Early town of Madison settler Prince Spooner has been memorialized with an official Mayflower Descendant bronze marker at his gravesite in the Indian Opening Cemetery, Indian Opening Road, Madison (near the intersection at North Street, towards Solsville). Prince Spooner’s descendant Chris Brown of Santa Fe, N.M., will dedicate the marker at 10 a.m. Oct. 17, 2019.
The public is encouraged to attend.
According to the 1872 History of Madison County, Spooner and his wife Ruth moved from Oakham, Mass., to acquire farmland here soon after the early Indian land cession treaties with New York. Their seven children, including Brown’s ancestor Martha and her daughter Rocelia were born in the Madison-Oneida area.
After Ruth Spooner died in 1813, Prince Spooner and his second wife, Rebecca, raised eight more sons and daughters until his death in Solsville in 1845. Spooner’s farmland passed to his sons and several generations of Spooners remained in the area.
Prince Spooner is named in the authoritative book series, Mayflower Families Through Five Generations and in official lineage papers maintained by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants in Plymouth, Mass.
Brown has confirmed that Spooner and his descendants share four Mayflower ancestors in common with New York governor and United States president Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Francis Cooke, Isaac Allerton, Degory Priest and Richard Warren.
Town of Madison Historical Society President Gary Anderson and town historian Diane Van Slyke will be on hand at the dedication.