USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Stratford > A history of the old town of Stratford and the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut > Part 9
USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Bridgeport > A history of the old town of Stratford and the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut > Part 9
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" Two hundred years ago ! how strange To look back o'er the way And think of the great, amazing change From that until th' present time.
Slow rising in the eastern sky, Our fathers hailed the rising sun ; But saw not in the western skies What wonders should be done."
The old meeting-house, after about forty years' service, disappeared in 1683, but some of the timbers were used as sills and sleepers in a house now standing a little way west from the site of the old meeting-house, on the north side of the street, which is now occupied by Mr. Joseph Savage. These timbers having been in use about two hundred and forty years, are interesting as showing the work of human hands which have slept in the dust two centuries.
A barn now stands on the site of the old meeting-house, with a stone cellar which was long used as a kind of store or storage house, and is rather an unseemly sentinel to tell where the first bell that called worshipers together in the state of Connecticut was suspended to perform its weekly musical task. There Goodman Peat stood for ten or fifteen years pulling the rope that caused the sound of the bell to echo across the placid waters of the old Pootatuck, but now Housatonic river ; and after him Goodman Pickett performed the same duties to save Stratford from being in fashion in coming to the meeting at the beat of the drum.
.
96
History of Stratford.
1-Thomas Skidmore was of Cambridge, Mass., in 1642 ; in 1636 he had been engaged for John Winthrop in his preparation for planting Saybrook, Conn. He was early in Stratford, with his son-in-law Edward Higby, probably before 1649, when they had a suit in law tried before the Court at Hartford. He was in Stratford in 1659, but appears to have removed not long after to Fairfield, where his descendants continued many years. His will was dated April 20, 1684, and proved soon after. Judge Savage says he had a wife Ellen, but in his will he speaks of his wife Sarah, which may have been a second. He had two sons and several daughters.
2-John Wells, son of Gov. Thomas Wells of Wethers- field, was probably one of the original proprietors of Strat- ford, or sent there by his father to occupy the lands which he, the father, owned as one of the proprietors of the plantation, and he afterwards received considerable land in Stratford from his father. John Wells was made a freeman in 1645, perhaps in Stratford, but was here in 1650; was made an Assistant in 1656 and again in 1658 and 1659. He was a prominent man while he lived, but died in 1660, or in 1661, about the same time his father did, a comparatively young man, not far from thirty-five years of age.
Governor Thomas Wells, the father of John Wells, above, was an original proprietor at Hartford and Wethers- field ; appears there on the records first as the Secretary Magistrate at the General Court, May 1, 1637, when war was declared against the Pequots. It is uncertain when he came from England and whether he brought a wife or not, but he brought three sons and three daughters. He married a sec- ond wife Elizabeth, widow of Nathaniel Foot of Wethers- field. In 1654, he was chosen Deputy Governor, and Gov- ernor Hopkins being in England, he acted as Governor all the year, and in 1655 he was elected Governor of Connecti- cut, and then re-elected again in 1658. Governor Wells died in Wethersfield Jan. 14, 1660.
3-John Reader, of New Haven, 1643, came to Strat- ford among the first settlers. His home lot, No. 10, he sold
97
First Settlers of Stratford.
with several pieces of land in 1659, to David Mitchell, and appears to have removed from the town.
4-Rev. Adam Blakeman,1 was the son of a private citizen of Staffordshire, Eng .; born in 1598, and entered Christ College, Oxford, May 23, 1617, when nineteen years of age,2 where he wrote his own name, Blakeman.3 Mather says of him: "He was a useful preacher of the gospel, first in Leicestershire, then in Derbyshire, England." Mather also gives the impression that he was attended to this country by several families of his parish, but in what year he came over or by whom accompanied he does not say. Allen, Hinman and other writers have asserted that he first preached a while in Scituate, Mass., but they were led into this error by Deane's History of Scituate, the author of which afterward acknowledged that he had mistaken the name of " Mr. Black- man" for that of Rev. Christopher " Blackwell." Cotton Mather also represents him as having preached in Guilford before Stratford, but of this no evidence appears, nor could it have been, since Guilford was settled not a year before Stratford, and its people had with them their minister, Mr. Henry Whitfield. In June, 1640, the General Court appointed him with Mr. Ludlow of Uncoway and William Hopkins of Cupheag to run the line between these two plantations, and from this it is concluded he was already settled at Cupheag.
