Gurney Genealogy Library Updated 15 July 2026 by Allen Gurney

Willis Gurney (c. 1795 – before 1870)

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Tailor; first Gurney of the line to leave Massachusetts for New York; settled in Flushing, Queens.

Born
About 1793–96, Cummington, Hampshire County, Massachusetts. The town clerk entered Willis's birth out of order and with his own question mark — "Feb. 23, 1793 (?)" — and that year cannot stand beside his brother's birth a few months earlier, so it is uncertain; census ages and his 1814 militia service point to the mid-1790s. Son of Amos Gurney (G8) and Ruth Gilbert. 1
Died
Before 1870 — by which year his widow Eliza, aged 71, was living alone at Flushing. 2
Occupation / Religion
Tailor, at Flushing, Queens, New York, through the 1830, 1840, and 1850 federal censuses. He attended no church himself; his wife Eliza was a communicant of St. George's Episcopal Church, Flushing. 3
Marriage
Elizabeth "Eliza" A. Lawrence — born in New York about 1799–1802. A communicant of St. George's Episcopal Church, Flushing. 4

Highlights

  • The first Gurney of this line to leave Massachusetts. Willis appears in the 1830, 1840, and 1850 census returns at Flushing, Queens — by then a busy market town on the western edge of Long Island, well-connected to Manhattan by water. His father Amos (G8) had stayed in the Cummington–Bridgewater Massachusetts hill country; Willis's move opened the New York chapter that would last until G2. 5
  • He served — and briefly deserted — in the War of 1812. A New York militia payroll card catches Willis as a private in Colonel Edward Laight's regiment in the autumn of 1814, mustered for the defense of New York harbor. The clerk noted that he "deserted and was recovered," then was discharged that October — the family's earliest trace anywhere in New York, and proof the move from Massachusetts was already complete. 12
  • The tailor occupation echoes John Gurney-1 across nearly two centuries. The colonial emigrant John Gurney (G13, fl. 1641 in Weymouth) is described in the surviving New England records as a tailor; six generations later in Flushing, Willis was again a tailor. The recurrence is a small but striking thread. 6
  • The most consequential of his children was his eldest son. William Gurney, born at Flushing 21 August 1821, became the Civil War colonel of the 127th New York Volunteers, brevet brigadier general, and commandant of Charleston in 1865 — the figure around whom much of the family's documented record orbits. 7
  • Three of his daughters appear to have settled in New York City. There Ruth Louisa married Edward Haight in 1862 and lived in Manhattan until her death in 1899, Adelia married Edwin Osborne Chapman in 1867, and Elizabeth Ann married a man named Barto — the Flushing tailor's children folding steadily into the life of the growing metropolis. 8

Children

Name Dates Notes
William Gurneyb. 21 Aug 1821Direct line (G6); Civil War colonel and brevet brigadier general. Married first Caroline E., then Mary Jane Fish (Fiske). 7
Sarah Amelia Gurneyb. c. 1824Recorded in the 1837 St. George's church canvass. 10
Elizabeth Ann Gurneyb. c. 1825Probably married a Barto; an 1891 New York death record for Elizabeth A. Barto names her father as Willis G. Gurney. 1011
Thomas Gurneyb. c. 1828Left "infirm in speech" by a fever and operations on the neck. 9
Caroline Gurneyb. c. 1832Recorded in the 1837 St. George's church canvass. 10
Ruth Louisa Gurneyb. Oct 1834 / 1837Married Edward Haight in 1862; lived in New York City, where she died 2 September 1899. 1011
Willis Gurney Jr.b. c. 1844Recorded in the 1850 census household. 11
Adelia Gurneyb. c. 1845Married Edwin Osborne Chapman, 25 April 1867, New York City. 11

Narrative

Willis Gurney is the hinge between the Massachusetts farming generations of his ancestors and the New York public life of his children. He was born in Cummington, in the Hampshire County hills of western Massachusetts, around the turn of the nineteenth century — the family's third generation in Cummington after his grandfather Benjamin (G9) bought land there with Silas Reed in 1770 and settled the household. He was already in New York by 1814, when a militia payroll card lists him among the men called out to defend New York harbor in the War of 1812. By the 1820s — in time for his eldest son to be born there in 1821 — he was settled at Flushing, Queens, on Long Island, and there he stayed for the rest of his life, working as a tailor and raising eight known children with Elizabeth ("Eliza") A. Lawrence, a New York–born woman who attended St. George's Episcopal Church in Flushing. 1123

