Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 1

Author: Selleck, Charles Melbourne.
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: The author,
Number of Pages: 553

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Norwalk.

REV. CHARLES M. SELLECK, A. M.

NORWALK, CONN. : PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR. 1 896.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1896, BY REV. CHARLES M. SELLECK, A. M., In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

Harry M. Gardner, Printer, Norwalk, Conn.

INTRODUCTORY.

ORWALK is a seat of accredited antiquity. Few places in the United States rank it in age. Liber "A," of English transcribed deeds, New York City Hall of Records, registers an execution in 1661, in favor of Nicholas Bayard, while the first book of Nor- walk transfers thus recorded antedates by one and twenty years that of the Bayard trans- action referred to, and by seven years the arrival of immigrants of this name in a country wherein it was to be their destiny to establish families of fame, the ancestor-headship of an off-shoot of one of which same households the ancient plantation of Norwalk has itself furnished, as witness the following :

BENJAMIN WOOLSEY ROGERS, oldest son of Moses and Sarah Woolsey Rogers of New York and a grandson of Nehemiah and Elizabeth Fitch Rogers of Norwalk, married Susan, daughter of William and Elizabeth Cornell Bayard of New York. These had four children, one of whom, Sarah, wedded William Patterson Van Rensselaer, the oldest son by his second marriage, of Gen. Stephen Van Rensselaer of Albany, and a whilom resident at Belden Point, Norwalk. The fourth child was about one year old when the mother's health declined, and an ocean trip was determined upon. It was during the war troubles of 1814, when com- merce found its way to and from the sea through Long Island Sound. England at that time so controlled the Sound waters as that the ship in which Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin W. Rogers were passengers, was detained in the East River. Permission to proceed, however, was at length given, and in passing Shippan Point, the residence of Moses Rogers, a prayer for the vessel's party was offered on shore by Dr. Timothy Dwight, a brother-in-law of Moses Rogers, and the President of Yale College. Before the company reached South- ampton, the spirit of the sufferer had flown, and her remains were interred beneath the walls of a parish church in that city. Her husband married, for his second wife, Catherine Cecilia Elwyn, a grand-daughter if Governor John Langdon of Portsmouth, N. H., who was father of Judge Woodbury Langdon, who mar- ed Sarah Sherburn, and had Walter Langdon of New York, who married Dorothea, daughter of John Jacob Astor, and had Woodbury Langdon, who married Helen Colford Jones and had Woodbury G. Langdon, owner of, and summer resident at, " Half-Mile Isle," Norwalk.

The title of this book in one word indicates, and this note-intertexed introductory illustrates, its object. Norwalk is the book's thought and theme. The work is an attempt to bring this ancient town's recondite history more fully to light, and to preserve and per- petuate its mentions and memories. Many of these were gathered by the author while engaged in the necessarily hasty preparation of his 1886 St. Paul's Church centennary ad- dress, but the most of them have since been collected, and their public presentation upon the eve of the town's quarter-millenial birth anniversary will, it is hoped, prove a not un- welcome nor unimportant contribution to existing local annals.

C. M. S.

Norwalk, Connecticut,

IS95.

To the 'Citizens of his native . Town, This Volume is with loyalty Dedicated.

The Sluther.

NORWALK.

Bridgeport En

LUDLOW CASTLE, ENGLAND.F

O ORWALK, with reference to the matter of settlement, appears first upon the page of history in A. D., 1640. In his passage through Long Island Sound in 1614. Adrian Block, a Dutch navigator, had sighted from his bark's deck, the Norwalk Uplands, Coast Lands and Islands, denominating the latter " The Archipelago" ; and Higginson" relates that in 1638 Edward Hopkins, William Goodwin and himself, three important Con- necticut Colonists, held, in or near. "Narwoke"s a successful parley with its aboriginal

' From a print formerly in the possession of the family of Gabriel Wm. Ludlow of New York. A private journal speaks of the ruins of Ludlow Castle as"wonderfully beautiful, covering acres. The castle is on an elevation overlooking the river

9 º In the quadrangle is a round Norman tower,

well preserved. Queen Elizabeth resided here for a time, with Sir Philip in attendance."

