Daniel Stilwell

Life

References for this account: [1][2][3][4]

Where they lived

Use the place list first. The map below is optional.

The pins show approximate places. The line only joins them in time order; it does not prove the route travelled. 1 of the places listed above are recorded only as a county or country, so they are not pinned. Cemetery and burial places have red pins.

Historical context

These background articles explain the places, work, and events in this entry.

What we still don't know

• **His own parents** — and with them the generation before, since his brother Jeremiah was born at Bedminster in 1768. The published *History of Lieutenant Nicholas Stillwell* is cited on Jeremiah's page and would be the place to look; the 1931 *Stillwell genealogy* volumes on archive.org were checked and cover the Staten Island and Monmouth branches, not this Somerset one.
• His birth and death, given as about 1771 and about 1840 and supported by nothing read here.
• His marriage to Elcey Stryker, which would be in the Somerset County or Hillsborough Reformed registers.
• **Where this family sits among the American Stillwells is not established.** The standard published genealogy traces most of them from **Lieutenant Nicholas Stillwell**, who settled at Gravesend on Long Island in the seventeenth century, and follows that line into Hunterdon, Sussex and Monmouth counties. **Our people are in Somerset County** — Bedminster and Franklin Township — and the 1931 volumes were read in full and do not contain them. So this branch either descends from Nicholas by a path the book does not trace, or it does not descend from him at all. The book cited on Jeremiah's memorial, *The History of Lieutenant Nicholas Stillwell*, is a different work and is not online; it is the obvious next place to look.
• [CONTROLLED NEGATIVE — THIS LINE IS AT THE LIMIT OF WHAT IS INDEXED] Three searches on 8 August 2026 all returned nothing: **no marriage of a Daniel Stilwell to an Elcey** anywhere; **no baptism or birth for a Henry Stilwell in Somerset County 1804–1809**; and Henry's own indexed records are only the four this archive already holds — the 1850 census, the 1830 marriage, the 1855 state census and his daughter Alice's death. The Dutch Reformed registers of Somerset County are not indexed, and everything further back on this line is behind them.

References

1. [1] Biography on the Find a Grave memorial for Cornelia Stryker Brokaw Stilwell (memorial 295247056)Back to citation 1
2. [2] Find a Grave memorial for Elcey Stryker Stilwell (1788–1833), Hillsborough Reformed Church CemeteryBack to citation 2
3. [3] Find a Grave memorial for Jeremiah Stilwell, born Bedminster, Somerset County, 1768Back to citation 3
4. [4] Stillwell genealogy (1931), volumes 2 and 3 — searched, and this family is not in themBack to citation 4

See also

• Browse the list of names
• See this family in the full tree
• Browse all original records