Benjamin Becraft
Sex: M
Individual Information
Birth: 1758
Christening:
Death: 1784 - Blenheim, Schoharie Co, NY
Burial:
Cause of Death:
AFN :
Events
• Military, Beatin
The Pictorial Field-Book of The Revolution
by Benson J. Lossing
Volume l, Chapter Twelve
Among the Tory captors of Harper and his associates was a brute named Becraft, who boasted of having assisted in the murder of the Vrooman family in Scho He had the audacity to return to Schoharie after the war. The returned prisoners, who had heard his boast, and others, informed of his presence, caught him, stripped him naked, and, tying him to a tree, gave him a severe castigation with hickory whip. They enumerated his several crimes, and then gave him a goodly number of stripes for each. On releasing him, they charged him never to come to the county again. Of course he did not.
Parents
Father: William Becraft
Mother: Sara Hexdyle
Notes
General:
According to William V. H. Barker, in his excellent "Early Families of Schoharie," Benjamin is the brother of Frantz Becraft. They are the sons of William Becraft b.~1725, d. 18 Jul 1825 at age 100. It seems that William had two wives, and that Benjamin b ~1758 was the son of the first, Sara. Here is what Barker has to say: "BENJAMIN BECRAFT - born ca 1758 (age 25 in 1783); pr. died near his home at Blenheim, Schoharie Co. ca 1784 from a flogging by his Schoharie neighbors (some accounts say applied by young Caspar Martin). Gen. Freegift Patchin (Patchin book) tells of Benjamin's flogging, which was punishment for his villainous conduct as a Tory raider during the Revolution, but claims Becraft survived the 50 lashes. Benjamin lived at Schoharie before the Revolution and about 1777 he joined with Adam Crysler and other Tories in waging war against his former neighbors. During one of the raids, Benjamin scalped the young son of Teunis Vrooman (Noyes/24-6), and in 1780 boasted of this atrocity to Freegift Patchin and others captured during Chief Brandt's raid on Harpersfield. Was a Loyalist, age 25, in the Indian Department at Niagara 1 Dec 1783."
Barker suggests that William's parents may be the Thomas Becraft m. 1722 at Kettlewell, Yorkshire, England to Anne Strapper. His second wife was Marietje Bond who he md. 22 Nov. 1746 at Loonenburg (now Athens), Greene County, NY.