On May 17, 1649, the Court directed : " Concerning Mr. Blakeman's maintenance, Mr. Ludlowe is directed, both for what is behind as also for the future, to take care that it be levied according to the several seasons as is provided by the order of the country." This indicates that his salary was so long in arrears as to make it important for the Court to take action in regard to it. In 1651, " by the town in public meet- ing it was agreed that Mr. Blakeman shall have 63 pounds and pay part of his own rate." His name occurs only a few times on the existing town records. In 1660, he is named
1 Taken largely from MS. of Rev. B. L. Swan.
2 Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. viii. 249.
3 His sons James and Benjamin wrote their names Blakeman and Blackeman. 7
98
History of Stratford.
as executor of William Beardsley's will, and on April 20, 1665, he is named in a vote inviting Mr. Chauncey to help him in the ministry for one year. Mr. Blakeman died Mon- day, Sept. 1665, æ. 67 years.3 His home lot was number 20 on the plan of the village of Stratford.
From Mather's brief notice of him Mr. Blakeman appears to have been a man of learning, prudence and fervent piety. The famous Rev. Thomas Hooker said of him : " for the sake of the sacred and solemn simplicity of the discourse of this worthy man, if I might have my choice, I would choose to live and die under Mr. Blakeman's ministry."
Nothing remains of Mr. Blakeman's writings except his will on the Fairfield probate records and his autograph in the Connecticut Historical Society's Collections, at the bottom of a document in Mr. Chauncey's handwriting, and dated in .the spring of 1665. It is the answer of the Church of Strat- ford to questions by the General Court of the preceding year, relating to the matters transacted in the Synod at Bos- ton in 1662 ; chiefly respecting the membership and rights of baptized persons.
A paragraph in Mr. Blakeman's will indicates that he was a member of the Synod from 1646 to 1648 which drew up the Cambridge platform.
Extracts from Rev. Adam Blakeman's Will.
The will was dated March 16, 1665-66.
" Item. Concerning my books which I intended for my son Benjamin, seeing his thoughts are after another course of life-that his thoughts be not to attend the work of Christ in the ministry, my wish is that my son Atwater [son-in-law] make his son Joshua a scholar and fit him for that work. I give unto him all my Latin books ; but if not they shall be put into my estate and disposed of as my wife any my overseers shall think fit.
" Item. Because many of God's servants have been falsely accused concern- ing the judgment of the kingly power of Christ, though I have cause to bewail my great ignorance and weakness in acting, yet I do hope I shall, through the strength of Christ to my dying day, adhere to that form of Church discipline agreed upon by the honored Elders and Brethren, now in print, and to the truth of God concerning that point left on record by that famous and Reverend Servant of God, of blessed Memory, Mr. Thomas Hooker, in his elaborate work called
Savage, vol. ii. 472.
99
First Settlers of Stratford.
The Survey of Church Discipline, to which most in all the churches of Christ then gathered in this Colony gave their consent as appears in the Rev. Author's Epistle-so at Milford, New Haven, Guilford, and those in the Bay who could be come at in that stress of time. And being one who in the name of our church subscribed that copy, could never (through the Grace of Christ) see cause to receive any other in judgment, nor fall from those principles so solemnly backed with Scripture, and arguments which none yet could overturn."
.
Mr. Blakeman is described by Mr. Mather as having been attended on his departure for New England with a consid- erable and " desirable company of the faithful " who would not be separated from him. He also describes him as a very " holy man " and as greatly beloved by his people.
