USA > Connecticut > Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial; representative citizens, v. 1 > Part 7
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The idea of founding a college in Rhode
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Island originated with Dr. Stiles, and he drafted the first charter for what was later Brown University, but because of the sectarian nature of the college at first he never identified himself with it. Dr. Stiles was an ardent patriot, and at the outbreak of the Revolution he was ad- vised to leave Newport. He removed first to Bristol, then in March, 1776, to Dighton, and in April, 1777, to Ports- mouth, New Hampshire. At this time Dr. Stiles was known in all New England as an Orientalist, a Hebraist, a student of the classics, of mathematics and of as- tronomy, a friend of Benjamin Franklin, and one of the very few American scien- tists. In 1778 he was offered the presi- dency of Yale College, which he accepted. He removed to New Haven in June, 1778, assumed charge of the college, and dis- charged his duties with great judgment and efficiency until his death, bringing to the college no little increase of strength and honor. Abundantly able to teach in any department, he soon had nearly all the work to do, except such as could be carried on by the tutors. He did con- siderable of the preaching, eked out the course in theology, lectured statedly on mathematics, natural philosophy and as- tronomy, instructed the seniors in mental and moral philosophy, and filled his own chair of ecclesiastical history, which had been created at his desire. In 1792 a close alliance was made between the col- lege and State, and in the same year the Legislature made a grant, which was in- creased in 1796 to $40,000, the largest sum bestowed up to that time, and the Gov- ernor, Lieutenant-Governor and the six senior members of the council or upper house became ex-officio members of the corporation.
Dr. Stiles received the following de- grees : A. M. from Harvard in 1754, D. D. from Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1765, and from Dartmouth in 1780, and D. D. and
LL. D. from the College of New Jersey, Princeton, in 1784. He wrote: "Dis- course on the Christian Union" (1761) ; "Discourse on Saving Knowledge" (1770); "The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor" (1783) ; "An Account of the Settlement of Bristol, Rhode Island" (1785) ; "The History of Three of the Judges of Charles I" (1794), and the "Ecclesiastical History of New Eng- land," which he left unfinished at his death. Yale College has forty-five vol- umes of his manuscripts, including a diary. His biography was written by his son-in-law, Abiel Holmes, in 1798.
Dr. Stiles married (first) in February, 1757, Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel John Hubbard, of New Haven, Connecticut. She died May 29, 1775. He married (sec . ond) in 1783, Mary, widow of William Checkley, of Providence, Rhode Island.
TIFFANY, Consider,
Royalist During the Revolution.
The exact origin of the Tiffany family is difficult to ascertain, but it is believed the name and family originated in Italy, about the time of the early crusades, and that some member of the house, return- ing, settled in Brittany, France. From the time of the Norman Conquest in 1730 the English left Brittany at different periods, and it is from some of these Eng- lish Tiffanys that the Americans of that name are descended. Squire Humphrey Tiffany, immigrant ancestor, came from Yorkshire, England, it is supposed, and was in Massachusetts Bay Colony about the year 1660. Later he was a resident of Swansea, and he was killed by a stroke of lightning while on his way from Swan- sea to Boston. His son, Consider Tiffany, was a landholder and farmer, and he was the father of Consider Tiffany, of this re- view.
Consider Tiffany, son of Consider Tif-
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fany, was born March 15, 1730, in Lyme, died at Hartland, June 19, 1796. He mar- ried, in Lyme, Sarah Wilder, born Au- gust 13, 1738, in Lyme, died November 7, 1818, in Hartland, Connecticut. He lived in Lyme until after the birth of his first three children. Here he was a farmer and carried on a small business as storekeeper. At Hartland, where his other children were born, he was engaged in the same business, but on a much larger scale. He transacted a great amount of business and was always careful to enforce his rights. At one time he was a school teacher, and it is said that when he entered upon this work it was the first time he had ever been in school. It is further stated that he was a good teacher and a close stu- dent. He was something of an astrono- mer, and is said to have calculated an almanac, but no copy of it has been found. He was also a writer of prose and poetry, and kept diaries in which he recorded his daily adventures. One of these covers the period of the French and Indian War, in 1756, and another the Revolution. On his death he left the latter to his eldest son, with instructions that it was to be transmitted from eldest son to eldest son, as an heirloom. It is now in possession of Henry Tiffany, of Clyde, Ohio, and forms a valuable addition to the Revolu- tionary history of the country, written from the Tory standpoint. He was a member of the Church of England and had little patience with the dissenting sects. During the Revolution he was loyal not only to the English church, but also to the English crown. In 1778 he was confined to his farm in Hartland because of his outspoken Toryism and remained there for fifteen months. At the end of that time, hearing that he was about to be released he wrote to the chairman of the committee, asking that he might be allowed to remain where he was, as he still retained the same sentiments and had
no intention of being drafted for the Con- tinental army. During the French and Indian campaign in 1756 he was sergeant of Captain William Lamson's company, and after his return joined another mili- tary company, which probably had its headquarters in Boston. He had an ex- tensive library for those times. A list of the books contained in it in 1788 has been found in a book of sermons in his own handwriting. His will, dated February 7, 1778, is a characteristic document and has been preserved.
