How many Johns do you know? Probably a lot, since it is the most popular first name in the US today, with 5,298,362 males (total, not new babies).
How many ancestors do we have named John? (🙋Quiz - answer at bottom).
A lot also, because 5.8 million Johns have been born since 1530. Add to that the cognates of John in other languages - Johann, Juan, Jean, Sean, Giovanni, Jovan, Ivan, Evan, Ian, Yannis, Jens, Jan - and you know why genealogists groan when they find a John to research.
So it is not surprising that although our ancestor John B. Acker (see Acker Pedigree Chart, see Acker Family - Ester Crank and John B. Acker Descendant Chart) was the only man of that name when he lived in Shelburne, Nova Scotia, there were quite a few men named John or Jan Acker or Ecker in his hometown of Philipsburgh Manor, New York Province. Jan, pronounced YON, is the Dutch form of John, and Ecker seems to be the preferred version of Acker before the Revolutionary War.
Which one is our John B?
To find that out, we first look for our John B's birth date. Which of course we don't have, so we have to look for clues. In Shelburne, John B was an adult paying taxes from 1791 to 1794, so let's just say he wasn't born before 1700. He also swore as a witness to another man's statement in 1783. If he was at least 21 then, he must have been born in 1762 or earlier.
Born between 1700 - 1762. Pretty wide span.
Wonderfully for us, John B's wife was not named Mary Smith or some other common moniker. Esther Crank was known as Hester Cranckheit in Philipsburgh, where she delightfully has a baptism record for 1759.
The husbands I know from this time period range from being 22 years older than their wives to 5 years younger. So let's say Hester's husband John B was born between 1737 and 1764.
Between 1737 - 1762 (We already have 1762 as the latest date because he was a witness in Shelburne.) Still a 25-year spread.
There are 3 John Ackers in Philipsburgh born in that time period: Jan Ecker born around 1750, John Acker born about 1753, and Johannis aka John Ecker born in 1759.
To sort out these choices, I took advantage of a visit to my daughter to experience the New York City Public Library. This building is so beautiful, they give tours. It was hard to convince the security guard I was there to research, not sightsee! 
sightseers on a tour
I had heard of a very promising book, The Families of the Colonial Town of Philipsburgh Westchester County N.Y. by Grenville McKenzie. A book detailing the genealogies of every family in Philipsburgh sounds like the pot of gold. There are only 2 copies, and one is held by the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society in the Public Library. I had to order it days in advance, and I was at first worried when I was only brought Volume 4. Would I have to wait another couple of days for the other volumes? Thankfully no, only 45 minutes. It wasn't long before I realized that it would need to be photographed rather than read, so I spent many happy hours doing that.
just one of the incredible ceilings
After 2 months of entering data from my photos into my family tree, I am only up to Person 35. I had to take a break; it will take months to digest. It is intricately sourced, but facts aren't linked to the sources they came from, so that makes them hard to prove.
Let's see who the candidates are who could possibly be our John B and weigh the evidence.
Choice #1: Jan Ecker born around 1750
In Dutch church records, we find the marriage of Jan Ecker to Catriena Buys in 1771 and the baptism of their daughter Engeltie in 1775. Since he got married in 1771, we'll just say he was 21 and give him a birthdate of 1750. But just because Jan married Catrina doesn't mean that he couldn't have also married Hester around 1778. Catrina and their child could have died.
In the wonderful book by Grenville MacKenzie, above, the John/Jan Ecker who married Catrina is the son of Stephen, grandson of Stephen, great-grandson of Wolfert, and great-great-grandson of Steven Ecker. The book gives him another child, Lea, who still fits in the timeline.
Our John B could have named his first daughter Catherine after his first wife Catrina and named his second son Stephen after his father Stephen.
Notice that Mr. MacKenzie speculates that this John/Jan Ecker is probably the same John Acker who was captured by the British in 1777 and died in Sugar House Prison.* That would explain why this John/Jan never had any more children with Catrina.
But notice the "probably"! The John Acker who was a Patriot and died in a British prison could have been a different John Acker. If so, then no one knows what happened to this John/Jan Ecker, Catrina's husband, in later life. Could he have been a Loyalist who went to Shelburne?
Choice #2: John Acker born about 1753
We know about this John because he was listed in the will of his father Deliverance Ecker. However, this John has no baptism record, very odd. This John has a ton of brothers and sisters. Deliverance's first wife, Judah/Judith Barheyt, died young, age 34, the same year her daughter and namesake Judah was born. I don't know if she died in childbirth or what. John would have been about 9, and the oldest of Judah's 6 children, Stephen, age 12. Then Deliverance married Wyntie Brown and had 2 more children. But alas! Deliverance then died, only 36. He must have known he was going to die because he wrote his will only the week before. Poor Wyntie had a 16-month-old son of her own and was pregnant.
