Items of interest in letters from Mrs. N. C. Phillips of Freeport, Illinois to Heber Gearhart of Northumberland county, PA are extracted below. Letters were written in 1931 and 1932. Thanks to LindyT for sharing!
--------------------------------
John Reed Stout married Mary Dutcher Mar 11, 1911 [sic]. Mary's parents are said to have been Wm. Dutcher and Mary Lewis, and among her brothers was a William, who, I feel sure, is the man of the name we found in an old Justice of the Peace record book kept by Capt. Lambert Pitner 1817-1821…. Maybe the Dutchers were too poor or too shiftless to have records at the court house, but Wm. Dutcher, who I suppose was Mary's brother, was sued for debt.
------------------------------
About 1868 a genealogist (genuine or spurious – I wish I knew which!) visited the Dutcher kindred in this vicinity and sold them a lineage which was to show their descent from Aneke Jans Bogardus of New Amsterdam. The first generations of this lineage are accurate, as I have ascertained by researching New York records. It leads us to David Dutcher, a farmer in Dutchess Co., N.Y., who in his will didn't name all his children, named eldest son David and a grandson David who had a silver mug or some such legacy. Wm. Dutcher [who married Mary Lewis] was given as son of the David who made this will. Maybe this genealogist, Mr. Grifford, manufactured these people or at least their connection with the earlier authenticated people. I hardly think so, though, because Margaret Dutcher Traster, whom I am sure he interviewed, should have known who her parents and even grandparents were.
------------------------------
From the Ill. Census of 1850, Mary Dutcher, wife of John Reed Stout, was born in Penn.
-------------------------------
In 1790 census, an Amasa Johnston and a Daniel Holley family are in Montgomery Co., N.Y., but couldn't follow this clue.
---------------------------------
The Abraham Dutcher was still at Wilkes Barre in 1810 who appeared also in the 1790 census.
-------------------------
On page 599 of Bell's Hist of Northumberland CO., Pa, is this: "Wm. Ducher was among the early settlers at the site of Shamokin. He is said to have been murdered."
--------------------------------
Timothy Stout, father-in-law of Mary Dutcher, moved from N.J. to Shamokin Valley about 1792.
-------------------------------
I believe Mary Dutcher's parents may have been in the colony which went early into Northumberland Co, from Dutchess Co. N.Y. That would make credible the Dutchess Co. lineage for Mary which has been in my husband's family so many years.
----------------------------
Wm. Dutcher, b. Dec 20, 1754, m. Mary Lewis Dec. 20, 1785. Our Wm. is said to be son of David of Dutchess Co., N.Y., where Dutchers abound, but I can't find a full list of David's children.
--------------------------