2 See Orcutt's Stratford.

3For original record orthography-Norwaake- see Trumbull 1636-1665, page 210.

NORWALK.

owners. In the plantation-particular, however, Norwalk has historical place in 1640, which year, just after its birth, witnessed the settlement's projector, Deputy-Gov. Roger Ludlow,1 working his wintry way from Fairfield to Hartford, there to present for consideration by the General Council which convened on January 16, (see Conn. Colonial Records) certain

The town of Ludlow, in Salop County, England, was the home of the ancient Ludlows. Here, in the middle of the fourteenth century, lived William Lud- low, M. P., of High Deverill, who belonged officially to the households of Kings Henry IV, V and VI. William Ludlow was instrumental in the erection of St. Thomas' Church, Salisbury, England, beneath which edifice he is buried. Ile married Margaret, daughter of William Rymer, by whom he had one son, John, who married Leonora, daughter of Thomas Ringwood. John Ludlow succeeded to his father's possession of High Deverill, and married Phillipa, daughter and heiress of William Bulstrode of Lon- don, by whom he had two sons, William and Edward. The tomb of William Ludlow, oldest son of John, is shown to-day in the parish church of High Deverill. Its occupant had married Jane, daughter of Nicholas Moore of Willford, County of Southampton, Eng- land, and had one only son, George, who married Edith, the third daughter of Andrew, Lord Windsor, of Middlesex County. These had two sons, Sir Ed- mund and Thomas, ist. Thomas, Ist. married Jane Pyle, sister of Sir Gabriel Pyle, Knight, and had :

George, born Sept. 7, 1583, died young.

Gabriel, bap. Feb. 10, 1587.

Roger, bap. March 7, 1590, founder of Norwalk. Annie, bap. July 5, 1591.

Thomas, and. bap. March 3, 1593, ancestor of the New York Ludlows.

George, bap. Sept. 15, 1596, of Virginia.

Roger Ludlow, of lineage as above, matriculated at twenty years of age at Balliol College, Oxford, and studied for the bar in London. He came to America at about the age of 40, and was one of the most eminent of the New England Colonists. He here married, for his second wife, a sister of Gov. John Endicott of Mass. In 1639 Mr. Ludlow removed from Windsor to Fairfield. In 1640 he purchased Norwalk, and in 1654 left Fairfield County for, it is supposed, Virginia, where, at that date, resided his junior brother George. This brother, who died the next year, had willed the bulk of his property to Roger's children. Two of these, Thomas and Jona- than, are named in the Norwalk records, and accom- panied their father hence in 1654. Their sister Sarah remained, and married Nathaniel Brewster. The

Brewster descendants reside on Long Island.

Roger Ludlow was elected deputy-Gov. of Mass. before he came to America. He held said office four years, and was subsequently several times chosen to fill the same position in Conn. Ile was not a resident of Norwalk, but was "for nineteen years one of the

most useful and distinguished men" in the Connect- icut commonwealth, living during the major portion of that time about nine miles east of Norwalk, on what is to-day known as Ludlow Square, in the town of Fairfield. He was probably (see Hollister's Con- necticut, Vol. I, page 179) the first lawyer who ever came into the colony, and one of the most gifted who have ever lived in it. "I have compared this paper ( the Connecticut Constitution, 1639, the work of Ludlow's head and hand) with those written by Mil- ton, expressive of his views of government and lib- erty. * * * But I find there no well-digested sys- tem of republicanism. He deals alone with the abso- lute. But Ludlow views the concrete and the abstract both at once." Such an exceptional genius, vide Hollister, was Roger Ludlow, the framer of the first Constitution of Conn. and the Founder of Norwalk. After leaving America, it is believed that Ludlow lived and practiced in Ireland and died in Wales.