GRISWOLD, Roger, Governor, Jurist.
Governor Roger Griswold was born at Lyme, New London county, Connecticut, May 21, 1762, youngest son of Governor Matthew and Ursula (Wolcott) Gris- wold; nephew of Governor Oliver Wol- cott, Sr .; and grandson of Governor Roger Wolcott.
He entered Yale College, where he ex- celled as a scholar, and graduated in his eighteenth year. He at once began the study of law with his father; was ad- mitted to the bar in 1783, and practiced in Lyme until 1785, when he removed to Norwich. When only twenty-six years of age he argued an important case before the Supreme Court, and with such signal ability that a colleague, an eminent lawyer, declared that no observations from him could improve but might in- jure his client's cause. In 1794 he re- turned to Lyme, and the same year was elected by the Federalists to Congress. At the time he entered it was said of him : "There is no duty he will not be found equal to, nor any one from which he will shrink," and a later biographer wrote, "he was the fearless yet always courte- ous, the uncompromising though cauti- ous champion, of the political principles of the school of Washington." Among
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his Democratic opponents was Matthew Lyon, of Vermont. In January, 1798, during a warm debate, Griswold revived an old story to the effect that Lyon, when serving as a lieutenant in 1776 had been court-martialled for cowardice and pre- sented with a wooden sword. Lyon replied with an insult, and Griswold was with difficulty restrained from assaulting him. The house by a strict party vote refusing to expel Lyon, Griswold felt that he must either resign his seat with disgrace to his State as well as himself, or administer punishment. Taking the latter course, he caned Lyon a few days later. A motion to expel Griswold from Congress was made, but was lost by a strictly party vote. During the years 1802-03 Griswold delivered speeches on the call for papers relative to the Louisiana treaty: on a proposed amendment to the constitution respecting the election of President; and on the constitutional right of Congress to unseat judges by repealing the law re- garding their appointment. The last mentioned has been called "one of the very ablest ever made in congress." President Adams, a few days before the end of his term, offered Griswold the portfolio of the Secretary of War, but this was declined, probably because a dismissal was inevitable when Jefferson became chief magistrate. Griswold, after five successive terms in Congress retired to his home at Lyme. For two years be- ginning in 1807 he sat on the bench of the Supreme Court of the State. In 1809 he was an elector on the Pinckney and King presidential ticket. In 1809 he was elected Lieutenant-Governor ; and on the expiration of his term in 1811 was elected Governor in opposition to John Tread- well, and was occupying the latter office at the time of his death. On the break- ing out of the War of 1812, General Dear- born, Secretary of War, made a requisi- tion for four companies of Connecticut
troops to be ordered into the service of the United States, but Governor Gris- wold returned a flat refusal. His chief reasons were: First, that the expression "imminent danger of invasion" used in Dearborn's letter was not in that part of the constitution authorizing the Presi- dent to make use of State militia; and, second, that the fact that war had begun and a hostile fleet was off the coast did not constitute "invasion." In a series of articles on the Griswold family ("Maga- zine of American History," Vol. XI.), Professor E. E. Salisbury makes the fol- lowing interesting statement respecting the Governor: "Some of the leading Federalists, who met after his death, in the Hartford convention, had had their attention called to him as a candidate for President, in the possible contingency of a separation of the New England States from the rest of the Union."
