William Floyd (1734–1821) of Suffolk County Long Island was the first of the New York delegation to the Second Continental Congress to sign the Declaration of Independence and the fourth member of Congress to do so. A wealthy Long Island farmer, prior to the American Revolution he was a colonel of the Suffolk County Militia. Once hostilities erupted between colonists and England, he was commissioned a general of New York state militia. But General Floyd would never stand upon a field of battle. For most of the war, he would be confined to large, often dreadfully hot or chillingly cold rooms, embroiled in Congressional and later state duties.
Floyd was one of many signees who lived the paradox of declaring all men equal while owning multiple slaves to work his farm. One would think a northern slaveholder a rarity; however, New York City, at the start of the American Revolution, had the largest percentage of African Americans held in bondage to white owners throughout the colonies. For details on this, please refer to Revolutionary War Journals 2019 article New York City’s Long and Shameful History of Slavery. PUT in LINK
Early Life
William Floyd was born into wealth on December 17, 1734 at the Old Mastic House, a large farming estate of 4,400 acres in Brookhaven, Suffolk County, Long Island, about 65 miles east of New York City. His father was Nicoll Floyd (1705-1755) who married his mother Tabethia Smith (1704-1755) on April 6, 1727; together they would have nine children. The father Nicoll was an opulent and respectable landholder whose ancestors came to American from Wales around 1680 and settled on Long Island. In 1688, (National Park Service gives this date as 1718), William’s grandfather Colonel Richard Floyd II (1661-1737) had purchased the estate from the Tangier Smith’s family of the Mastic Neck in Brookhaven (interestingly William’s father Nicoll would marry into the Smith family). The land was originally owned by the Setalcott Native American Nation. Nicoll built the main house in 1723 (National Park Service states Nicoll’s father did this in 1720) where William was born.
The oldest male of seven children, William Floyd was groomed to eventually inherit the farm. As such, he received a basic, modest education; most of his time was devoted to learning farm husbandry. When Nicoll Floyd died in 1755 at age 49, eighteen-year-old William became the sole owner of the vast farm that included a multiple of slaves and indentured servants; both field and household. A variety of crops were sowed at the farm including wheat, rye, oats, corn, and flax. So too livestock that included sheep, cattle, and pigs. Just over a year of his father’s death, so too his mother passed away at age fifty.
Though of considerable wealth, William was considered a simple, likeable man whose greatest pleasures were hunting and hosting social events for his friends. And along with being the ‘life of the party,’ he delved in local politics. In 1769 he became an official of Brookhaven, his town of birth. As an upper-class gentleman and local leader, he naturally had a proclivity towards the military. In the early 1770’s he received a colonel’s commission in the Suffolk County Militia. During this period most ‘well ballasted’ gents were either a captain or colonel of their local militia; meeting occasionally to spend an hour or so marching about in the town square before heading to the local pub for some real ‘arm-bending’ practice.
Floyd married twice and would have a total of five children; a boy and four girls. His first wife was Hannah Jones (Feb. 1740–May 16, 1781 at age 41) who he married in 1760. All his lived to adulthood; Nicoll Floyd who married Phoebe Gelston (1770-1836) the daughter of the Port of New York Collector, Mary Floyd (1764-1805) would marry Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge and the famed leader of General Washington’s New York spy ring during the war, and Catherine Floyd (1767-1832) who married Reverend William Clarkson (1763-1813); who was renowned for having jilted a future president, but more on that later.
With the advent of possible war, Floyd’s comfortable life as landed gentry changed dramatically. An outspoken supporter of the growing rebellion, his money and influence garnished him the respect of fellow rebel rousers. Therefore, from local politics, he would step forward and onto a far grander stage. On September 5, 1774, he was in Philadelphia to take his seat at the New York Delegation to the First Continental Congress.
American Revolution
Floyd carried out his civic duties during the short, six-week session of the first Continental Congress before returning home to his settled life style. But unrest and rattling sabers caused him to return to Philadelphia the following year to once more represent New York in the 2nd Congress. A man of limited education, Floyd was neither a self-serving lawyer nor politician and therefore not inclined to drawn out oratory; often remaining silent while listening to others who eloquently debated issues. He was; however, a hard worker when it came to sitting on the various committees. This was where the real work was accomplished – hashing out details to forge a nation’s laws while finding the money to equip a military.
Floyd proved an avid supporter of the Declaration of Independence and was the first of the New York delegation to sign the document in August of 1776. However, when the British invaded New York City in July of 1776 and defeated the American army during the Battle of Long Island on August 27th, Floyd’s life took a drastic turn. Only a few weeks after he signed the Declaration and while still in Philadelphia, British forces confiscated his house and estate. Local fishermen took his wife Hannah and the children across Long Island Sound to Connecticut where the family resettled in Middletown. It would remain the family’s home until the British evacuated the City and Long Island, some seven years later. Meanwhile, the Floyd estate was used by British cavalry units as stables and base of operations during the occupation.
