As I was researching my 8th great grandfather Daniel Cone, I discovered all sorts of information in family trees, on genealogy websites, and other places on the Internet about his life that made me excited I was his descendant. Finally, I thought, I have an ancestor who participated in some truly extraordinary events
worthy of a book or movie. Someone who fought for his country against overwhelming odds. Someone who experienced adventure, then tragedy, and finally in the end rose up to become one of the founding fathers of a town in Connecticut.
Here's what I learned during my Internet research coming in bits and pieces from a variety of sources: Daniel Cone was born in Edinburgh Scotland around 1626 and was originally named Daniel Mackhoe (various spellings were McHoe, MacHoe and others). By 1650 he was an officer in the Scottish Army and fought for Charles II against Oliver Cromwell, and his New Model Army, at the pivotal Battle of Dunbar in the fall of that year. Cromwell won the engagement and sent 5000 of the captured Scots, to include Daniel, on a Bataan style death march south into England where only 3000 of them survived. After a horrible imprisonment where hundreds more of these captured Scottish soldiers died of starvation and disease, Daniel was sold as an indentured servant and sent to the new world on a ship called "The John and Sara." Once he arrived, he was put to work in a Massachusetts iron mill, and after his indenture ended, he moved to Connecticut and helped establish the new town of Haddam.
These are truly wonderful stories. The only problem is I've found no proof any of them are true. With the exception of the new town he helped create, I found no documentation tying Daniel Cone to any of the events other researchers have linked him to. Where the heck did all of these cool "facts" come from?
The most authoritative resource on Daniel Cone comes from a genealogy compiled by William Whitney Cone in 1903 called Some Account of the Cone Family in America. This was a massive undertaking and I estimate he wrote thousands of letters to Cone family members in order to compile this account - he said 900 of his letters went unanswered. Every story I found on the Internet discussing the above cites this book in some fashion, however the only event mentioned is Daniel's role in establishing Haddam Connecticut. In fact, he states in the first paragraph "His birthplace has not been found, nor has the exact date of his birth been ascertained." If the most authoritative book on the Cone family can't even establish Daniel's birth location, then in my mind, all of those other stories are in doubt.
One of the most repeated "facts" I found on the Internet says Daniel's original name was Mackhoe, or some variation. To check this item out I used the Ancestry.com Scotland census' from 1841-1901 to see if the names Cone, McHoe or Mackhoe existed in the country. During each census, I found between 9-30 instances of the name Cone, 6 total instances of the name McHoe, and didn't find the name Mackhoe at all in the Ancestry.com databases. While this information can't definitively rule anything in or out, the fact the name Cone existed consistently during the 19th century and the others didn't makes me lean slightly towards saying this "fact" is untrue.
The next "facts" repeated on the Internet says Daniel was an officer in the Scottish Army, fought at the battle of Dunbar in 1650, and was sent to New England as an indentured servant on the ship the John and Sara. I did find a transcribed list of captured officers, along with an image of the original document, at the Scottish Archive Network, but Daniel Cone or Mackhoe is not included. I did find a transcribed passenger list for the ship John and Sara and there is a "Dan Mackhoe" on the list, but I can find no information tying this guy to Daniel Cone. I think this rules out Daniel being an officer, but the "Mackhoe" name on the ship passenger list is inconclusive.
William Whitney Cone went to great lengths to only include authoritative information, but what's missing are those stories passed down from generation to generation containing clues for those of us now trying to find out who Daniel Cone was. He makes one tantalizing comment in his introduction where he says:
"A very difficult part of my work has been the separation of the facts relating to Daniel Cone from the fictions, traditions, conjectures, opinions, surmises, and guesses which were offered as facts, and which were based upon imperfect knowledge of the subject. No authenticated mention of Daniel Cone has been found of date previous to 1657, either in this country or elsewhere."
I wonder what those fictions, traditions, conjectures, etc were? Unfortunately, these were left out of his book and may have included some of those I'm exploring now. I wish William Whitney Cone would have created an appendix listing these unverified stories for future genealogists to explore - I would give most anything to get my hands on those thousands of letters he received while researching the Cone family. I wonder if they still exist?
Based on what I've discovered, I think it's a mistake for researchers to consider as fact anything about Daniel Cone prior to his role in the founding of Haddam, Connecticut. All of those other stories taking place in Scotland are great stories, but they should not be repeated over and over as facts until supporting evidence is discovered.
I was disappointed - I really wanted those facts to be true.
