USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Winchester > Annals and family records of Winchester, Conn.: with exercises of the centennial celebration, on the 16th and 17th days of August, 1871 > Part 4
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He is described by a cotemporary* as "a conservative of the first water, -conservative in his dress, in his food, and in all his habits-six
* Rev. Abel McEwen, D. D., of New London.
5
34
ANNALS OF WINCHESTER.
feet four or five inches high, gaunt and erect, with a pock-marked, weather-beaten face, large hands and feet, clothed in butternut colored coat, vest, and small clothes, garnished with long pewter buttons, stock - ings of black and white sheep's wool, cow-hide shoes of enormous size ; crowned with a broad-brimmed, round-topped hat of dubious color; his costume on week days, Sundays, and training days, always the same, from early manhood to extreme old age. His fare was simple, consisting of bears' meat, venison, and wild turkey, when game abounded, and beef, pork, and mutton in after years, with toast and cider, mush and milk, and bean porridge, as his only luxuries."
He was, withal, a mighty hunter, never failing to bring down the deer, fox, or wild turkey with his six foot shooting-iron.
He was also a fish-fancier, and had stoned up a tank around a copious spring on the side of the road in front of his house, in which he kept a speckled trout of great size. There is another legend that a neighbor, with a long hooked nose, tinged at the end with deep red, coming along the road one day, stooped down to drink from the tank. The trout seeing the red protuberance, as it touched the water, and fancying it a gaudy insect, sprang upward and seized it. The nose recoiled, but too late. The fish was drawn out of the water, and dropped on dry land. Great was the rage of the man of the nose for a few moments, but as he surveyed the poor floundering fish, and reflected that he had got the worst of it, pity superseded wrath. Looking around and seeing no witness of his success- ful angling, he kindly restored the fish to the water and went on his way a happier man for his magnanimous act.
Mr. Beach's wife was also a dead shot. One day, near sunset, she discovered a panther* in a tree near the house. Her husband was away but his loaded gun was at hand. She seized and primed it, took deliberate aim, and lodged a bullet in its brain.
Mr. Beach was always a hard-working, temperate, and inoffensive man, who, in the words of the cotemporary before referred to, " had but little of religious theory, but in old age he became pious ; and thence, down to the grave, his zeal for duty and worship glowed noiselessly but unquestioned. He died November 28, 1820, aged eighty-four; leaving his original farm, neither increased nor diminished by a single aere."
He married, at Torrington, October 18, 1757, widow Abiah Filley, of Torrington. He married, second, October 15, 1767, Amy Johnson, of Torrington.
* The Felis Concator, vernacularly named the "painter," was indigenous to this region, and is said to have been killed in Guilford or its vicinity, within the past fifteen years.
35
PIONEER SETTLERS.
CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE.
I. HEZEKIAH,
b. July 19, 1768 ; bap. at Tor., Oct. 16, 1768.
II. JOEL, .
b. Oct. 3, 1769 ; bap. at Norfolk, Nov. 26, 1769. Killed by discharge of a gun, Oct. 19, 1771.
III. BENJAMIN,
b. Dec. 7, 1770.
IV. JEREMIAH,
b. April 19, 1772; d. Sept. 25, 1776.
V. JOSHUA,
b. March 23, 1774.
VI. SEBA,
b. Sept. 24, 1776.
VII. CALEB,
b. Nov. 27, 1777.
VIII. PHEBE, b. May 15, 1779; d. June 2, 1780.
IX. SUSANNA,
b. Jan. 18, 1783.
CALEB BEACH, seventh son of Joel, lived in the town landless, until his death, March 10, 1851. He married, June 25, 1797, Sarah Blakeslee.
CHILDREN.
I. ELIZABETH, b. July 3, 1798 ; d. December 2, 1804.
II. JONATHAN, b. November 19, 1799.
III. WILLIAM,
b. January 25, 1802.
IV. SEBA,
b. January 8, 1804.
V. CALEB, b. January 6, 1806.
VI. SUSAN SEREPTA, b. December 10, 1807 ; m. July 18, 1837, Friend Holcomb.
VJI. HEZEKIAH, b. July 13, 1810.
VIII. SARAH, .
b. July 31, 1812.
¡IX. JULIA,
b. April 25, 1815.
X. PHEBE,
b. May 26, 1817.
