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Josephine Matilda deZeng
by
Eleanore R. Clise
Geneva Historical Society
Josephine Matilda deZeng was born January 15, 1823 in Geneva, New York
and died on June 5, 1865. She was the fourth of ten children born to William
Steuben deZeng (1793-1882), son of Baron Frederick Augustus deZeng, and
Caroline Cutbush Rees, daughter of Major James Rees.
James Rees, a Major during the War of 1812, was the first cashier of
the Bank of Geneva which was chartered in March 1817, and is now called
the National Bank of Geneva. Mr. Rees built and resided in the house that
is now the rectory of Trinity Episcopal Church, 528 South Main Street.
This house was the first site of the bank and was both the residence of
Mr. Rees and his family and of the bank. His daughter Caroline, Josephine's
mother, married William S. deZeng and continued to live in this house
with her family.
The Bogerts lived on the other side of Trinity Church, 512 S. Main. At
this period Bishop DeLancey and family lived at 803 S. Main. The Prouty
family were across the street and a couple of houses south from Josephine.
The Prouty house now houses the Geneva Historical Society. Josephine's
father and brother were involved at the time of this diary with the glass
factory at Clyde, NY, which was an offshoot of the former Geneva glass
factory.
The first child of William Steuben deZeng and Caroline Cutbush Rees was
Matilda, who died when she was three. James Rees, the second child (probably
the Jim in her diary), was born in 1819. He lived until 1884, but never
married. The third child, Evelina Throop deZeng, lived less than two years.
Josephine was the fourth child.
After Josephine came William who remained a bachelor and died at 26 in
Panama in 1849. Then came Caroline, born in 1827, who married William
Armstrong Seward and had two daughters, later Mrs. Endicott and Miss Seward.
Josephine's brother, Henry Lawrence, born in 1829, married Olivia Murray
Peyton of Geneva in 1862, and they had two daughters and a son, Henry,
who had a son and three daughters. One of Henry Lawrence's sisters became
Mrs. Clarence Waring and built a house on Main Street in Geneva. The other
sister was named Josephine Matilda deZeng. She was born in Geneva on August
10,1868, just more than three years after her father's sister Josephine
Matilda, our diarist, died. The new Josephine married James Rogers Holcomb
of New Castle, Delaware, in 1896, and they had seven children.
After Henry came another brother, Edward Cutbush, who Josephine mentioned
playing his violin and amusing her suitors. He was born in 1831 and lived
until 1911. Josephine's youngest sisters were Mary Anne, born in 1834
and living to 1906 in Geneva, and Evelina Throop, living from 1836 until
1905 in Geneva. The parents outlived four of their children; their mother
died in 1878, and their father, in 1882.
Josephine married Edward Floyd deLancey of New York on Nov. 16, 1848.
Their first child, Caroline deZeng, was born Oct 26, 1853, and lived three
weeks. Their second, Frances Munro, was born Nov. 19, 1854, and lived
12 years. Their third, William Heathcote, was born Nov. 9, 1856, and lived
almost four years. Their fourth child, Edward Etienne, was born May 12,
1859, at New York. He married Lucia Cleveland Grannis of Briar Cliff,
New York. They had two children: Edward Floyd and William Heathcote deLancey
II. (Neither of these had children and the deLancey name in this line
died out) Josephine's fifth child, Josephine Floyd, was born Oct. 20,
1860, and lived only 7 weeks. Finally her sixth child, Josephine, was
born June 18,1863, in New York. She survived, but never married and later
lived in Geneva with Mrs. P. N. Nicholas.
Josephine Matilda deZeng deLancey died on June 5, 1865, when she was
only 42 years old.
Her husband, Edward Floyd deLancey, was born in Mamaroneck, New York,
Oct. 23, 1821. His father was William Heathcote deLancey who was an Episcopal
bishop and a trustee of Hobart College from 1839 to 1865. Edward was in
the Hobart class of 1843 and received an M.A. in law in 1846. He is listed
in the Hobart College Catalogue of 1897 as an author and a member of several
historical societies, and of the St. Nicholas Society of New York. Edward
deLancey lived until April 7, 1905, 40 years after his wife's death. He
never remarried.
What happened to Josephine's friends mentioned in her diary? Mag (Margaret
Munro) deLancey was married by her father to Dr. Thomas Fortescue Rochester
of Rochester in Trinity Church, Geneva, on April 6, 1852.
Paul Cooper and his sisters
were cousins of Edward and Mag deLancey. James Fenimore
Cooper, the novelist, married Bishop deLancey's sister, and their son
Paul went to Hobart College (Geneva College then).
The typescript of Josephine Matilda deZeng's diary was given to the archives
of the Geneva Historical Society by Dr. Robert E. Doran in 1976. He had
received it from Mrs. Harriet deLancey whose late husband was a great-grandson
of the diary's author.
Mrs. deLancey did not know how her husband happened to have these typed
pages nor if other pages existed. Attempts to locate the original or other
parts of the transcript have been futile.
It may be that these pages are all that survived, because of the page
numbering; i.e., the very last page, number 51, was written almost twelve
years after the first fifty pages, yet is numbered as if it followed the
last page done in 1842. Obviously, whether Josephine kept her diary faithfully
in the interim or even in part of those years, the transciber did not
have those intervening entries. How fortunate, however, to have that last
page included! Otherwise, the manuscript would resemble a mystery story
with no ending given.
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