With his family refugees from their home, Floyd left Congress in 1776. Though his family resided in Connecticut, he continued to follow his political aspirations for the State of New York. From 1777 – 1788, he was a member of the New York State Senate’s Southern District. In 1777, he was also appointed a senator of the state of New York, under the new constitution. In October, 1778, Floyd returned to the Continental Congress to represent New York. He remained at his seat until March 1, 1781 when the Second Congress expired and on March 2, 1781, was succeeded by the Congress of Confederation; under the Articles of Confederation which established the new national government. The year 1781 was also when his wife Hannah died in Middletown, Connecticut. He would remain serving in the first three of the eight Congress of Confederations, from 1781 – 1783; leaving after the Treaty of Paris was signed, officially ending the American Revolution.
After the War
After the War, Floyd returned to the Floyd family home on Long Island to discover that the British cavalry had turned his residence and outbuildings into stables; basically, ruining it. He restored the house and the following year, married Joanna Strong (1757-1826) of Setauket, Long Island. They would have two daughters; Ann Floyd (1785–1857), who married George Washington Clinton – the son of Governor of New York George Clinton, and Elizabeth Floyd (1789–1820), who married James Platt – the youngest son of Continental Congressman Zephaniah Platt. Floyd returned to manage his farm, but remained in politics, serving as a State Senator and chosen as one of the state’s presidential electors. After the United States Constitution was established, he left the state senate to represent New York State in the first US House of Representatives. He served one session, from 1789 – 1791, before heading home to Long Island.
Still embroiled in state politics, Floyd was aligned to the Jeffersonian policies and the Democratic/Republican party. In 1795, he ran for Lt. governor of New York with Robert Yates as governor on the Democratic Republican ticket, but they were defeated by Federalists John Jay and Stephen Van Rensselaer. Though defeated, he retained his interest in state politics for ten years later, in 1801, he joined a committee tasked with rewriting the New York State constitution.
Once the estate on Long Island was restored, Floyd soon turned his interest north. In 1784 he purchased a large, uninhabited tract of land upon the Mohawk River. Close to Lake Oneida, it was approximately 100 miles northwest of Albany and seven miles east from Fort Stanwix (present day Rome). Accordingly, he, along with his slaves, indentured servants, and black freemen, spent summers converting a considerable tract of land into a well cultivated farm. Though still living on Long Island, in 1794 he established his residency in the northern region of Oneida County. Soon after, by personal influence and legislative friends, the nearby town of Floyd, New York, was established in his honor. By 1803, he had built a residency at Westerville, eight miles north of Fort Stanwix, and at the age of 69, moved to this frontier region. His political interests still intact, in 1808 and at age 74, he was elected to represent that northern region in the New York State Senate.
Catherine ‘Kitty’ Floyd and Future President James Madison
In 1783, James Madison and Catherine ‘Kitty’ Floyd were engaged to be married and exchanged these miniatures painted by Charles Wilson Peale.
When Virginian James Madison became a delegate for the 2nd Continental Congress and arrived in Philadelphia in 1780, he resided at an upscale boardinghouse; Mary’s House on 5th and Market Street, a block from the Pennsylvania State House. During the winter and spring of 1783, James met and fell in love with Catherine “Kitty” Floyd, the beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter of Congressional delegate William Floyd. Floyd and his family also lived at the boardinghouse. Thirty-two years old at the time, Madison was extraordinarily shy in social situations, particularly ones in which attractive women were involved. At five feet three and prematurely balding, he was not considered a physical ‘catch’.
However, another future president stepped in to help forge the budding relationship. Madison’s good friend and colleague Thomas Jefferson had also boarded at Mary House’s establishment in the winter of 1783. He had seen the mutual attraction between Kitty Floyd and his friend. Playing the matchmaker, while on his way back to Monticello in April of 1783, Jefferson wrote Madison a letter urging him to propose marriage. The shy politician took his friend’s advice and Kitty accepted. On April 29, 1783, Floyd, along with his sixteen-year-old daughter, left for home on Long Island. Madison accompanied them as far as Brunswick, New Jersey. There he said goodbye to his fiancé until he could wrap up business in Philadelphia. By late July, Madison knew something was wrong. On August 11, 1783, he wrote to Jefferson that Kitty had fallen in love with someone else; a nineteen-year-old medical student at the College of Philadelphia named William Clarkson. Madison never fully got over the love for Kitty and her rejection. Reportedly, when he was nearly eighty, he came across two letters he had written about Kitty to Jefferson in 1783. Rereading the letters, he inked out all references to Kitty.
