David E. Wynkoop

Sycamore, DeKalb County, Illinois, is where Thomas and Betsey R. Kingsley had their child, David E. Wynkoop, on 8 August 1860.  Thomas is a native of Dallas, Luzerne, Pennsylvania and was born on 22 April 1820.  

David was about nine years of age when the family moved to Lockport, Niagara, New York, where he was raised to maturity, his educational privileges being such as afforded by the common schools of the locality and period.  In that city, 1848, was solemnized his marriage to Miss Betsey R. Kingsley, who was born 31 May 1832 near Rochester, New York, where she was reared and educated.

Thomas made the first homestead entry of land in Paradise Township, in whose organization he took a prominent part, having personally given the township its name.  He was supervisor of the township for a number of years and became one of the most honored and influential citizens of the section.  He continued to reside in Kingsley until his death, 10 September 1901.  Betsey passed away on the 30 May 1879.  They became the parents of three children, of whom the subject of this sketch was first born, the other two being Adonis, who married Miss Mary Stephenson, who has borne him three children, and he is now engaged in the general merchandise business at Cedar Run, this county; and Verna, who became the wife of William Schwander, a farmer of Allegan county, this state, died there, in March 1886, leaving one child, Maud who was sixteen years of age in 1903.  Thomas M. Wynkoop cleared and improved a farm in this county and was a man of fine ability and impregnable integrity, being a type of that sturdy element of citizenship which brought about the magnificent development of this favored section of the Peninsular state.

David E. Wykoop was but four years of age at the time his parents' moved to Grand Traverse county and his boyhood days were passed on the pioneer farm near Kingsley.

There is a photo of David and wife in the book and a picture of Wynkoop Flats built in 1901. 

Source: Grand Traverse and Leelanaw Counties, Michigan by E. L. Sprague, 1903

@Created by Brenda K. Wolfgram Moore 29June2003