Thomas Ludlow, next younger brother of Roger, married Feb. 15th, 1624, Jane Bennett, and had a son Gabriel, who married Martha, daughter of Thomas Carey, of Castle Carey. These had a son Gabriel, bap. at the age of one month, at Castle Carey, Som- erset, Dec. 1, 1663. This son Gabriel came, at thirty- one years of age (1694) to New York, where he mar- ried, April 15, 1697, Sarah, daughter of Rev. Joseph Hanmer, Chaplain to the King's New York army. These had a son William, who married, August 10, 1731, Mary Duncan, which two had a son Gabriel William, who married, August 28, 1764, Cornelia, daughter of Charles, son of John Crooke of New York. Gabriel W and Cornelia Ludlow had a son Charles, who married Elizabeth, daughter of David and Elizabeth (French) Van Horne. Charles and Elizabeth Ludlow's children were Cornelia Ann, born June 13, 1788, and Elizabeth. Cornelia Ann married, May 2, 1816, John Abraham Willink, an Amsterdam banker, of recorded service to the U. S. government. Elizabeth, the sister of Mrs. Willink, erected the Lud- low and Willink Hall of St. Stephen's College, in the State of New York. The memory of these noble sis- ters is fragrant in Norwalk, and the town is honored in that it treasures many of their personal effects. In recognition of their kinship to the father of Norwalk, one of their surviving Norwalk friends (Mrs. W. K. James, ) has memorially commemorated the Ludlow territory-bestowment act on the part of the town's pioneers, by the Ludlow Stone, which was planted in East Norwalk, Thursday, Dec. 19, 1895, on a parcel of ground given for the purpose by Messrs. Josiah R. and William E. Marvin.

NORWALK

points of personal and political bearing. His mission accomplished, the eminent jurist returned to his Fairfield home in season to meet, on February 26, the red possessors of Norwalk. Just where' Mahackemo and his three braves assembled on that primal day and covenanted with the distinguished Englishman, who was attended by his son Thomas, and Indian servant Adam, it is too late, probably, to determine, but the subjoined in- strument was the result of the conference.

INDIAN DEED TO

ROGER LUDLOW.

RECORDED IN VOL. I. NORWALK LAND RECORDS.

"AI copic of a deede of sale made by Vorwalke Indians, unto Master Roger Ludlowe. of Fair- jield, as followeth, 26th February, 1640."

"An agreement made between the Indians of Norwake and Roger Ludlowe : it is agreed, that the Indians of Norwalke, for and in consideration of eight fathoms of wam- pum, sixe coates, tenn hatchets, tenn hoes, tenn knifes, tenn scissors, tenn jewse-harpes, tenn fathom Tobackoe, three kettles of sixe hands about, tenn looking glasses, have granted all the lands, meadows, pasturings, trees, whatsoever their is, and grounds betweene the twoe Rivers, the one called Norwalke, the other Soakatuck, to the middle of sayed Rivers, from the sea a days walke into the country ; to the sayed Roger Ludlowe, and his heirs and assigns for ever ; and that noe Indian or other shall challenge or claim any ground within the sayed Rivers or limits, nor disturb the sayed Roger, his heirs or assignes, within the precincts aforesaid. In witness whereof the parties thereunto have interchangeably sett their hands."

Witnesse THOS. LUDLOWE. The mark of

ADAM .*

The marke W

TOMAKERGO,

TOKENEKE,

The marke of

PROSEWAMENOS.

ROGER LUDLOWE.

The marke of

MAHACKEMO, Sachem, the marke

It will be observed that only a portion of the territory afterwards known as Norwalk is described in the foregoing deed. The township area was subsequently enlarged by the

1The Ely-Olmstead covenant of June 19, 1650, was that Ludlow should have a two hundred pound "lott" for his sons, and that it should " be one of the first lotts" to be laid out. The settlers had what they designated as "the £200 lot." (East side of Town Street, it would appear, and in the rear of the Oscar W Raymond and Mary G. Rider (1896) homesteads.) Conceding this to be the parcel in question, it is possi- ble that Ludlow intended it for his sons' occupancy, but after his own and their departure, in 1654, from New England, the tract was otherwise disposed of.