Mr. Blakeman's death should have been on Stratford town records, but is found only on his tombstone, which was removed to the second grave yard. There is a pretence (in accordance with repeated orders of the Court) of keeping a burial record, which begins (p. 49) with John, son of Nicho- las Knell, January, 1651, and ends with Elizabeth Porter in 1683, but in these thirty-two years only twenty-four names- and one or two infants without names-are recorded. Mr. Blakeman had five sons and one daughter, all except perhaps, Benjamin, were born in England.
Mrs. Jane Blakeman, widow of the Rev. Adam, appears to have been sister to Moses Wheeler of Stratford, for her son John in his will dated in 1662, mentions his " Uncle Wheeler." Moses Wheeler was born in 1598, and if she was next younger, and born in 1600, she was two years younger than her husband, and at her death in 1674, was 74 years of age. Her name appears several times on the Colo- niał and Town records, in consequence of the misconduct of her son Deliverance, in whose behalf she was obliged to intercede more than once with the Colonial authorities, but who afterwards retrieved himself from his former life, mar- ried and settled in Stonington about 1685, where he died in April, 1702. Her will is on the Fairfield Probate records.
John Blakeman, son of the Rev. Adam Blakeman, married Dorothy, daughter of the Rev. Henry Smith of Wethersfield about 1653, removed to Fairfield where he died
100
History of Stratford.
in 1662, leaving a widow and three sons, Joseph, John and Ebenezer; from the last of these, who married a Willcoxson,. descended the Blakeman families of Newtown and Monroe.
The widow Dorothy (Smith) Blakeman appears to have possessed remarkable charms, either of person, intellect or heart, for besides passing through a case of litigation in Court for her hand, she was married four times, twice after she was over fifty years of age. Rev. Adam Blakeman, who survived his son John, in his will-1665-says: " I give to my daughter [Dorothy] Blakeman, if she marry not John Thomas, and shall take her friends' consent in the matter, or continue a widow, five pounds," and the General Court, Oct. 10, 1665, recorded : " The magistrates do order that in case John Thomas and the widow Blakeman do not issue their differ- ence by reference now concluded on, that the said Thomas shall make good his claim to that woman at the next Court at Fairfield, otherwise the widow shall have liberty to marry." Upon this John Thomas seems to have abandoned his claims instanter, for Francis Hall of Stratford, who had been the attorney for the widow of Rev. Mr. Blakeman in this case before the Court, became charmed with his opponent and married her that same month, October 31, 1665, his for- mer wife having died on July 6th previous. Twenty-two years afterwards, before the decease of Francis Hall, his son Isaac Hall entered a claim in Fairfield to recover certain amount of money which was his own mother's estate at mar- riage, and guaranteed to her in writing by her husband Francis Hall, when he sold the estate in England, in 1664, the apparent object being to keep it from the possession of this brilliant step-mother. Francis Hall died, apparently, in Stratford, but this is not certain, in 1690, and his widow Dorothy still possessing charms too attractive to be confined to widowhood, married Mark Sension (St. John) of Norwalk, who died in 1693, after which she married Dea. Isaac Moore of Farmington.
Samuel Blakeman, son of Rev. Adam Blakeman, mar- ried Elizabeth, daughter of Moses Wheeler in 1660, and died in 1668, leaving several children. His widow married Jacob
IOI
First Settlers of Stratford.
Walker, a lawyer, in 1670. He was the son of Robert Walker of Boston and brother of the Rev. Zachariah Walker, pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Stratford, and which removed to Woodbury. Samuel Blakeman was only forty-eight years of age.
