace Literary Club, and read by him at the Brookhaven Free Library, October 5th, 1933. (Unpublished manuscript (transcription this site). 1933), p. 8 https://brookhavensouthaven.org/historical-sketches/osborne-shaws-history-of-brookhaven-fire-place/#1617950826433-58c3a081-6562. [S1301] , HoldenSimmons (N.p.: n.p., n.d.)., Isaac Woodruff.