Later Life and Slaveholder
In 1813, four years after President James Madison entered the White House, Floyd’s daughter Catherine (Kitty) lost her husband, leaving her a 46-year-old widow with three children. Four years later, Floyd and Kitty had a fallen out. Perhaps Floyd was still bitter over Kitty’s rejection of the young Madison thirty years previous; Madison and fellow Virginian Jefferson had been close friends of Floyd. In 1817, at age eighty-two, he wrote a will in which he accused his daughter of squandering “considerable sums” of money he had given her, as well as a piece of land worth $7,000. He therefore bequeathed her only $70 a year. However, just prior to death in 1821, Floyd softened and gave Kitty a piece of land in Oneida County and an additional $1,000. Kitty Floyd was living with a daughter in New York City when she died at age 65 in 1832. She was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
As with so many of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Floyd saw no contradiction nor hypocrisy in signing a document that declared all men created equal, while owning over a dozen slaves as household servants or to work his farms. Even in later life, when some of the signees, particularly those who lived north, freed their slaves, Floyd did not (New York would not abolish slavery until 1827). The Federal Census of 1790, fourteen years after the signing, recorded that the William Floyd household held 14 people as slaves. In the 1820 Census, when Floyd was 86, he still had 6 slave living in his household in Westernville, NY. Floyd retained these slaves to death and his will did not set them free; similar to George Washington who upon his death, placed his slaves under his wife’s ownership. Ironically nearby Floyd, New York, and William’s namesake, would become known as a center for the intellectually inclined and anti-slavery assemblies and activities.
Death and Legacy
William Floyd died on his farm in Westernville, New York on August 4, 1821 at age 87. Reverend Charles Goodrich eloquently wrote in 1836 that “He enjoyed unusual health, until a year or two before his death. The faculties of his mind continued unimpaired to the last. A little previous to his death, he appeared to be affected with a general debility, which continuing to increase, the lamp of life was at length extinguished.” Floyd is buried at the Westernville Cemetery in Oneida County. His first wife, Hannah Jones who died in 1781 and his second wife, widow Joanna Strong who died in 1826 are buried beside him. Floyd is one of the few family members not to be buried at the Floyd Family Cemetery at the Mastic House estate on Long Island.
Floyd is mainly forgotten with few historic mentions in texts devoted to those who signed the Declaration of Independence. On March 30, 1931, almost 110 years after William Floyd’s death, County Route 46 became the William Floyd Parkway; created and named after him. The William Floyd School District in Brookhaven Town bears his name as does the district’s William Floyd Elementary School, William Floyd Middle School, and William Floyd High School. As previous discussed, the town of Floyd, New York in Oneida County bears his name.
As to the Floyd family estate, Old Mastic House, on Long Island, it remained in the Floyd family for several generations; reduced from the original 4,400 acres to a little over 600 by the 1900’s. In the 1930s, Cornelia Floyd Nichols (1886-1977) inherited and enlarged the house, expanding the northwest wing to accommodate a modern kitchen and pantry. Her husband, John Nichols (1883-1958), was a naturalist and longtime curator at the Museum of National History. Cornelia and her family were among the last lineal descendants of Richard Floyd to live in the house. Cornelia remained on the estate after John’s death and deeded it to the United States Government National Parks Service who took possession after she died. It became a museum and is part of the Fire Island National Seashore.
William Floyd’s final residence in northern New York is located on Main Street at Gifford Hill Road in Westernville, New York. It had remained in the Floyd family until 1951 until it was sold; having five other owners since. The house is not open to the public, but the current owners share information about the residence through the internet.
Special Thanks
A special thanks to Kenneth Bohrer, College Counselor and American Revolution Reenactment Photographer, for providing additional information on William Floyd. Having grown up on Long Island, Ken spent a summer volunteering his time as a guide to the Floyd estate.
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RESOURCE
Fradin, Dennis Brindell. The Signers: The 56 Stories Behind the Declaration of Independence. 2002: Walker Publishing Company, New York, NY.
Goodrich, Rev. Charles A. Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence… 1836: Thomas Mather Publisher, New York, NY.
History of American Women. “James Madison’s First Love”
National Park Service. Fire Island National Seashore, New York. “William Floyd”
National Park Service. Fire Island National Seashore, New York. “William Floyd Estate: Old Mastic House.”
Town of Floyd Website. “History of Floyd”
Waln, Robert Jr., John Sanderson Editor. Biography of Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Vol. 6. 1823: R. W. Pomeroy, Philadelphia, PA.