Mary Blakeman, the daughter of the Rev. Adam Blakeman, was born in 1636, and when fifteen years of age- in 1651-married Joshua Atwater of New Haven, who seems to have resided for a time in Stratford, purchasing a considerable estate here, and then removed to Boston where he died in 1676, leaving several children. After his death she married the Rev. John Higginson, then of Salem, Mass., but formerly assistant minister to Rev. Henry Whitfield of Eng- land and Guilford, Conn., whose daughter was his first wife. Mr. Higginson was an interpreter of the Indian language while in Connecticut, and gave a valuable paper in the settle- ment of the claims of Stratford territory in 1659, in which year he removed to Salem. He died in 1708, and his widow Mrs. Mary Higginson died March 9, 1709. Her character is finely set forth by Cotton Mather as illustrative of the noble women of that age.4
5-Richard Harvey, a tailor by trade, came from Great St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England, in the ship Planter, in which also came Rev. Mr. Blakeman and William Will- coxson, in 1635; was probably among the first settlers in Stratford in 1639. He appears to have had no sons but three daughters. His home lot was number 43. If this was his first lot, then either he did not come as early as is supposed above, or did not obtain one until some years after he came.
6-John Peacocke, was of New Haven in 1638, Mil- ford, 1642, and came to Stratford before 1651. He had a home lot in the southern part of the village on Main street, and died in 1670. He had four children born before he came to Stratford, and his only son died while a child and hence his descendants of the name soon became extinct in the town.
4 Thoughts on the Sleep of Death, by Cotton Mather, D.D. 1712. Pp. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, MS. Rev. B. L. Swan.
IO2
History of Stratford.
7 -- William Quenby was one of the first proprietors in Stratford territory, his lands being re-entered on the town books in 1652; a house lot, two pieces of land in the New field, and three acres on the Neck. These possessions he sold April 1, 1657, to Henry Tomlinson. William Quenby, probably, was a resident of Stratford only about four years.
8-Robert Rice was not of the original proprietors, but came soon after them and was granted land from the town which was recorded Sept. 16, 1648, which is the earliest record now on the town books. Hence the plan or plot for the village was laid before this date, else the lot could not have been bounded on the highway. The record says : " One house lot, two acres, more or less, butting south upon the highway, north upon William Beardsley, west upon Mr. Knell and east upon John Brownsmayd." He had also " meadow and upland in the Old Field, 8 acres in the New. feyld upon Mr. Waklin's Neck," and other pieces elsewhere. On February 6, 1660, Mr. Rice sold these parcels of land, including "one house lot, one dwelling house upon it and barn " to " Thomas Wheeler now of Paugusit," and removed to New London. A family of the same name have been resi- dent on the south side of Long Island for many years to the present time, in the vicinity of Bellville. This dwelling and lot was afterwards owned by Richard Beach, and then Rev. Israel Chauncey.
9-William Burritt came from England with wife Elizabeth and settled in Stratford among the first planters and died in 1651, the inventory of his estate is dated May 28, 1651. His home lot was at the south end of the village, west side of Main street. He left two sons and one daughter, and the name has been perpetuated with honor in the line of blacksmiths as well as in other pursuits, in various interior towns of Connecticut, as well as in the person of the " learned blacksmith," the late Elihu Burritt of New Britain, Conn.
10-Nicholas Knell, married in 1650, Elizabeth, widow of Thomas Knowles and daughter of Francis Newman of New Haven. He was in Stratford probably before his marriage and appears to have been an original proprietor
IO3
First Settlers of Stratford.
The record of his land that is preserved is without date, but was made soon after 1650. Besides his house lot and other pieces of meadow and upland there was given to him by the town as a part of his first division " One Island of meadow lying in the midst of our harbor, lying for five acres and a half;" and hence the island has always borne his name- Knell's Island-and should never be spelled without the K. Mr. Knell seems to have been an influential man as to char- acter and public efficiency and work. He died April 2, 1675, and the town clerk added to the record : " that aged bene- factor in ye county." He had four children-one died an infant, and the family name continued in the town quite a number of years, but has long since disappeared.