The professional choice is small but resonant. The first Gurney to arrive in North America, John Gurney (G13), is identified in the seventeenth-century Weymouth and Braintree records as a tailor; six generations later, Willis took up the same trade. The continuity is plainly accidental — there is no evidence of any preserved family practice or apprenticeship — yet it is striking that the family's entry to America and its entry to New York were both made by tailors named Gurney. 6

The most documented chapter of Willis's life is the success of his eldest son William, born at Flushing on 21 August 1821. William rose from the Manhattan wholesale trade into a Civil War colonelcy, became commandant of occupied Charleston in 1865, and is the subject of the family's most extensive published research. Willis appears in that biography only at its margins, as the Flushing tailor who fathered the more famous man. But it is precisely the move from rural Cummington to suburban Flushing that made William's New York career possible. 7

Citations

  1. The Cummington town register of births enters Willis out of sequence with the clerk's own question mark — "Willis son of Amos & Ruth Gurney born Feb. 23 1793 (?)" — and the flagged 1793 cannot stand beside elder brother Amos's birth on 5 November 1792 (Cummington register of births, page 213; image in "Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620–1988," Ancestry; indexed by FamilySearch). The 1850 census age (55), Willis's 1814 New York militia service, and the gap between his siblings' 1795 and 1800 births all point to the mid-1790s; Jean Gurney Rigler's 1994 family genealogy gives "about 1796–98." The exact year is left open. ↩
  2. Willis had died by 1870, when his widow "Liza A. Gurney," aged 71, was enumerated alone at Flushing. Rigler, Gurney Family from Aaron to Zuinglius (1994), Willis Gurney entry. ↩
  3. U.S. Federal Census, Flushing, Queens County, New York, 1830, 1840, and 1850 (occupation: tailor). Willis's non-attendance and Eliza's communicant standing at St. George's are recorded in the church's 1837 "Sword and Shield" canvass; see Brigadier General William Gurney, Gurney Genealogy Library. ↩
  4. Elizabeth "Eliza" A. Lawrence, born in New York about 1799–1802 (Rigler, 1994, records her age as 48 in 1850). Her maiden surname — left blank in Rigler's printed entry — is supplied by the 1867 New York City marriage record of her daughter Adelia, which names the mother as Eliza Lawrence ("New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829–1938," FamilySearch). ↩
  5. U.S. Federal Census, Flushing, Queens County, New York, 1830, 1840, and 1850. For nineteenth-century Flushing context, Flushing Historical Society. ↩
  6. For John Gurney (G13) as tailor, see the John Gurney case file and Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Directory (Boston, 2015), p. 158. ↩
  7. For William Gurney's career and his two marriages (Caroline E.; Mary Jane Fish/Fiske), see Brigadier General William Gurney, Gurney Genealogy Library, and Rigler, Gurney Family from Aaron to Zuinglius (1994). ↩
  8. New York records of the daughters: Adelia Gurney married Edwin Osborne Chapman, 25 April 1867 ("New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829–1938," FamilySearch); Ruth Louisa married Edward Haight, 22 April 1862, and died in New York City 2 September 1899 ("New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795–1949," FamilySearch; and Rigler, 1994); an 1891 death record for Elizabeth A. Barto names her father as Willis G. Gurney ("New York, Deaths and Burials, 1795–1952," FamilySearch). ↩
  9. Recorded in the 1837 St. George's Episcopal Church "Sword and Shield" canvass of the Gurney household; see Brigadier General William Gurney, Gurney Genealogy Library. ↩
  10. Sarah Amelia, Elizabeth Ann, Thomas, Caroline, and Ruth Louisa are named together in the 1837 St. George's Episcopal Church "Sword and Shield" canvassing record of the Gurney household; see Brigadier General William Gurney, Gurney Genealogy Library. ↩
  11. Willis Jr. and Adelia are listed among Willis Gurney's children in Rigler, Gurney Family from Aaron to Zuinglius (1994), and Willis Jr. appears in the 1850 census household; for the daughters' New York marriages and deaths see note 8. ↩
  12. Payroll card for Willis Gurney, Private, 10th Brigade, Captain George Englehart's company, Colonel E. W. Laight's regiment, New York State militia, paid 2 September – 2 October 1814; remark "Deserted and was recovered & Disc[harged] by Col. Laight Oct. 8th"; Roll 2378. New York State Archives, Series B0810; Ancestry, "New York, U.S., War of 1812 Payroll Abstracts for New York State Militia, 1812–1815." The card gives no age or parentage; identification with this Willis rests on the distinctive name and the family's New York residence. ↩