The title to the entire Ludlow ownership, after his leave-taking, lay in the Norwalk settlers name, as every thing in Norwalk belonging to its founder was, before he quit the country, formally made over to the planters. We find upon the town records, however, that there were two parcels in the eastern and south-eastern portions of the settlement that bore Ludlow's name, and in the absence of any other mention pertaining to them, it is barely possible that these portions marked some Ludlow-transaction site.

*Assigned to Ludlow by Massachusetts Court.

NORWALK.

PARTRICK PURCHASE.

Daniel Partrick,' an enterprising Englishman, was one of the one hundred and eight original "townsmen " of Watertown, Mass. He was in that place in 1630. By reason of the depredations of the Pequots, a ferocious savage clan, the Connecticut Colonists were, in 1636-7, kept in a state of perpetual agitation, and it became necessary to wage war against the tribe. Capt. John Mason? was accordingly chosen commander-in-chief, and Partrick a Capt. in this contest. The conflict resulted successfully to the English, who had pursued the foe from the eastern end of the colony as far west in Connecticut as the pres- ent town of Fairfield, where the last blow was dealt, July 1637. Their connection with the Pequot trouble had made both Ludlow and Partrick familiar with the future Fairfield County, and may have been the cause of their settling subsequently, the one in Fairfield and the other in Greenwich, within the limits of the said County. The Pequot triumph was achieved in 1637. and the year 1639 witnessed the planting of Fairfield by Ludlow, and 1640 the purchase by the same party, on February 26th, of a part of Norwalk, and on the 20th of April following, the sale by the Indians of the remaining portion of the town to Partrick, as thus appears :

INDIAN DEED

CAPT. DANIEL PARTRICK.

RECORDED IN VOL. I, PAGE 30, NORWALK LAND RECORDS.

Of the meadowes and uplands adjoininge, lyinge on the west side of Norwake River.

"An agreement betwixt Daniell Patrick and Mahackem, and Naramake and Peme- nate Hewnompom indians of Norwake and Makentouh3 the said Daniell Patricke hath bought of the sayed three indians, the ground called Sacunyte napucke, allso Meeanworth, thirdly Asumsowis, fourthly all the land adjoyninge to the aforementioned, as farr up in cuntry as an indian can goe in a day, from sun risinge to sun settinge ; and twoe Islands neere adjoining to the sayed carantenayueck, all bounded on the west side with noewanton on the east side to the middle of the River of Norwake, and all trees, meadows, waters and naturell adjuncts thereunto belonginge, for him and his forever ; for whith Lands the sayed indians are to receive of the sayed Daniell Patricke, of wampum tenn fathoms, hat- chetts three, howes three, when shipps come ; sixe glasses, twelfe tobackoe pipes, three knifes, tenn drills, tenn needles ; this as full satisfaction for the aforementioned lande, and

1 Daniel Partrick (possibly Kirk-Patrick or Kirk- Partrick, N. Y Gen. Record, Vol. XI, No. 4, p. 169) was not a Norwalk resident. His family consisted of

! himself, wife and one son. He was murdered in bis own house in Greenwich, in January, 1644. ITis wid- ow and son left Greenwich for Long Island, but it appears that his son returned after his father's death, to Greenwich, and laid claim to the territory, but was bought off. This son's name was Danid. He married

Dinah Yates, probably of lower Westchester County. N. Y., where, with his step-brother James Feake, he owned Castle Hill Neck. He died in 1721, leaving a widow and one son, Daniel.

- This famous Old and New England soldier, was the father-in-law of James, brother of Thos. Fitch, Sr., of Norwalk.

3 Seemingly the name of an Indian clan.

NORWALK.

for the peaceable possession of which the aforementioned mahachemill doth promise and undertake to silence all opposers of this purchase, if any should in his time act, to witnesse which, on both sides, hands are interchangeably hereunto sett, this 20th of Aprill, 1640.'

pomenate his mar

wittnesses, Tobi ffeap* John How

marke.

mamechom

marke naromake.

marke.

Less than three months after the date of this document, July 16, 1640, this same plucky adventurer, Daniel Partrick, accompanied by a fellow Watertown, Mass. proprietor, Robert Feake, set foot on Greenwich Point, and not two days elapsed before Owenoke, son of Ponus, was consulted, and Greenwich was bargained for.