Eleazer Knowles was the son of Mrs. Elizabeth Knell. His father, Thomas Knowles, was in New Haven in 1645, and died before 1648, leaving widow Elizabeth and sons Thomas and Eleazer. The widow married Mr. Knell as above, but what became of Thomas Knowles, Jr., does not appear ; probably he died young. Eleazer Knowles settled in Strat- ford, married Jane Porter and had two sons, Eleazer and Thomas, and Eleazer removed to Woodbury, Conn., where his descendants still continue. Thomas Knowles, the first in New Haven, was one of a company of seventy who sailed in a new ship from New Haven for Liverpool in January, 1646, of whom nothing was ever heard.
11-John Pettit was in Roxbury in 1639, and was at Stratford in 1651, removed soon, probably to Stamford and thence to Newtown, Long Island.
12-John Brinsmade united with the church at Charlestown, Mass., in March, 1638, and in October, 1639, his wife Mary joined also; but he seems to have removed that year to Dorchester, Mass., where in 1640 his son John was born. He settled in Stratford before 1650, and became prominent in the town. He has been reported as a Ruling Elder in Stratford church, which is an error arising from the fact of his name being on the town records as John Brins- made the elder, that is, not the younger, who was his son. The only Ruling Elder this church had was Philip Groves.
104
History of Stratford.
First Inhabitants and their Home Lots.1
Home
Home Lots.
Lots.
I-2 John Birdsey,
William Judson, then
3
Thomas Sherwood,
41 Joseph Judson,
4 Wid. Elizabeth Beardsley,
42 § First Parsonage Lot
5-8 Jeremiah Judson,
43
( taken from Public Green.
6
John Minor, 1667,
Hugh Griffin, then
7
William Burritt,
44 John Wheeler,
9 Nathaniel Porter,
45 Richard Harvey,
§ John Reader, then
46
Francis Hall,
IO
( David Mitchell,
47
John Blakeman,
12-13 Robert Seabrook,
48 Wid. A. Kimberly, 1680,
14 John Peacock,
49 David Sherman, 1686,
15 Henry Wakelyn,
50 Common,
16 Thomas Uffoot,
51 Land of I. Nichols,
17 Robert Coe,
52 Samuel Sherman, Jr., 1665,
I8 Samuel Sherman, 1652,
53
Street.
20 Rev. Adam Blakeman,
55 Nathaniel Foot,
22 James Harwood,
23 Edward Higby,
59 Jabez Harger,
25 Arthur Bostwick,
61 John Pickett,
26 Jeremiah Judson,
62 Robert Lane,
27 Joshua Judson,
64 Thomas Wells,
3J Adam Hurd,
66a Daniel Titterton, Sen.,
66b John Wilcoxson, Sen.,
32
Francis Nichols, then Caleb Nichols,
67
John Peake, [Peat],
Thomas Quenby, then
6S
Moses Wheeler,
33 Joshua Atwater, then
69
Thomas Curtis,
- Henry Tomlinson,
70
William Wilcoxson,
34 William Curtis,
71 William Beardsley, Ist,
35 Adam Hurd,
72 John Brinsmade,
73 Nicholas Knell,
36 bought of A. Bryan,
Richard Miles, then
75 First Meetinghouse,
37 ( Joseph Hawley,
76
Thomas Uffoot,
38 John Thompson,
77
38a Francis Jecockes,
78 Jehiel Preston. 1662,
39 William Read,
79 Second Meetinghouse, 1678,
40 William Crooker,
So Third Meetinghouse, 1743,
Burned by lightning, 1785.
John Barlow, then
56 Burial Place, 1678,
21 John Hurd,
57 Daniel Titterton, Jr.,
24 John Jenner,
63 John Young,
28 Thomas Fairchild, Sen.,
29 Richard Booth,
65 John Thompson's 2d lot,
66
John Wells,
30 Isaac Nichols, Sen.,
58 Timothy Willcoxson,
60 John Hull,
Philip Groves,
54 John Beers,
II John Hurd,
47a
1 This Map was first constructed by the Rev. B. L. Swan, and has been care- fully revised by the deeds of the first settlers. It is intended to have a map double this size in a future part of the book. The numbers have no significance, except for convenience in referring to the Map. For want of room lots 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62 and 63 are not designated on the map.