Gravestone of Deliverance Acker in the Old Dutch Churchyard of Sleepy Hollow, New York. It is hard to read. There is an angel with wings on top, a very old and therefore rare gravestone design. We don't know why Deliverance is spelled Deliuranel.
Here Lyes the Body of
Deliuranel Acker Who
Departed this Life
December the 20 1764
Aged 36 Years 7 Months
And 6 Days
Deliverance's will was simple. He left his new gun and sword to his oldest son, Stephen, and his old gun to his second son, John. He left 100 pounds of good New York money to his dear loving wife, along with his mare and the bed and bedding. Everything else was to be divided among his 8 children. Deliverance named his brother Wolfert and brother-in-law Benjamin Brown as executors, along with his friend John Free.
I imagine Wolfert, Benjamin, and the rest of the families of Judah, Deliverance, and Wyntie all helped raise the children. They were all big established families in the area. But what they didn't know when they set out to shepherd 8 grieving children safely to adulthood was that more life-shattering events were to come. The sorrowful part is what they didn't know -- that the British Parliament was passing the first of several laws that would provoke tension until it exploded into a war that would ravage their homes.
Deliverance's sons Jacob and Benjamin fought on the rebel side in favor of independence from Great Britain. Jacob was a famous soldier called Rifle Jake, and Benjamin, only 17, ferried British Major John Andre and Loyalist spy Joshua Hett Smith across the Hudson River. When both passengers were captured carrying evidence of the treason of Benedict Arnold, Benjamin testified against Smith in court.
Grenville MacKenzie's book also tells us that Deliverance's son John enlisted on the rebel side under Captains Martlings and Honeywell. John later married Cornelia Gardenier, lived in Ossining, had 2 sons, and died in 1808.
So this John Acker has nothing to suggest that he may be our John B the Loyalist who evacuated to Shelburne. But I cannot get him out of my mind. Because our John B has a great-grandson named George Deliverance Acker, born in Shelburne in 1816.
George Deliverance Acker's grave in Churchover Anglican Cemetery, Shelburne, Nova Scotia
In Memory
of
George D. Acker
Died
Oct. 4th 1882
Aged
66 Years
Where on earth would George D. get a name like Deliverance? I even find it odd among the Dutch in Philipsburgh. Surely it could only be from his great-grandfather, the Deliverance Acker who died at age 36 and left his guns and sword to his sons. That Deliverance Acker was named for his grandfather, Deliverij Conckelie, also spelled Deliverens and Delefferens, which makes me think it had nothing to do with Jesus delivering us from our sins.
If we look at naming patterns, which I love to do, we find a lot of names repeated from Deliverance's family into our John B's family, while others are conspicuous by their absence. Deliverance's first 3 sons were Stephen, John, and Jacob, and our John B named 3 sons Stephen, John, and Jacob. On the other hand, John B did not name any of his sons after his possible dead father Deliverance, nor did he name any daughters after his possible dead mother Judah/Judith. You would think, if both your parents died when you were a child, you would name your children after them.
Would our John B become a Loyalist while his brothers served in the Patriot military? And if so, what pieces would that rip the family into?
Of course, the book says that this John Acker lived in Ossining after the Revolution, so if the book is right, that crosses this John out.
Grenville MacKenzie's description of John Acker's (son of Deliverance) brothers Jacob and Benjamin's Revolutionary War service as well as the rest of their lives
Which brings us to Choice #3, John or Johannis Acker born 1759
In the Old Dutch Church, Johannis Ecker was baptized on 4 September 1759, and the church book helpfully tells us that he had been born on August 10 that year. Jan Ecker, syn kind gedoopt (his child baptized) tells us that his father was Jan. His sponsors were Sybout Ecker and his wife, who were his grandparents, a common practice. We know that Johannis's mother was Rachel Duythser because she and Jan were married on 20 September 1758. Johannis then gained a sister, named Rachel after her mother, in 1761. After that, there were no more children. Why? Because Jan died. Probably in 1760 or 1761, shortly after Rachel's birth.
How do we know that Jan died? Because of his father Sybout's will.
In August 1769, when those ungrateful Bostonians were complaining about taxes but no one saw war coming, Sybout wrote his will. He was in good health, but "mindful that it is appointed for all men once to die." After providing for his wife Eleas and leaving his property to his oldest son, he made 3 special bequests: 30 shillings to his son Abraham, a pale blue chest that had belonged to his father to his daughter Hannah, and a Gun to his Grandson John Ackar.
This Grandson John Ackar would be the Johannis Ecker born in 1759. We know that it's not a different grandson because later on in the will, Sybout divided his estate equally among his 8 children. However, some of his children had already died, so their part went to the grandchildren.
