Clues to Benjamin Nichols Dyer

Part of the problem with tracing Benjamin Nichols Dyer is that him and his family seemed to move around quite a lot.  Not only that, but the borders between states were frequently disputed during his and his parents’ life times.

I don’t know too much about his parents.  George Dyre and Ann Nichols were married in West Greenwich, RI on 25 Dec 1760.  There exist birth records for 10 children in Rhode Island.  However, according to the Gardner history and genealogy By Lillian May Stickney Gardner, the family had moved to Hancock, MA, next to Ann Nichols’ sister, Hannah Nichols Gardner.

Ann is listed in as having died in 1780 during the birth of her 11th child.  This is listed in Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens of Rutland County, Vermont (1899) and Genealogical and family history of the state of Vermont by Hiram Carleton (1903).  Carleton’s information is lifted word for word from Biographical Sketches.

I’m not entirely convinced this is true.  George Dyer did marry an Amy (she is listed as “Consort of George Dyer, Esq., in 75th y” on her gravestone in Claredon Flats), but I have seen in many peoples’ notes where they confuse his marriage to Amy ___ with Waite/Waity Gardner.  A Waite/Waity Gardner married a George Dyer in Hancock, MA on 7 Apr 1797.  This was most likely George Dyer, Jr.  Benjamin Nichols Dyer was living in Stephentown, NY (only a short distance form Hancock) in the 1790 and 1800 censuses.

In 1792, Palmer Gardner of Hancock, MA lost land in the survey of the border between Massachusetts and New York.  He and others were granted land in what is now Maine as equivalent land.