XI. CLARISSA, b. June 2, 1819; m. December 31, 1837, Major Thorp, of Barkhamsted.
SAMUEL GILBERT, from Coventry, became a landowner and resident of the town in 1752, and is named of Winchester, in a deed of 1754, when he probably moved into Torrington, where his son, Samuel, was baptized August 25, 1754.
EBENEZER PRESTON, from Wallingford, and JOSEPH PRESTON, from Farmington, became owners of an undivided right of land in 1754, under which they entered upon, and improved, a small tract of land adjoining Torrington line, extending from Blue Street Road eastward to the north, and South Road in the second tier, which, under a vote of the proprietors, was allotted to them in the division of 1758. Here was their first dwelling place. They afterward lived, in various parts of the town, to a good old age, leaving sons and daughters, none of whom-nor any of their descendants bearing the name-now reside among us. The race was not a thrifty or vigorous one, physically or intellectually.
36
ANNALS OF WINCHESTER.
From the scant records of the family it is not possible to determine the relationships to each other of those of the name who were early residents.
MARTHA, wife of EBENEZER PRESTON, d. May 16, 1770, and he m. February 20, 1771, Martha Catling and had
CHILDREN. .
I. PHEBE, b. July 20, 1773.
II. REBECCA, b. August 27, 1774 ; bap. Tor., Sept. 18, 1774.
JOSEPH PRESTON (senior), died in 1774.
JOSEPH PRESTON d. in Winsted in 1824, aged 85. He is believed to have been son to Joseph, the pioneer. He and his wife, known as " Uncle Joe and Aunt Keziah," lived early in this century, in a log shanty on Sucker Brook. They were a simple-minded couple, who lived by basket-making and renovating splint-bottomed chairs. They once lost the day of the week, and made Sunday a day of labor. They started for meeting on their old pillioned horse on Monday, and learning on the way their unintended desecration of the Sabbath, returned home and spent the rest of the day in penitential and devotional exercises.
JONATHAN and JOHN PRESTON, father and son, from Waterbury, named of Winchester in 1767, lived on a lot 41 first division, until 1769, after which their names disappear.
SAMUEL PRESTON, son of Ebenezer, owned and occupied a part of his father's land in 1768, and afterwards, until 1790, lived in the extreme south-west corner of the town. He was bap. Tor., Sept. 17, 1769; m. Jan. 4, 1770, Elizabeth Gleason.
CHILDREN.
I. MARTHA, b. Oct. 7, 1770.
II. SALMAN, b. Oct. 25, 1772.
III. SAMUEL, b. Dec. 20, 1776.
IV. MILLA, b. Aug. 22, 1779.
V. ELIZABETH, b. Feb. 16, 1785.
LANDLORD ADAM MOTT, originally from Windsor, erected his hostelry on the bridle-path that preceded the Old South Road, as early as 1754. It stood opposite the Hurlbut Cemetery, and on or near the site of the house of John Neth. The building was neither imposing nor spacious. Its walls were of unhewn logs, its roof of hemlock bark, with an opening
37
PIONEER SETTLERS.
in the ridge for the escape of smoke from the capacious stone chimney which ascended to the level of the garret floor. The landlord had two strapping boys, who slept under the roof, and occasionally worked off their superfluous animal force by a wrestling matcli before getting into bed. One cold winter night, when the hearth was all aglow with coals and embers of the consumed firewood, the boys, in their shirt tails, grappled for a trial of strength. They struggled long and vigorously. At length one of them got the dead lock of the other, at the edge of the yawning chimney. Both of them went headlong down the crater, into the coals and embers in the fireplace. Whether the tavern fare of the next day was called pork or bear's meat tradition does not say. It is presumable, however, if it was of the last night's roast, that it was done brown.
How a tavern could be sustained in this uninhabited region is hard to conceive. Landlord Mott, however, took courage and made the best of his business. To an inquiry as to how he succeeded in retailing his first keg of rum, he replied that he was doing remarkably well : that hunters, when they came along would fill their bottles, and that nearly every day he bought a glass of tanzy bitters of his wife, and that she would then buy one of him, with the same fourpence-halfpenny.
The bark-roofed tavern, in the course of years, gave way to a red lean-to mansion of the old Windsor order of architecture, and this in its turn to a pleasant modern cottage, drawing its water from the original well.
Landlord Mott became poor, and died in his native Windsor. He had children (as appears by deeds on record), Jonathan, Adam, junior, Lent, and Eunice, wife of Aaron Neal of Farmington, and may have had others.