Norwalk was born in the brain of Ludlow, but that its genesis-prologue was hardly the conviction of any immediate existence-necessity, by reason of numbers-insistence would appear to be true, from the fact that while Fairfield and Stamford were no sooner projected than possessed, Norwalk's ownership and occupancy-interval, on the contrary, covered a period of a full decade. A sort of prudence-policy led, possibly, to the town's first conception.

Ludlow? was not only far-sighted but quick-sighted. "He saw everything at a glance." It was a day of ministerial changes, and the colonists' foreign fears may have constrained to make the organization-argument as strong as possible. In addition to this,

'The day before this transaction, viz : April 19, 1640, Ponus or his successors, had granted to the Dutch West India Company all the lands from Nor- walk west to the Hudson River. It should be borne in mind that the Partrick purchase extended on the west to Five Mile River, and that the Runckinheage lands lay within this purchase. Probably the terri-

tory covered by the Partrick deed was originally the domain of Naramake ist, a predecessor of Naram- ake 2nd, who signed the Partrick paper. This second Naramake returned finally, it is believed, to the Mo- hawks.

2For Ludlow character traits, see Ludlow article in Stiles' History of Windsor.

* Born 1622, son of James Feake, a London goldsmith and a nephew of Robert and Henry Feake, who came to New Eng- land about 1639. This Tobi Feake married Mrs. Daniel Partrick after her husband's sudden death. He had a sister who married Sergeant William Palmer of Yarmouth, Mass., with which sis- ter he resided at 17 years of age. The two seem to have had a lease of their father's property on Lombard Street, London. Lieut. Robert Feake, in New England, " gentleman," and " Ser- geant Wm. Palmer " executed attorney-power to their maternal uncle, Tobias Dixon of London, to dispose of James Feake's property in London. Of Robert Feake, uncle of Tobias, and who united with Partrick in his purchase of Greenwich, it is recorded that these noted Stamford settlers, Rev. John Bishop,

Hon. Richard Law and Francis Bell, testified to his " heavenly mindedness." His wife was the widow of Henry Winthrop, a son of Gov. Winthrop. His nephew, Tobias, must have been younger than Daniel Partrick's widow, whom he married. She, says Gov. Winthrop, was " comely, a good Dutch woman." Her maiden name was Annetje Aelbreghts ( Alberto) Van Beyeren, a daughter of Albert Bastieusen Van Beyeren, residing at The Hague, in Holland, where, presumably, she married Partrick, who, before coming to America, served under the command of the Prince of Nassau, in Holland. After Tobias Feake's mar- riage to the widow Partrick, he removed to Flushing, Long Island, where he became a prominent official. He subsequently entered the naval service of England and was deceased in 1669.

NORWALK.

Ludlow adhered to the Connecticut rather than the New Haven colony. This second colony, for a time, recognized the authority of Massachusetts, which he had renounced. As, therefore, the New Haven colony had recently planted Milford, Guilford, Stamford' and Greenwich, the sagacious law graduate of the Inner Temple, London, may have deemed it expedient to credit Hartford also with another off-shoot by launching Norwalk upon the sea of being.

Again, it is possible that Ludlow, fearing the encroachments of the Dutch on the west of the Connecticut colony, believed that the planting of a new settlement in that direction would prove an additional Dutch ambition barrier, which fear, had it existence, was fully justified by the terrible experiences of 1653. The actual " REASONS WHY," how- ever, in the matter of the founding of the new town, are likely to remain a subject of inquiry. In 1639, Ludlow, who was at that time deputy-Governor of the colony, visited the eastern portion of what is now known as Fairfield County. His objective point had been " Pe- quannocke (Bridgeport) and the parts thereabouts," some of his proceedings at which place the Court evidently faulted. Before this Court Ludlow, on Oct. 10, 1639, made ex- planation, which the Court, notwithstanding Mr. Ludlow's arguments, did not feel that it could accept, at least at that sitting of the body, (vide Trumbull's 1639 Conn. Colonial Records, page 35,) and it is barely possible that just at this juncture a contingency-idea determined him to so far provide for another settlement (Norwalk) as to at least purchase the land therefor. But whatever or however the case may have been, having made his peace at the Capital, Ludlow returned to Fairfield for a few weeks, and then repairing again to Hartford for a brief visit, closed just afterward, his negotiations for Norwalk.

