USA > Connecticut > New London County > New London > History of New London, Connecticut, From the First Survey of the Coast in 1612 to 1852 > Part 28
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
Hannah, married June 18th, 1672, Stephen Gifford, of Norwich.
Christobel, married, 1677, Peter Creery, or Crary, of N. London, (Groton.) Elizabeth, married Henry Stevens, of Stonington.
Mary, married John Cole, of Boston.
Margaret, not married in 1704.
Joshua Raymond, died April 24th, 1676.
Richard and Judith Rayment, were members of the church at Sa- lem, in 1634. Wm. Rayment, of Salem, 1648, afterward of Beverly, and John, also of Beverly, where he died in 1703, aged eighty-seven, were probably brothers of Richard. Tradition in the family of the latter, states that his brothers settled in Beverly. Richard and his sons appear to have left Salem as early as 1658, perhaps before, and to have scattered themselves along the shore of Long Island Sound. The father was for a time at Norwalk, and then at Saybrook ; at the latter place his identity is determined by documents which style him, " formerly of Salem, and late of Norwalk." He died at Saybrook in 1692. He had children, Richard, John, Daniel, Samuel, Joshua, and a daughter, Elizabeth, who married Oliver Manwaring. Of Richard, nothing has been recovered but the fact that the inventory of Rich- ard Raymond, Jr., was exhibited at county court in 1680.
John settled in Norwalk, and there left descendants.
Daniel married, first, Elizabeth, daughter of Gabriel Harris, and had two daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah; second, Rebecca, daughter of John Lay, by whom he had sons, Richard, Samuel, and perhaps others. He lived in Lyme ; died, 1696, and his widow married Sam- uel Gager, of Norwich.
Samuel married Mary, daughter of Nehemiah Smith, and settled in New London, where they both died after 1700, leaving a consid- erable estate, but no children.
Joshua, married Elizabeth, daughter of Nehemiah Smith, Dec. 10th, 1659. He purchased the Prentis home-lot, in New London, and left it to his children, together with a valuable farm in Mohegan, on the road to Norwich.
Children of Joshua aad Elizabeth Raymond.
1. Joshua, born Sept. 1Sth, 1660. 4. Hannah, born Aug. 8th, 1668.
2. Elizabeth, " May 24th, 1662. 5. Mary, " March 12th, 1671-2.
3. Ann, " May 12th, 1664. 6. Experience, " Jan. 20th, 1673-4. Two others, Richard and Mehitabel, died in infancy.
Experience Raymond, died June 26th, 1689, aged fifteen years.
Elizabeth, relict of Joshua Raymond, married George Dennis, of Long Island.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
Joshua Raymond, second, married Mercy, daughter of James Sands, of Block Island, April 29th, 1683.
It is this Mercy Raymond, whose name has been connected, by a mixture of truth and fable, with the story of the noted pirate, Captain Kidd.1 Mr. Raymond died in 1704, " at the home-seat of the Sands family," which he had bought of his brother-in-law, Niles, on Block Island. It was a lonely and exposed situation, by the sea-shore, with a landing-place near, where strange sea-craft, as well as neighboring coasters, often touched. Here the family dwelt, and Mr. Raymond being much of the time absent in New London, the care and man- agement of the homestead devolved upon his wife, who is represent- ed as a woman of great thrift and energy.
The legendary tale is, that Capt. Kidd made her little harbor his anchorage-ground, alternately with Gardiner's Bay ; that she feasted him, supplied him with provisions, and boarded a strange lady, whom he called his wife, a considerable time ; and that when he was ready to depart, he bade her hold out her apron, which she did, and he threw in handfuls of gold, jewels and other precious commodities, un- til it was full, as the wages of her hospitality.
This fanciful story was doubtless the development of a simple fact, that Kidd landed upon her farm, and she being solitary and unpro- tected, took the part of prudence, supplied him freely with what he would otherwise have taken by force, and received his money in pay- ment for her accommodations. The Kidd story, however, became a source of pleasantry and gossip among the acquaintances of the fam- ily, and they were popularly said to have been enriched by the apron.2
Robert Royce, died in 1676.
This name is identical with Rice. The Robert Royce, of New London, is presumed to be the Robert Rice who was entered free- man in Mass., 1634, and one of those disarmed in Boston, 1637, for adherence to the opinions and party of Wheelright and Hutchinson.3 When he left Boston is not known ; but he is found at Stratford, west of New Haven, before 1650,4 and was there in 1656. In 1657
1 He is called Robert Kidd in the ballad; but William in history.
2 Our language does not form a cognomen so terse as the Latin: the posterity of Callias were called lacco-pluti, enriched by the well. (See Plutarch.)
3 Savage, on Winthrop, vol. 1, p. 248.
4 Judd, of Northampton, (MS.)
25*
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
he came to New London, and the town granted him the original Post lot, on Post Hill. He was by trade a shoemaker, was consta- ble in 1660, one of the townsmen in 1663, in 1667 appointed to keep an ordinary, and the same year, "freed from training," probably on account of age. He was again townsman in 1668.