JONATHAN MOTT. son of Adam, senior, came into the town with his father, and lived in a house on the slope of the hill, southeast of the tavern, which has long since disappeared. He died in 1818, aged 103, and was buried at the town's charge. His wife died in 1820 .*
They had a son, SIMEON, baptized at Torrington, Dec. 23, 1653.
* On the anniversary of his 100th birthday the old man proposed to have some kind of a celebration, and requested that Uncle Reuben, Aunt Eunice, and Br. Danicl iCoe be invited to come around, which was done. Having been a "Singing Master" n his young manhood he thought nothing could be more appropriate to the occasion than the singing of " Old Hundred," during the performance of which he wielded the wand, which was his witch-hazel staff. He got through with that part of the pro- gramme quite satisfactorily, Br. Coe joining most vehemently, but when he came to try the minuet (and try it he would) he thought he could have gone through it much better if he had not been so long out of practice.
38
ANNALS OF WINCHESTER.
ADAM MOTT, Jr., succeeded his father in the homestead until 1767, and afterward lived west of the old Everitt Tavern. He went to Ticon- deroga in 1775, in Captain Sedgwick's Company; served in Captain Beebe's Company in 1776, at Long Island, and was in other service during the Revolution. He removed to Vernon, N. Y., in his old age, where he was frozen to death at the age of about one hundred years.
He married Jan. 3, 1760, Abiah Filley. She died Oct. 19, 1784, and he married (second), February 14, 1786, Anna Cyrena Filley. She died June 5, 1806.
CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE.
I. ELIZABETH, b. Nov. 12, 1760 ; bap. in Tor., March 30, 1761.
II. IRA, b. Feb. 13, 1764 ; bap. Tor., March 20, 1764.
III. DIANTHA,
b. June 12, 1766.
IV. LODEMA,
b. Sept. 9, 1768 ; bap. Tor., June 18, 1769.
V. SABRA,
b. Nov. 1, 1770.
VI. ORANGE,
b. Oct. 17, 1772.
VII. LOAMMI, b. May 5, 1775 ; m. Ap. 18, 1795, Polly Clark.
VIII. ABIAH, b. July 18, 1780.
CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE.
IX. ANNA,
b. Sept. 14, 1786.
X. ELIHU,
b. Ap. 13, 1789.
XI. WAKEMAN IRA,
b. Dec. 1, 1791.
XII. SOPHIA, b. June 15, 1794 ; d. Jan. 6, 1808.
XIII. ALVA GLEASON, b. Ap. 18, 1798.
LENT MOTT, son of Adam, senior, had land from his father near the old Everitt Tavern, on which he early resided. He served in the Northern Campaign, in 1775, and probably did other service. The name of his first wife, the mother of two of his children, does not appear. He married (second), January 1, 1766, Mary Filley.
CHILDREN.
I. SAMUEL, b. Goshen, Feb. 21, 1762 ; bap. Tor., Dec. 31, 1769.
II. MARY, bap. Tor., Dec. 31, 1769 ; d. W., July 15, 1783.
III. JOSIAII, b. Dec. 11, 1767 ; bap. Tor., Dec. 31, 1769.
IV. JERUSHA, bap. Norfolk, June 2, 1770.
V. JEMIMA, b. Ap. 19, 1771.
VI. LENT, b. May 12, 1773 ; m. Nov. 16, 1798, Lucy Ives.
VII. JERUSHA, b. Feb. 7, 1776.
VIII. SYLVANUS, b. July 3, 1778 ; removed to Vernon, N. Y.
IX. ITHAMAR, h. Feb. 26, 1781.
39
PIONEER SETTLERS.
LOAMMI MOTT, son of Adam, junior, married, April 18, 1795, Polly, daughter of Samuel Clark, of Winchester, and moved with his father-in- law, about 1800, to Stockbridge, Mass.
CHILDREN.
I. MERRITT, b. Jan. 3, 1796. II. WILLARD, b. June 28, 1800.
III. LODEMA, b. Feb. 3, 1803, at Stockbridge, Mass.
IRA MOTT, son of Adam, junior, owned land on the Brooks Street Road in 1784, and on Blue Street in 1788.
The foregoing list comprises all the pioneers and their families who settled in the township before the survey and allotment in 1758, of whom we have any record or tradition, except Moses Miller and Joshua Merrills, who for a short period owned land on Hall Meadow, and in their deed conveying away the same, are named of Winchester.