Probably there lived not in all the colonies a more energetic man than Roger Lud- low, and the years from 1640 to 1650 witnessed to a New England record truly extra- ordinary on his part.

The decade was one of peril to the settlers between New Haven and the New York line, who were kept in a state of perpetual indian alarm. The inhabitants were compelled to arm themselves and to maintain incessant watch, heavy fines being imposed for derelic- tion in these particulars. So serious did the Court consider the case to be, and so stringent were its regulations, that Jonathan Marsh of New Haven, (later the Norwalk miller) was apprehended because of a "foole gun" having been found in his possession ; while Henry Lindall of the same city, whose four daughters subsequently became Norwalk mothers of repute, was fined for being behind time at meeting. But as these eventful ten years drew to an end, it was evident from the gradually developing condition of things, and the increase in population, that there was a call for the opening up of Norwalk, and that its peopling-hour had arrived. Hence the following :

'In one point the government of Stamford dif- tered essentially from that of Norwalk, a fact that gave rise to some little disagreement on the part of the Stamford settlers. Stamford, a dependency of

New Haven, allowed only " church people" a voice in public affairs. This was a strong plank in the New Haven-Stamford platform. Norwalk denied a vote to non-property holders only.

NORWALK.

AGREEMENT

A copyie of the agreement and articles made between Roger Ludlow, of Fairfield, and Nathan- iel Ely, and Rithard Olmested, and the rest, for the settlinge and plantinge of Norwalk.

Articles of agreement made between Roger Ludlow of Fairfield, esquire, of the one parte, and Nathaniel Eli, of Hartford, in the River of Connecticut, Rithard Olmsted of the same, in the behalfe of themselves, and Rithard Webb, Nathaniel Rithards, Mathew Mar- vin, Rithard Seamer, Thomas Spencer, Thomas Hales, Nathaniel Ruskoe, Isacke Graves,' Ralph Keeler, John Holloway, Edward Church, John Ruskoe, and some others about plant- inge Norwalke, over the 19th day of June, 1650.

Inprimis, the sayed Nathaniel Eli and Rithard Olmested, doe covenant and promise and agree, that they will set upon the plantinge of the sayed Norwalke, with all convenient speed ; will mowe, and stacke some hay upon the sayed Norwalke this winter, to the end that they may, in the spring next at the farthest, breake up some ground to plante the next season, followinge ; and that then they will begin to build and inhabite their-with some considerable companie, and to invite an orthodoxe and approved minister with all convenient speede that they may be ; and that the plantation shall not be taken up under thirtie approved families, in a short time to be settled their, and so to continue ; and that, or the like considerable companie ; and that they will not receive in, any that they be obnoxious to the publique good of the Commonwealth of Connecticut. And upon that consideration the sayed Roger Ludlowe is willinge and doe agree to surrender the purchase of the sayed Norwalke, whith he bought of the Indians, of the sayed Norwalke, some years since ; which cost the sayed Roger Ludlowe fifteen pounds, some years since ; as by the purchase will appeare ; whith sayed fifteen pounds is promised to be payed to the sayed Roger Ludlowe or his assignes by the sayed Eli and Olmested their assignes, shortly after the first plant- inge thereof, with consideration for the sayed fifteen pounds from the disbursinge thereof unto that time ; as also that the sayed Roger, shall have a convenient Lott,2 laied out for his sonnes, accordinge to the vallue of 2001b. in the proportion of Rates as they goe by them- selfes ; and that it shall be one of the first ; the publique charges being borne by the sayed Lott, and proportionabley by themselfes ; and that it shall be one of the first Lotts that shall be Laied out.

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Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 1

Author: Selleck, Charles Melbourne. Publication date: 1896 Publisher: The author, Number of Pages: 553

Author: Selleck, Charles Melbourne.
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: The author,
Number of Pages: 553