THE NEW JERSEY YEARS ~ 1783 - 1306
After leaving New York, Thomas and Mary Margeson spent about twenty-three years in Varnan Town, New Jersey, where Thomas worked as a shoemaker before the family migrated to western New York in 1806.
Published 9/14/2026
Report
Had Mary and Thomas kept and preserved their diary for the twenty-three years in Varnan Town, N.J., or had the local census and church records of the family been preserved, we just might have a whole chapter to bridge the gap from New York City to the next family episode in New York's Southern Tier. But we have no such source of materials. Even the local and state census records were destroyed during the War of 1812. The last campaign to reclaim the lost colonies included the burning of the Washington Government buildings and the New Jersey state records at Newark. The latter city had been developed over the very area where the Margesons had lived. During the New Jersey years, Thomas had followed his trade as shoemaker. Everybody had to have shoes. Even the fourteen pairs of shoes for his own family was a sizable order for one cobbler.
Method & sources consulted
Excerpt taken directly from 1970s Margeson family history book using OCR