Governor Griswold received the degree of LL. D. from Harvard College in 1811, and the same honor from Yale College in the following year. He died at Lyme, October 5, 1812. A public eulogy was delivered by Judge Daggett, of New Haven, in which the speaker said: "He sought no elevation. No man enjoyed a more enviable and honorable a popular- ity, for no man coveted it less. He wished for popularity, for no good man is insensible to it; but it was that popu- larity which follows-not that which is run after. * As a judge, that sincerity, that incorruptible integrity which adorned his life eminently ap- peared. All the vehemence and ardor of the advocate were left at the bar and can- dor, patience and deliberation governed his conduct." Governor Griswold was gracious in his manners, genial in society, and in his own home dispensed hospital- ity lavishly, following an example set by his ancestors. The only portrait of him existing is a written one. He was a hand-
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some man; tall and muscular, as were many of the Griswolds and Wolcotts, with the dark, expressive eyes character- istic of the latter, instead of the blue eyes of his own family. He was married, October 27, 1788, to Fannie, daughter of Colonel Zabdial Rogers, of Connecticut, a prominent Revolutionary patriot, by his first wife, Elizabeth Tracy. She bore him seven sons and three daughters, and died December 26, 1863, aged ninety-six. Their son Matthew inherited the house at Blackhall, built by his father.
GOODRICH, Chauncey, Lawyer, Senator.
Chauncey Goodrich was born in Dur- ham, Connecticut, October 20, 1759, the son of the Rev. Elizur Goodrich, a dis- tinguished clergyman and scholar. He was graduated from Yale College in 1776 with honors, and was subsequently tutor there for several years. He studied law; was admitted to the bar and estab- lished himself in the practice of his profession at Hartford in 1781, and soon attained eminence at the bar. In 1793 he was a member of the State Legislature, and a representative in Congress from Connecticut from 1795 until 1801. He was a member of the State Executive Council from 1802 until 1807, when he was elected to the United States Senate to succeed Uriah Tracy, deceased, serv- ing until 1812, when he resigned to be- come mayor of Hartford. In 1813 he was elected Lieutenant-Governor of Connecti- cut, and in 1814 he was a delegate to the famous Hartford Convention. He died in Hartford, August 18, 1815.
HILLHOUSE, William, Jurist, Legislator.
William Hillhouse was born in that part of New London, Connecticut, after- ward the town of Montville, August 25,
1728, son of the Rev. James and Mary (Fitch) Hillhouse, grandson of John Hill- house, of Free Hall, Londonderry, Ire- land, and of Daniel Fitch, of Connecticut ; great-grandson of Abraham Hillhouse, of Artikill, Londonderry, Ireland, who was among the signers of an address to King William and Queen Mary on the occasion of the relief of the siege of Londonderry, dated July 29, 1669; great-great-grand- son of the Rev. James and Priscilla Ma- son, of Norwich, Connecticut ; and great- great-great-grandson of Captain John Mason, the hero of the Pequot War of 1637. His father, the Rev. James Hill- house, was graduated in arts and theology at the University of Glasgow, Scotland ; was ordained by the Presbytery of Lon- donderry, Ireland, about 1700; immi- grated to America in 1717; and was pas- tor at Derry and Londonderry, New Hampshire, 1719-22; and had charge of the second parish, New London, Con- necticut, 1722-40. Cotton Mather spoke of him as "a valuable minister" and as "a worthy, hopeful young minister lately arrived in America." He was born about 1687, and died December 15, 1740. James Abraham Hillhouse, brother of William Hillhouse, born 1730, graduate of Yale, 1749, lawyer in New Haven, "assistant" or senator, 1772-75, died childless in 1775.
Judge William Hillhouse was educated for the law and practiced in his native town, Montville, where he lived all his life. He was a leading patriot in the Revolution and prominent in the town. He was a representative in the Colonial Legislature by semi-annual elections from 1755 to 1784, and in the latter was called as an assistant of the Council, in which capacity he served until 1808. In the meantime he was judge of the county court for many years. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress, 1783-86, and major in the Second Regiment of Cavalry raised by the State for the Revo- lutionary War. In 1808, when eighty
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years of age, he declined a renomination to the Council and withdrew from public life. He maintained his vigor and activity to that great age. He was tall and spare in figure, with a dark complexion and overhanging eyebrows, very simple in his manners, and quaint in speech. He was very dignified and impressive. He mar- ried (first) November 1, 1750, Sarah Gris- wold, born December 2, 1728, died March 10, 1777, daughter of John Griswold, and sister of Matthew Griswold, the first Gov- ernor of Connecticut, 1784-86. He mar- ried (second) May 24, 1778, Delia Hos- mer. Six of his seven sons and two of his three daughters lived to maturity and most of them to old age. Judge Hill- house died in Montville, Connecticut, January 12, 1816.
DWIGHT, Timothy, Educator, Author.
