William Rose, ^

William Rose, ^

Male 1772 - 1813  (41 years)


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  • Name William Rose  [1, 2
    Suffix
    Birth 25 Sep 1772  {Fire Place (now Brookhaven), Brookhaven, Suffolk, NY} Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 3
    Gender Male 
    Death 5 Nov 1813  the Atlantic Ocean (off Fire Island) Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
    • CAUS: from drowning while fishingHe was one of eleven men from Fire Place (modern Brookhaven Hamlet, NY) who drowned in a fishing incident in the Atlantic Ocean off of Fire Island, opposite Fire Place Neck.
    Burial Brookhaven (Oaklawn Cemetery), Brookhaven, Suffolk, NY Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Person ID I6053  My Genealogy
    Last Modified 17 Sep 2023 

    Father Thomas Rose, ^,   b. 27 Sep 1736, {Fire Place (now Brookhaven), Brookhaven, Suffolk, NY} Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 3 Apr 1780 (Age 43 years) 
    Mother Deborah Pease,   b. 22 Oct 1745, Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 29 Sep 1812, {Fire Place (now Brookhaven), Brookhaven, Suffolk, NY} Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 66 years) 
    Family ID F449  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Catherine Brewster, <,   b. Abt 1773   d. 11 Jul 1852, {Fire Place (now Brookhaven), Brookhaven, Suffolk, NY} Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 79 years) 
    Marriage Abt 1806  [1, 2, 9
    Children 
     1. Deborah Ann Rose, ^,   b. Jan 1807, {Fire Place (now Brookhaven), Brookhaven, Suffolk, NY} Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 4 Nov 1807, {Fire Place (now Brookhaven), Brookhaven, Suffolk, NY} Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 0 years)
    Family ID F2904  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 27 May 2025 

  • Notes 
    • [It is unproved that this William is a son Lt. Thomas Rose, but it seems plausible. William's memorial stone is with the old "Senator" John Rose plot at the Oaklawn Cemetery, Brookhaven. If I am correct, John would have been William's older brother. William died suddenly from drowning in 1813; his father Thomas had died long before, and his mother had died about a year earlier. While both his parents were interred in the old Rose family cemetery still extant off Jareds Path, Brookhaven, NY, "Senator" John apparently had established a new burying ground for his family at a site on the north side of Beaverdam Rd., near the modern site of the the Brookhaven Free Library.]

      [It is also not proved that the William Rose who was known to be the husband to Catherine Brewster (daughter of Charles Jeffrey Brewster and Temperance Smith) is the same person as the William Rose whose memorial stone is found in the Oaklawn Cemetery. The principal evidence is the gravestone for Catheren Rose, wife of William Rose, adjacent to William in the "Senator" John Rose Plot. Both of their parents would have been contemporaries, and of compatible socio-economic class. I have not found any other candidate William Rose in Fire Place.]

  • Sources 
    1. [S11] gravestone, Oaklawn Cemetery, Brookhaven, Brookhaven, Suffolk, NY (); May, 2005.

    2. [S80] Stephanie Bigelow, Bellport and Brookhaven: A Saga of the Sibling Hamlets of the Old Purchase South. (Bellport-Brookhaven Historical Society. 1968), p. 10.

    3. [S103] The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society Record (New York Genealogical Society: New York), Vol 122, No. 1 (Jan 1991), p. 28.
      Family Record of John Rose of Long Island: This family record was found in by Bernice Weir of Huntington, Long Island, when she was helping Sister Eileen Cleater, former head of Trocair, a Catholic organization. They had been willed the contents of an old home (that of Marie M. Baddetty who died at 105). While dusting a new Bible, photocopies from an old Bible fell out, and are here presented.
      John Rose, descendant of Robert Rose of Southampton and East Hampton, Long Island, married Elisabeth Rose, daughter of the Rev. David Rose ... of the Branford and Wethersfield, Connecticut, family. Thus, this marriage joined these two Rose families....
      This Bible / Is the Property of / John Rose.

    4. [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."

    5. [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.

    6. [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.

    7. [S101] Long Island Forum: journal (http://genealogycds.com), August, 1946. p. 149ff.

    8. [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), https://brookhavensouthaven.org/historical-sketches/osborne-shaws-history-of-brookhaven-fire-place/#1617950826433-58c3a081-6562.

    9. [S46] Ruth Tangier Smith, M.D. and Henry Bainbridge Hoff, compiler, The Tangier Smith Family: Descendants of Colonel William Smith of the Manor of St. George, Long Island, New York (Farmingdale, L.I., NY: The Order of Colonial Lords of Manors in America., p. 12.