Caleb Levick (1755-1817)/Overview
From Familypedia
Caleb Levick is commonly said to have been born in France in 1755. There seems to be no primary source material to support this, and there is some reason to believe that he was born in Delaware. If so his grandsire may have been Richard Levick (?-1686) who settled in Kent County, DE, in 1680 with wife Mary.
Our first records for Caleb are found in Loyalists muster rolls of Captain Rutton's Company, 4th Brigade of the New Jersey Volunteers. These rolls show that he enlisted in the 7th of July 1778, and served as a private on Staten Island, NY, and in Hoboken, NJ until 14 July, 1779, when he is shown as a deserter. Military Land Grant recordes show him as having enlisted with the Virginia Continental Line, under Captain Joseph Swearingen. We do not have dates for his enlistment, but it appears that he served until the end of the War, first as a corporal, and later as a sergeant.
Our next record for him shows him on the tax records of Duck Creek Hundred, Kent Co., DE. This is the same general area in which Richard Levick, probable grandsire, was living beginning 1680. The unsupported idea that he was born in France may come from an assumption that the name "Levick" was a corruption of "Le Veque". There is reputed to be a record for Caleb in Delaware as November of 1791, but the basis of that is unknown. (It is possible that the Caleb Levick who enlisted in the New Jersey Volunteers, and/or appears in the Kent County records is a different person than the Caleb Levick about whom this article has been written. Additional evidence to show if these records are for the same person is needed.)
Sometime after the war he settled in Shepherdstown, Berkeley/Jefferson Co VA/WV. Extracts of Berkeley Co marriage records show him marrying on 13 January, 1793 to both Rachel Taylor, or Rachel Bedinger (c1755-1840). If these extracts are accurate, perhaps one record lists her under her maiden name, and the other under her name in a prior marriage. This remains a significant issue in working with the ancestry of Rachel's family. Land grant records, however, clearly identify her first name as "Rachel". For practical reasons we are currently assuming her name was "Bedinger".
Caleb and Rachel made their home in what is now Shepherdstown, Jefferson Co, WV. Here they raised six children, most of whom are identified in the land grant records. Caleb died in 1817, and was buried in the Old Episcopal Cemetery in Shepherdstown. After his death Rachel remarried to Alexander Ayers. Ayers apparently died shortly after their marriage, as Rachel is listed as "Rachel Ayers, widow of Alexander Ayers", in land grant records when she sought to obtain land in 1818 based on Caleb's military service in the Revolution.
Following the death of Caleb, Rachel moved first to Darke County Ohio c1820, and then to Parke Co., Indiana, c 1823. Some of her children also moved with her, includeing the adult children Mary Levick (1793-1883) and John Levick (1796-1876), as well as (we presume) her minor daughters Ann Levick (?-?) and Margaret Levick (1809-1890).
Rachel probably died in Parke Co Indiana. A stone in the Hixon Cemetery near Rockville lists a Rachel Levick wife of Caleb, age 61 (or 64) years. The date of death, however, is given as "01/xx/1890", which would be too late for Rachel Taylor/Bedinger/Ayers. It seems likely, however, that the stone transcription is in error, and that she probably died sometime around 1840. Some uncertainty is indicated in the transcription itself, since they show her as "age 61 or 64", implying that it was difficult to make out.