Timothy Dwight was born in North- ampton, Massachusetts, May 14, 1752, son of Major Timothy and Mary (Edwards) Dwight; grandson of Colonel Timothy and Experience (King) Dwight, and of Jonathan and Sarah (Pierpont ) Edwards ; great-grandson of Nathaniel and Mehit- able (Partridge) Dwight; great-great- grandson of Captain Timothy and Anna (Flint) Dwight, and great-great-great- grandson of John and Hannah Dwight, of Dedham, the immigrants, 1634-35.
He was graduated at Yale College in 1769, sharing the honors of the class with the noted Nathan Strong. He was prin- cipal of the Hopkins Grammar School, 1769-71, and tutor at Yale, 1771-77, during which time he studied law. He was licens- ed to preach in 1777, and served as chap- lain in Parson's brigade of the Connecti- cut line, 1777-78. The death of his father called him home and he took charge of the farm, occasionally preaching in the
neighborhood churches from 1778 to 1783. At the same time he conducted a day school, and while New Haven was in the hands of the British, he had under his care several of the refugee Yale stu- dents. He was a representative in the Massachusetts Legislature in 1782, and refused a nomination as representative in Congress. He was pastor of the church at Greenfield Hill, Fairfield, Connecticut, from 1783 to 1795, and established there his celebrated academy, and became the pioneer of higher education of women, placing both sexes on an equal footing in his school. During this period he secured the union of the Congregational and Pres- byterian churches in New England. He was president of Yale College from Sep- tember 8, 1795, to January 1I, 1817, and Livingston Professor of Divinity pro tem- porc, 1795-1805, and by election, 1805-17. He found the college with a narrow and pedantic curriculum, with the bitterest of feeling existing between the freshmen and the upper-class men, and between the stu- dents and the faculty, and with the burden of a primary system. These he reformed, and at his death the one hundred and odd students had increased to upwards of three hundred, and the college had taken rank as one of the model university schools in America.
Dr. Dwight received from the College of New Jersey the degree of S. T. D. in 1787, and from Harvard College that of LL. D. in 1810. His master dissertation was: "History, Eloquence and Poetry of the Bible," and his most ambitious work was his epic "The Conquest of Can- aan" and his most popular pastoral poem was "Greenfield Hill" (1794). While a chaplain in the army, he wrote the patri- otic song "Columbia." He revised Watt's Psalms, with additions of his own, and made a selection of hymns, introduced in the worship of the Presbyterian churches
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by the General Assembly. His published books include: "Travels in New Eng- land and New York" (four volumes, 1821); "Theology Explained and Defend- ed in a Course of 173 Sermons" (five vol- umes, 1818); "The Genuineness and Au- thenticity of the New Testament" (1793) ; "Discourse on the Character of Washing- ton" (1800); "Observations on Language" (1816); "Essay on Light" (1816). See "Memoir" by the Rev. Sereno Edwards Dwight (1846).
He was married, in March, 1777, to Mary, daughter of Benjamin Woolsey, of Long Island, and they had eight sons, the eldest of whom, Timothy (1778-1884), was a merchant in New Haven, and gave $5,000 to endow the Dwight Professor- ship of Didactic Theology at Yale. Timo- thy Dwight died in New Haven, Connec- ticut, January 11, 1817.
BURROUGHS, Stephen, Scientist.
It is believed that the Connecticut family of Burroughs is descended from the distinguished family of the same name which from an early period was seated near Barnstable, in the County of Devon, England. A noted representative of that ancient house was Captain Stephen Bur- roughs, the navigator, who in 1553 com- manded one of the vessels in the expedi- tion sent from England by the Muscovy Company to attempt the passage to China by the Nova Zembla route. All the ships except that of Burroughs were lost on the coast of Lapland, but he arrived safely in the White Sea, and from this event dates the beginning of commercial relations with Russia. In 1556 he dis- covered the straits separating Nova Zembla from the then supposed conti- nent. Another member of the Devon- shire family, William Burroughs, Esq., "clerk and comptroller of the queen's
navy," received in 1586 a grant of a coat- of-arms, described as azure, a bend wavy argent between two fleurs-de-lis ermine- a blazonry of much beauty.
For the early records of the Burroughs family in Connecticut we are indebted to Orcutt, the historian of Bridgeport and Stratford. (See also the paper by Mr. Orcutt, "Captain Stephen Burroughs and His Times," in the Annual Reports of the Fairfield County Historical Society for 1887.)
(I) Robert Burroughs, of Wethers- field, Connecticut, married Mary, widow of Samuel Ireland, and removed to New London, Connecticut; had (with perhaps other children) a son (see forward).