-
CHAPTER VI.
PIONEER SETTLERS.
The Motts and Prestons seem to have been the only continuous resi- dents of the town up to the division of lands in 1758, and for nearly three years afterwards.
WILLIAM FILLEY, the next settler, called in the deed "late of Tor- rington, now of Winchester," bought in 1761, seventy acres of land on Hall Meadow, south of Rufus Drake's, which included the land and house previously occupied by Caleb Beach, the first settler. He married in Torrington, June 11, or 13, 1759, Dinah Preston, of Winchester. He was drowned in a deep pool, called the tub, in the west branch, August 3, 1774, aged 39.
He was son of William Filley, of Torrington, whose widow, Abia, married Joel Beach. His brothers and sisters, who inherited his estate, were Abraham, Remembrance, Abia, wife of Adam Mott, Jr., Mary, wife of John Curtis, of Torrington and Marcy.
DEACON ABRAHAM FILLEY, inherited a portion of his brother Wil- liam's estate and resided in the town most of his life. In 1772 his home- stead was a part of the Col. Ozias Bronson farm. In 1774 he was of New Hartford, whence he removed to Winsted and had charge of Doolit- tle's mill ; and afterwards lived and died in Old Winchester. He is said to have made a wooden clock with a pen-knife. In his later years he be- came a maniac, and was confined in a detached building. He and his wife Mary owned the convenant in Torrington church, June 6, 1762, and were admitted to full communion November 27, 1768. His children were :
I. ISAAC, baptized in Torrington June 6, 1762.
II. JESSE, 66 Sept. 9, 1764. III. LEVI, May 31, 1767; was taxed from 1789 to 1802; residence not known.
IV. RHODA, baptized in Torrington, April 9, 1769.
V. ROGER, in Winchester, May 25, 1771.
41
AND FAMILY RECORDS.
REMEMBRANCE FILLEY, baptized, Torrington, August 11, 1754 ;* in- herited in 1774 a portion of his brother William's estate, which he ex- changed for other lands. Before 1787 he lived on Blue Street, nearly one and a half miles north of Torrington line ; and afterwards in Hall Meadow, near Rufus Drake's. He served in the revolutionary war, and in his old age became a pauper.
He married, August 20, 1774, Anna Cyrena Gleason, who was proba- bly divorced from him, and afterward became second wife of Adam Mott, Jr. He married (2d), December 28, 1783, Hannah Hubbard.
CHILDREN BY FIRST WIFE :
I. WILLIAM, b. May 2, 1775.
II. ARUNAH, b. February 23, 1777.
CHILDREN BY SECOND WIFE :
III. CHARLOTTE, b. February 28, 1786.
IV. ABIGAIL, b. April 24, 1788,
V. HANNAH, _ b. June 25, 1790.
THOMAS HOSMER, Jr., son of Thomas Hosmer, Esq., of Hartford, one of the original proprietors, came into the town soon after 1761, and set- tled on the farm now owned by Abel S. Wetmore, which, after improving until 1771, he sold to Samuel Wetmore, Jr., of Middletown. His dwel- ling is supposed to have been on the Old South Coventry road, near the house named to widow Blake on the engraved map of the town. He was a leading man in the township and identified with all measures for its improvement during his residence. He sold out and removed to Canaan, in 1771, the year of the incorporation of the town.
It is noteworthy that he was the only known descendant of an origi- nal proprietor who ever settled on an ancestral lot; and that not one of the original proprietors ever occupied his land.
No record of Mr. Hosmer's family is found, except his (probable) second marriage (March 2, 1774) to Hannah Averet.
CORNELIUS MERRY, of Hartford, is grantee in a deed of January 14, 1762, conveying to him the John Pantry lot, first division, the western half of which became the Robert McEwen farm, now owned by Marcus Munsill ; and the eastern half, on which his dwelling stood, on the Old South Coventry road, near Hurlbut Cemetery, became the property of John Hills. In a deed of 1770 he is named of Hartland.
JOHN SMITH, Jr., of Derby, is grantee in a deed of 1763, and John Smith, of Winchester, in another of 1754. He lived adjoining the Ebe-
* Son of William Filley, who, with his wife Abiah, joined the church in Torrington, July 17, 1754.
6
42
ANNALS OF WINCHESTER,
nezer and Joseph Preston lot, near the Torrington line, until 1771, when his name disappears.