"the other eight parte to be paid to my Grandson, and my Granddaughter Rachel Ackar, the Son and Daughter of my Son John deceased." He doesn't name this grandson because he already named him when he gave him his gun.
Johannis's sister Rachel's life is well documented. Her husband was a Revolutionary War hero, and they had to reapply for a veteran's or widow's pension every time the pension law changed. So their file has so many pages of pension applications, I gave up reading them. My eyes had crossed from decoding "deponent" scribbled in too many different handwritings.
From the pension file, we learn that Rachel married Jacob Cypher on the day after Christmas 1784, when the war was over. Their witness was the groom's brother William. No mention of her family, as if they were dead or fled the country, but of course her family could have been there. Rachel didn't even remember what month she was married in, always saying Fall of 1784. It was William Cypher the Best Man who recollected it was on a Sunday between Christmas and New Year's. They all swore there was no record of the marriage; apparently none of them thought to check the church.
I was floored at what Rachel's husband Jacob lived thru. He seems to have been in a company in the American lines that was called into service whenever the Continental Army was busy elsewhere. During his 3rd tour, he and his family battled who could very well have been our other ancestor, Jeremiah Rushton. Two hundred of Colonel Oliver DeLancey's Westchester Refugees, more like ruffians than soldiers, killed Jacob's father, wounded his brother, and threw Jacob and his brother into Sugar House Prison.* How he managed to endure 8 months of that hellhole is unimaginable, but he did, and was exchanged.
Altho Rachel and her pension file show up in many family trees on Ancestry, brother Johannis Acker does not appear on any of them beyond his baptism. Nor are they known on Wikitree.
So is a John Acker who is lost to records after age 10, when he inherits a gun in his grandfather's will, likely to be our John Acker, who sided with the British and evacuated to Nova Scotia before his sister Rachel got married? If so, our John is on the opposite side of a war zone from his sister's future husband. Was he also thus estranged from his sister?
This John fits in perfectly with our John B. The only thing I don't like is that John B didn't name any of his children after his grandfather Sybout, or mother and sister Rachel. Johannis didn't have any relatives named Catherine, Stephen, or Jacob (except for his future brother-in-law, whom he may not have known), yet those are the names our John B gave his kids.
So no definitive answer. Which one do you think it is?
🙋 Quiz - How many ancestors do we have named John? There are 316 Johns in my family tree on Ancestry, MEGAtree.
*Sugar House Prison sounds like a sweet place to serve a sentence - maybe it's like the gingerbread house where Hansel and Gretel were imprisoned waiting for the witch to eat them. Sadly, it's not a house made of sugar. When the British occupied New York City during the Revolution, they needed buildings to use as prisons for all the enemy combatants and civilian traitors they captured. A prison needs to be big, sturdy, and impossible to escape from. So in addition to aged warships anchored in the harbor, they used available stone or brick buildings - churches, classrooms at King's College (now Columbia University), and warehouses. The sugar import industry was profitable in the port of New York, where raw sugar from the Caribbean could be easily unloaded, stored, refined, and sold to the many wealthy inhabitants. Sugar warehouses had thick stone or brick walls with many empty floors and few windows, already barred. Starting in 1777, the British used 2 sugar houses as prisons - Livingston's, on Crown Street (now Liberty Street), and van Cortlandt's, which was conveniently located next to the Trinity Church graveyard where bodies could be dumped in mass graves.
Livingston's Sugar House 50 years after its use as a prison
About 30,000 prisoners were kept in New York City during the course of the War, and 60% to 70% of them died there in inhuman conditions. The references give websites where you can read horrifying first-hand accounts.
References:
https://nameberry.com/list/144/johns-international-variations
https://www.mynamestats.com/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3508871/John-Mary-popular-names-past-500-years-despite-falling-100.html
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/news/a37786/popular-baby-names-last-500-years/
The Old Sugar House - Trinity Churchyard, https://www.americanwars.org/american-prisoners-revolution/chapter-XV.htm
Bittersweet - The American Revolution and New York City's Sugar Industry, https://blog.mcny.org/2015/06/30/bittersweet-the-american-revolution-and-new-york-citys-sugar-industry/
Daily What?! A Revolutionary War Sugar House Prison Window in Downtown Manhattan, https://www.untappedcities.com/daily-what-revolutionary-war-sugar-house-prison-window-downtown-manhattan/
https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~bbunce77/history/MacKenzie.html
Jacob Cypher
in the U.S., Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files, 1800-1900
To sort out these choices, I took advantage of a visit to my daughter to experience the New York City Public Library. This building is so beautiful, they give tours. It was hard to convince the security guard I was there to research, not sightsee! 
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