(II) John Burroughs, son of Robert Burroughs, was born in New London, Connecticut. He married there Mary, daughter of John Culver. Children : John, see forward; Mary, born Decem- ber 14, 1672; Hannah, October 9, 1674; Margaret, October 5, 1677; Samuel, Octo- ber 5, 1679; Robert, September 9, 1681 ; Abigail, August 10, 1682.
(III) John Burroughs, eldest child of John Burroughs, was born in New Lon- don, Connecticut, September 2, 1671. Re- moving in early manhood to Stratford, Fairfield county, Connecticut, he became a prominent citizen of that community and one of its most enterprising men. In 1707 he purchased a half proprietorship in a grist mill, with a dwelling and several acres of land, from John Seeley, who had built the mill-the first on the Pe- quonnock river-in 1697; and in 1710 he bought Seeley's remaining interest. Throughout the remainder of his life he was a prosperous farmer and miller. He married Patience, daughter of Edward Hinman, of Stratford. Children : Stephen, see forward; Edward, born March 14, 1696; Hannah, November 23, 1697, mar- ried Eliphalet Curtis ; Eunice, September, 1699, married Joseph Curtis ; Joseph, No-
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vember 23, 1701; Bathsheba, September 26, 1703, married a Mr. Lewis; John, Au- gust 31, 1705; Eden, July 10, 1707; Eph- raim, 1708; Patience, January 2, 1710, married (first) John Hubbell, (second) Benjamin Beach.
(IV) Stephen Burroughs, eldest child of John Burroughs, was born in Strat- ford, February 25, 1695. He inherited the paternal homestead, and also received a "double portion" of the estate. Subse- quently, by purchase from his sisters, he became the sole owner of the mill prop- erty. In addition to his possessions in Stratford he had lands "in Rocky Hill, in the mountains of Cornwall, and on the plains of Wallingford." He married, March 3, 1720, Ruth, daughter of Abra- ham Nichols, a leading citizen and mem- ber of a wealthy family of Stratford. Children : Patience, born January, 1721 ; Eunice, July 4, 1723; Edward, 1727, died November 29, 1733; Stephen, see for- ward; Ruth, born April, 1731; Edward, April, 1735; Eden, January, 1738; Eph- raim, April, 1740; John, July 1, 1745.
(V) Stephen Burroughs, known as Cap- tain Stephen Burroughs and also as Ste- phen Burroughs the astronomer, fourth child of Stephen (1) Burroughs, was born in Rocky Hill, now North Bridgeport, Octo- ber 4, 1729. He was a man of extraordi- nary mathematical attainments, which, apparently, were acquired without the advantage of any formal educational training. Among his literary remains, possessed by his descendants, is his "Navigation Book," bearing date 1749 (when he was only twenty), which con- tains intricate trigonometrical problems, worked out by logarithms, for use in trigonometry. He continued his astro- nomical studies with great zest to the end of his life, made numerous calcula- tions for almanacs, and was engaged in the compilation of an extended work on astronomy, which he was obliged to sus-
pend by the loss of his eyesight when about seventy years old. To him has been attributed the invention of the deci- mal monetary system of the United States. According to Isaac Sherman, Burroughs made the original proposal in that direction and submitted it to Hon. William Samuel Johnson, "who after un- derstanding its simplicity and great con- venience, caused it to be brought before congress in 1784, when he was a member of that body." He possessed an unusually large and varied library for those times, a portion of which is now preserved in the Burroughs Public Library of Bridge- port. The scientific and scholarly pur- suits of Stephen Burroughs were, how- ever, only incidental to a life of great activity and success in practical affairs. He was the principal merchant of the locality, and his establishment at the Burroughs Landing at Rocky Hill was the center of the shipping business of the Pequonnock river. The manuscript rec- ords of his transactions, kept with scru- pulous care, are of great historical value for the information which they afford about the circumstances and usages of life and society in Connecticut during the later half of the eighteenth century. In the Revolution he was an earnest patriot and raised a military company, known as the "Householders," of which he was cap- tain. He was twice a representative in the General Assembly, and for many years was justice of the peace. He died August 2, 1817, in his eighty-eighth year.
He married (first) May 22, 1760, Eliza- beth Browne, who died December 4, 1764, of a "very excellent family" of Stratford, daughter of Joseph Browne and sister of Anne Browne, who married Wolcott Chauncey and was the mother of the fa- mous Commodore Isaac Chauncey of the United States navy. Captain Stephen Burroughs married (second) December II, 1765, Huldah, daughter of Peter Pix-
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