DAVID AUSTIN'S name first appears as grantee in a deed from Cor- nelius Merry, of 1764, in which he is described as of Winchester. He probably came from Suffield. For thirty years or more he was perhaps the most prominent and enterprising citizen of the town. His first resi- dence was on the Pantry lot above mentioned. In 1769 he purchased the Ensign lot, extending east and south from the outlet of the Long Pond so far as to embrace the pond stream and all the village of Winsted between Lake Street Bridge and Clifton Mill, a region then literally a howling wilderness, unapproached by roads and nearly unapproachable by reason of its jagged mountain ridges and heavy growth of timber, shrubs, and brambles. In 1771, he opened a cart-path through the forest, down to Sucker brook, and thence over the hills west of the Pond to its outlet, by which he conveyed the materials for the first grist mill in the town. This mill, and a saw-mill contiguous, were erected at the turn of Lake Street near the summit of the hill. The mill stood where the road now runs, a little northeastward of the Henry Spring Company's shop; the road as first opened running down the hill close to the old white dwelling now known as the Factory House. The water of the lake was raised some three feet above its natural level, by a frail dam of hemlock logs and plank, about three rods south of the present causeway, and let out by a new channel through a bulk head - the decayed parts of which are still to be seen in their place -and conveyed across the road nearly opposite the old stone-chimney mill-house and thenee on the east side to the junction of Rockwell and Lake streets, and then again turned across Lake street and poured on the wheel of the mill.
This mill was, for about twenty years, the eastern terminus of civilized habitation towards Mad River valley. Mr. Austin's first residence in Winsted was in a log house nearest to the pond outlet. He subsequently built the stone-chimneyed lean-to house now known as the mill-house already mentioned. In one of the rooms he kept a small store of goods, at the same time personally attending his mill and saw-mill and his other concerns. A contemporary says of him: "The Deacon* commonly tended his own mill. In times of drought, when other mills failed, he ran his day and night, and had so disciplined himself that he would turn a grist into the hopper, lie down to sleep on a bench, with his old turnip watch ticking at his head and wake at the precise moment when the last kernel was running out."
* He was chosen first deacon of the Congregational Church, on Wallen's Hill (An- cient Winsted) in 1785.
43
AND FAMILY RECORDS.
It seems passing strange that with such results attained and with a sure prospect of increasing wealth and ease, a man of his advanced age should desire to renew his pioneer life on another field. He was induced by crafty misrepresentations to exchange his Winsted property, now worth hundreds of thousands, for wild lands in the State of Vermont which he had never seen, and which proved to be nearly worthless. He closed the bargain in 1796 and removed with all his family to Watertown, Vermont, where he spent his remaining days in straightened circumstances. His name appears in the records of the town as one of its prominent officers and efficient agents during the revolutionary period and his subsequent residence. His wife was a help-meet for such a man - industrious, thrifty, and prudent. Their hospitality was characteristic of the hard times in which they lived. The apples handed round to visitors were divided into halves or quarters, according to their size. A venerable citizen who, were he living, would be a hundred years old, once told me of his working the Deacon's saw-mill and living in his family when a young man and about to be married. On leaving, Madam Austin presented him with a com- plete assortment of garden seeds of her own raising, with the injunction thereafter to save his own seeds, and never to come to her for more, as she never gave to any person a second time.
CHILDREN OF DAVID AND MARY AUSTIN.
I. DAVID,
b. Aug. 5, 1761.
II. DANIEL,
b. Mch. 25, 1764 ; d. Oct. 13, 1775.
III. MARY,
b. July 8, 1766.
IV. RUTH,
b. Mch. 16, 1769.
V. ASA, b. May 24, 1772 ; d. Feb. 12, 1776.
VI. DANIEL HARMON, h. Feb. 2, 1778.
VII. ASA, b. May 7, 1781 ; d. Jan. 23, 1785.
VIII. PHEBE, b. Oct. 4, 1783.
DAVID AUSTIN, junior, built and resided in the house adjoining the pond outlet. He married, September 30, 1782, Sarah Adkins. He moved to Vermont with his father.
CHILDREN.