Three children of Robert and Elizabeth Rice are recorded in Bos- ton ; Joshua, born 1637; Nathaniel, 1639, and a daughter that died in infancy.1 Of Joshua, nothing further is known. At New Lon- don, we find mementos of five sons and three daughters. Jonathan was perhaps the oldest son ; he married in June, 1660, Deborah, daugh- ter of Hugh Caulkins, and removed to Norwich, of which town he was one of the first proprietors. Nehemiah may be ranked, by supposi- tion, as the second son; he married, Nov. 20th, 1660, Hannah, daughter of James Morgan. In 1663, Robert Royce petitioned the town for a grant of land to settle his two sons, Samuel and Nathan- iel. This was granted; their father gave them also his mountain farm, "bought of Weaver Smith, and lying west of Alewife Brook, by the mountain." The name of Royce's Mountain was long retain- ed in that locality. The Royce Mountain farm was purchased by John and Wait Winthrop, in 1691-the present Miller farm is a part of it.
Samuel Royce married, Jan. 9th, 1666-7, Hannah, daughter of Josiah Churchwood, of Wethersfield.
. Isaac Royce was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Lo- throp, and John Lothrop was married to Ruth, daughter of Isaac Royce, Dec. 15th, 1669. This double marriage was performed by Daniel Wetherell, commissioner, and probably in the court-room, as it was recorded among the other proceedings of the court. Mar- riages were sometimes conducted in that manner ; the couple enter- ing the room with their friends, and arranging themselves in front of the bench.
Nehemiah, Samuel, Nathaniel and Isaac Royce, all removed with their families to Wallingford, a township that had been recently set off from New Haven, and previously called New Haven village. The marriage and children of Nathaniel Royce are not registered in New London. At a late period of his life, he married the relict of Sergeant Peter Farnham, of Killingworth, and was living at Walling- ford in 1712.2 None of the Royce family was left at New London,
1 Records of Boston.
2 Sergeant Farnham died in 1704; the maiden name of his wife was Wilcoxson.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
after the death of Robert, but his aged widow, who, in 1688, was still an occupant of the Post Hill homestead, which was subsequently sold to John Prentis. The remainder of the Royce land was purchased by Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall, and has of late been known as the Mum- ford lot. It lies west of the old burial-ground, and was the original house-lot of Rev. Richard Blinman.
Jacob Waterhouse, died 1676.
The date is obtained from the probate of his will, which was in September, of this year. He was probably an old man, as all his children were of age, and he was released from militia duty in 1665. His wife was Hannah, and'his oldest sons, Abraham, Isaac and Ja- cob; but the order of their age was not patriarchal, Isaac being repeatedly called the oldest son. He had also sons, John, Joseph and Benjamin ; and a daughter, Elizabeth, who married John Baker. Isaac settled in Lyme ; Abraham in Saybrook ; Joseph and Benja- min died without issue ; the latter at sea, and according to tradition, at the hands of pirates. John was a soldier in Philip's War, and present at the Narragansett fort fight, in December, 1676. He died in 1687, leaving an infant son, Jacob, and no other child. His relict, whose maiden name is not recovered, married John Hayden, of Say- brook.
Jacob, married, about 1690, Ann, daughter of Robert Douglas, and had sons, John, William, Robert, Joseph and Gideon, but no daugh- ters have been traced.
The name Waterhouse' was very soon abbreviated into Watrous, which is the orthography now generally used.
John Lewis, died Dec. 8th, 1676.
The name John Lewis, is found several times repeated among the early emigrants to New England. One came over in the Hercules, from Sandwich, in 1635, with wife, Sarah, and one child; and was enrolled as from Tenterden, in Kent.1 This is probably the same that appears on the list of freemen in Scituate, Mass., 1637.2 He
1 Savage. Gleanings in Mass. Hist. Coll., 3d series, vol. 8, p. 275.
2 Deane's Hist. Scituate, p. 304.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
afterward disappears from the records of that town, and we suppose him to be the John Lewis, who came to New London, 1648.
Another John Lewis, who was probably an original emigrant, set- tled in Saybrook or Lyme ; his inventory was presented at the county court, in 1670.
Still another John Lewis was living at " Sqummacutt," (Westerly) in 1673.
John Lewis, of New London, had a son John, who was a young man in 1670, constable in 1681, and after 1700, sergeant of the train- bands. He married Elizabeth Huntley, of Lyme, where his oldest son, John 3d, settled. Sergeant John Lewis was himself instantly killed, as he sat on horseback, by the sudden fall of the limb of a tree, which men were cutting, May 9th, 1717:
Nathaniel and Joseph Lewis, are names that appear on the rate- list of 1667, as partners in estate. They were transient residents, and probably sons of George Lewis, of Scituate,1 brother of John, the freeman of 1637. If the latter, as we have supposed, was iden- tical with John Lewis, of New London, these young men were his nephews.
Thomas Stanton, of Stonington, died 1678.
