Oliver de Lancey (American Loyalist) - Family

Family

In the fall of 1742, Oliver de Lancey secretly married Phila Franks, daughter of a prominent and successful New York Jewish family. For six months they kept the match secret, but in the spring of 1743, Phila announced the deed and went to live with her husband. The letters of Abigail Franks, Phila's mother, to her son Naphtali speak of her sense of betrayal and her pain, and she never spoke to Phila again.

Phila and Oliver de Lancey had at least two sons:

• Stephen (1748–1798) who became clerk of the city and county of Albany in 1785, lieutenant-colonel of the 1st New Jersey loyal volunteers in 1782, afterwards chief justice of the Bahamas, and in 1796 governor of Tobago. He married Cornelia, daughter of the Rev. H. Barclay of Trinity Church, New York. They had several children including William Howe DeLancey a British staff officer mortally wounded at the Battle of Waterloo.
• Oliver (c. 1749–1822), who became a general in the British Army, and who also had a son called Oliver (1803–1837) who served as a British Army officer and was killed in action while fighting for the British Legion during the First Carlist War.