Earliest Dayton Marker in America

Of the original six members of the immigrant Ralph Dayton family, the location of only one original gravesite can be confirmed, that of Alice Baker.

Of these six, daughter Ellen Dayton Linsley was probably the first to die, most likely in childbirth (Hannah), in 1654. She had remained at Guilford Connecticut with her husband while the rest of the family settled on Long Island.

Within a year or two after Ellen’s passing, her mother Alice Goldhatch Tritton Dayton died in East Hampton. There is no proof for this, but the opinion is commonly held.

Just a couple of years later, patriarch Ralph died in 1658, while living near his son Samuel at North Sea (then called Northampton), in the area of Towd, in the town of Southampton.

More than 30 years after his father died, middle-son Samuel Dayton (older brother Ralph remained in Ashford, Kent) died on his farm at Dayton’s Neck, in Brookhaven, in 1690.

Ralph and Alice’s eldest daughter Alice Dayton Baker died in 1708 while living at Amagansett, a little over 2 miles east from East Hampton. According to Ross and others, Alice had moved there to live with her son Nathaniel after her husband Thomas Baker died.

Finally, youngest son Robert Dayton died in 1712 at East Hampton.

To my knowledge, the only original memorial stone to be discovered belongs to Alice Dayton Baker. At least, it is assumed that the current stone is the original, as it appears by style and condition that it might have been contemporary to her death.

If another stone had been placed for a member of the family, the probability of that stone being original is not high since most of those earliest generations of Puritans did not use “permanent” markers. In fact, many used wood or rough stone to mark burial sites.

Alice Baker’s burial site is in the cemetery at Amagansett on Montauk Highway.  See Chronicles of the Family Baker by Lee C. Baker (no date) for more details. The inscription on her stone says:

Here Lie_h y Body of Alice Baker Formrli y Wife of Thomas Baker Who Died February y 4: 1708:9 In y 88 year of Her Age