I. SARAH, b. Feb. 22, 1785.
II. BETSEY, b. Dec. 7, 1786.
III. ASA, b. Aug. 12, 1788.
IV. DAVID, b. July 16, 1791.
V. ORIN, b. May 1, 1793.
VI. PATTY, b. May 13, 1795.
BENONI HILLS,1 born in Suffield in 1701 ; removed to Durham in
44
ANNALS OF WINCHESTER,
1724-5 ; to Goshen about 1740 ; afterwards to Torrington, and finally to Winchester, where he died, " ripe for heaven," June 24, 1793, in his ninety-second year. Several years before his death he selected two rough stones of Mica Slate, and shaping them to his liking, engraved in rude letters on one of them " Benoni Hills, this is my house," and on the other, "O eternity, death is come," to which is added, "June 24, 1793, B.II. aet. 93." Working at these stones was the special enjoyment of his leisure hours. He brought them with him from Torrington, and gave special directions to have them placed over his grave, where they now stand, in the old Winchester burying ground. He married, December 19, 1723. His wife, b. June 3, 1700; died October 21, 1776.
CHILDREN.
I. HANNAH, b. Suffield, Oct. 5, 1724; m. - Wilson ; died Tor., March 29, 1812.
II. ZIMRI, b. Durham, Dec. 16, 1725 ; d. Goshen, June 4, 1760.
III. BERIAH, b. D., Aug. 31, 1727.
IV. MEDAD,
b. D., Ap. 27, 1729 ; d. Ap. 9, 1808.
V. MARY,
b. D., Jan. 1, 1731 ; d. Jan. 28, 1732.
VI. JOHN,
b. D., Dec. 13, 1732; d. Charlotte, Vt., March 15, 1808.
VII. MARY,
b. D., Sept. 25, 1734; m. Epaphras Loomis.
VIII. SETH,
b. D., Sept. 13, 1736.
IX. RACHEL, b. D., July 8, 1739 ; m. Dr. Joel Soper ; d. Augusta, N. Y., Jan. 7, 1832.
X. BELA, b. Goshen, Aug. 24, 1741 ; d. May 29, 1756.
XI. ANN, b. G., June 11, 1743; m. Luman Beach; d. Norfolk, Jan. 22 1777.
SETH HILLS "of Winchester," is grantee in a deed of October 9, 1765, conveying to him fifty acres bordering on Torrington, in the third tier, first division, which he had probably occupied earlier.
Mr. Hills was first deacon of the church, and first representative of the town ; a man of hardy constitution, indomitable energy, sound, good sense, and sincere piety ; his integrity without a stain. He served as Wagon Master in the Saratoga campaign ; was present at Burgoyne's surrender, and assisted in clearing the field of the dead and wounded when the battle was ended.
He sold ont his homestead in 1798, and in the winter of 1798 went to Vernon, Oneida Co., N. Y., then without a white inhabitant, save two or three who went with him, where he cut down four acres of the heavy forest, on which to build his future home, and in the following autumn, with the assistance of his son Ira, then a lad of sixteen, burned, cleared, and fitted it for seed. He removed his family in the winter of 1799, and with the beginning of a new century, at the age of sixty-four, began the settlement of a new puritan town. His former neighbors, to the number
45
AND FAMILY RECORDS.
of nearly forty families, rallied around him, and laid the foundation deep and strong. A church was soon organized, made up mainly of Win- chester members, of which Mr. Hills, Levi Bronson, and Samuel McEwen, all Winchester men, were the first deacons.
He married, November -, 1760, Abigail Soper. He died, Vernon, N. Y., June 3, 1826, aged nearly ninety years.
CHILDREN.
I. STATIRA, 3 b. July 6, 1762 ; m. Mch. 30, 1780-first, John Marshall of Tor- rington ; second, Andrew Everitt, 1799.
II. JESSE,3 b. May 17, 1764 ; m. Jan. 9, 1790, Mary Wheeler.
III. ELISHA,3
b. May 8, 1766 ; d. June 11, 1766.
IV. ELISHA,3
b. Dec. 9, 1769.
V. CANDACE,8
b. June 1, 1772.
VI. HANNAH,3 b. May 19, 1776.
VII. SETH,3 b. Ap. 20, 1779.
·VIII. IRA,3 b. June 22, 1788.
CAPTAIN JOHN HILLS is named of Winchester, December 6, 1776, and doubtless came in earlier. He lived in a house that stood in or adjoining the Hurlbut Cemetery. He was a gunsmith by trade, and his shop stood near his house. He sold his homestead to James Atkins in 1781, and afterwards removed to Charlotte, Vt., where he died March 15, 1808, aged seventy-six. He was great grandfather of Deacon Abel S. Wet- more, uow a resident of this town. He and his wife Jerusha, had
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