| Notes |
- Percillia's ancestry is still being researched. Long Island Surnames cites that she was born in Riverhead in 1839. Church/cemetery records show her born in 1848. She shows in the 1850 Census in Riverhead, NY, age 12, in the household of Merritt and Eleanor (Luce) Howell. (Could not find a connection between the Howell or Luce family to a White family). She married William Cornell Darling about 1856. They resided in Smithtown. The couple had 11 children (recorded at L.I. Surnames) from 1856-1879. In records Percillia's first name also shows as Pircille, Percille and Priscilla as well as her middle name used as her first.
The Town of Smithtown Clerk's office shows a death recorded for "Percillia" C. Darling Nov 15, 1916, age 68 (incorrect age). (No parent's names were listed on the document). Censuses, L.I. Surname data, her marriage year and birth of her first child support that she was born around 1839. She shows as age 75 in the NY State 1915 Census.
The Landing Cemetery records show that she is buried there but sadly, there is no marker. Her husband isn't buried there either, but his probably grave location has been found via research.
The historical societies of Smithtown and Suffolk County and the Riverhead, NY historian had no information on Percillia or a White family that she may have been connected to. The Bellport-Brookhaven Historical Society did not respond.
Update re: Percillia's husband William's burial site (it's not St James, NY): A cousin researched NY Episcopal Church records and found that William died November 29, 1911 in Manhattan, NY at an Episcopal mission. Records say he was buried in "St James, NY" or possibly NYC.
I spoke with St James, NY Episcopal Church. They had no record of William being buried there (besides, that, the Conklins were staunch Methodists and all family buried in Landing Cemetery, Smithtown Cemetery). I also spoke with people at surrounding Protestant churches and they had no record of his burial.
I spoke with the Episcopal archivist in NYC. He said that William died at a non-denominational hospital for the poor on Blackwell Island (now known as Roosevelt Island) off Manhattan. He happened to be ministered to by an Episcopal minister. The majority of people who died there were interred in mass, unmarked grave pits on Hart Island. Records of that were lost or destroyed when the NYC Correctional system took over the island.
It is implausible to think that in 1911 William's remains were shipped from NYC to Suffolk County (by a family of modest means) and consequently not interred in the family's Landing Cemetery.
W.C. last appears in a NY Census in 1900, age 70. He appears in the 1910 Census in Grafton,Virginia, boarding with a family there. He was a watchman at an oyster dock. An Ancestry member told me not unusual for Long Island oyster men to work in Chesapeake Bay in the winter months.
Percillia and W.C.'s children were: Allen F. b. c. 1856, Franklin b. c. 1858, Ida Augusta (Conklin), Ella Jane (Jewell) b. c. 1862, Isadora (Gould), Adelia (Davis) b. c. 1868-1945, Leonard H. b. c. 1870-1949, Sherman G. 1871-1951, Mary A. ("Mame") (Robinson) 1874-1944, Harry Smith, Lillian Grace (Hubbs-Palow-Giles).
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1839 - 1916 (~ 77 years)