John Beach, 1660,
74 Robert Rice,
55
56
54
66b
65a
50
49
51
44
40
45
64
39
38a
38
47a
46
41
42:
43
66
37
35
30
67
70
68
32
29
3º
28
73
74%
Road on River Shore.
19
20
MAIN
21
22
EL M
76
78
15
77
14
II
12
13
IO
7
00
O
Creek.
4
5
6
3
2
POOTATUCK
N.
STRATFORD IN 1660.
Rocks,
33
34
31
STREET.
STREET.
71
72
27
26
25
23
24
75
18
17
16
Little Neck.
Ferry Road.
Intack.
65
Creek.
RIVER.
106
History of Stratford.
Hence, with the fiction of Mr. Brinsmade's office as Elder goes also the silly story of the leather mitten ordination.
John Brinsmade died in 1673 leaving an estate valued at £519. He had a brother William who entered Harvard College in 1644, and was settled minister in Marlborough from 1660 to 1701.5
By a town vote in 1664, it is ascertained that the Indian wigwams, some of them at least, were located in the south- west part of what is now Stratford village, west of Main street, along the path that went to the first mill at the " Eagle's Nest."" A tract of land there was called Wigwam Meadow, in consequence of the wigwams having stood there. It may not have been the only place where wigwams were located.
13-William Willcoxson came from England in April, 1635, in the ship Planter, in company with Richard Harvey and William Beardsley who settled in Stratford. He was made freeman in Massachusetts in 1636, and came from Concord, Mass., to Stratford, probably, in 1639, and hence was one of the first proprietors and a prominent man of the township. In his will, dated May, 1651, he gave £40 to the church in Concord. He left a widow and five sons, through whom the descendants of his name are widely scattered in the nation. The name has become contracted in some localities to that of Willcox.
5 See Allen's Biog. Dictionary.
6 " Oct. 10, 1664. In consideration of some meadow being not answerable to the grant given to Goodman Brinsmade the town at a lawful meeting gave him a little island below the ferry being south of the ferry, and one acre of land in the swamp on the right hand of the path as they go from Beardsley Gate to the meadow called by the place where the wigwams used to be and three, more or less, on the other side of the path by the swamp side, John Hurd's ground on the west side of it."
CHAPTER VI.
THE FIRST PLANTERS.
(Continued.)
1639-1651.
OMMONS or "commoning " was land not deeded from the town to any purposes. Hence in their deeds parties frequently sold their " commoning" or interest in the undi- vided lands. Rights of this kind are said to exist still in the town.
Sequestered land was that given away or devoted to some specific public purpose, but when given to settlers, as many of the home lots were, it was not called seques- tered land. When the first parsonage lot was given by the town, which comprised the two lots 42 and 43 in the map on page 105, it was taken out of sequestered land, that is out of the public highway or green, and probably the highway now called Elm street was proportionally wide as these lots would make it at that place. Many changes have occurred in regard to the topography of the place since the first settlement. A brook once crossing where the railroad and the Old Mill road intersect and known as Gallows brook, has disappeared. Tanner's brook, so called from the earliest settlement, was then a larger stream than now, having one tannery, probably the oldest, standing on it where Dorman's blacksmith shop now stands.
The salt meadow and sedge on the west and south of the creek below New Lane were largely covered with water, and the point where the shipyard is, being then described as bounded east, south and west by the river, cove and beach.
IOS
History of Stratford.
Knell's island contained five or six acres. An island just below the old Washington bridge, once known as Brinsmade's island, has, the last of it, disappeared within the memory of persons now living.
The creek setting back from the river into Sandy Hollow and now almost choked up was two hundred years ago open and navigable. At the elbow of that creek where the barn now stands was the center of the first settlement, and the meeting-house and the burying ground.
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