The probate of his will was in June, of that year. In a list of passengers registered in England to sail for Virginia, in 1635, is found the name of Thomas Stanton, aged twenty .? If this was our Thomas Stanton, of Connecticut, which can scarcely be doubted, he must soon have made his way to New England, and have become rapidly an adept in the Indian language. He testified himself, before the court of commissioners of New England, that he had acted as interpreter to Winthrop, before the Pequot war, and while the latter was in command at Saybrook, (1636.) It is probable, that on land- ing in Virginia, he went immediately among the Indians, and gained some knowledge of their language, which was radically the same as that of the New England tribes, and having, perhaps, obtained a quantity of peltries, he came north with them, and made his first stop at Saybrook. That Stanton subsequently visited the In- dians in Virginia, for the purposes of trade, may be gathered from a curious fragment in the New London county records, which is with- out date, but appears to have been entered in 1668 or 1669.
1 Deane, p. 303.
2 Hist. and Gen. Register, vol. 2, p. 113.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
" Whereas Capt. Wm. Morrice hath reported and informed the Kings' Com- missioner that Mr. Thomas Stanton, Senr, did, in Virginia, some 20 odd years since, cause a massacre among the Indians, whereby to gain their Beaver to himself, and the said Morrice accused Richard Arye, mariner, to be his author : These may certify all whom it may concern that the said Arey being examined concerning [a word or two torn off] report, doth absolutely deny that he knew or reported any such thing [torn off] Morrice nor ever heard of any such thing [torn off] Mr. Stanton in Virginia to his remembrance. This was acknowl- edged in Court by Richard Arey, as attest Daniel Wetherell, Recorder."
The services of Mr. Stanton as interpreter during the Pequot War were invaluable. He was moreover a man of trust and intelligence, and his knowledge of the country and of the natives made him a use- ful pioneer and counselor in all land questions, as well as in all diffi- culties with the Indians.
In 1638, the General Court of Connecticut appointed him a stated Indian interpreter, with a salary of £10 per annum. He was to attend courts upon all occasions, general and particular courts, and meetings of magistrates, wherever and whenever the controversy was between whites and Indians.
Mrs. Anna Stanton, relict of Thomas, died in 1688. She had lived several years in the family of her son-in-law, Rev. James Noyes. The children of Thomas Stanton can be ascertained only by inference and comparison of circumstances. The following list is the result of considerable investigation, and may be nearly correct.
1. Thomas, died in 1718, aged eiglity. He had a son, Thomas, 3d, who died in 1683, aged eighteen.
2. John, died October 3d, 1713, aged seventy-two.
3. Mary, married November 17th, 1662, Samuel Rogers.
4. Hannah, married November 20th, 1662, Nehemiah Palmer.
5. Joseph, baptized in Hartford, March 21st, 1646.
6. Daniel, died before 1688, and it is supposed in Barbadoes, leaving there a wife and one child 1
7. Dorothy, married Rev. James Noyes; died in 1742, in her ninety-first year.
8. Robert, died in 1724, aged seventy-one.
9. Sarah, married William Denison; died in 1713, aged fifty-nine. All these were living in 1711, except Sarah and Daniel.
Matthew Waller, died in 1680.
Of this person little is known. He was perhaps the Matthew Waller, of Salem, 1637, and the Sarah Waller, member of Salem
1 Mrs. Anna Stanton, relict of Thomas, left a legacy "to the fatherless child in Bar- badoes," without mentioning its name or parentage.
1
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
church, in 1648,1 may have been his wife. He had two daughters, Rebecca and Sarah, who owned the covenant and were baptized in 1671. Rebecca married Thomas Bolles and died in 1712, leaving no issue. Sarah was unmarried in 1699.
Ensign William Waller, of Lyme, was brother of Matthew. One of his sons, Samuel Waller, lived on a farm at Niantick, within the bounds of New London, where he died in 1742, very aged.
Matthew Beckwith,2 died December 13th, 1681. .
His death being sudden and the result of accident, a jury was sum- moned, who gave their verdict, that "he came to his death by mis- taking his way in a dark night, and falling from a clift of rocks." Estate £393. He left wife Elizabeth, and children, Matthew, John, Joseph, Benjamin, and two daughters, widows, the relicts of Robert Gerard' and Benjamin Grant, both of whom were mariners, and had probably perished at sea.4 No other children are mentioned in the brief record of the settlement of the estate ; but Nathaniel Beckwith, of Lyme, may upon supposition, be included among his sons.
Matthew Beckwith, Jun., like his father, and most of the family, was a seaman. The births of his two oldest children, Matthew and John, are registered in Guilford, where he probably married and re- sided for a time. The next three, James, Jonah and Prudence, are on record in New London; and three more, Elizabeth, Ruth and Sarah, in Lyme, where he fixed his abode in 1677. These were by his first wife. His second wife was Elizabeth, relict of Peter Pratt, by whom he had one daughter, named Griswold. All these children are named in his will except Sarah. He died June 4th, 1727.
Joseph and Nathaniel Beckwith, sons of Matthew, Sen., settled in Lyme; John and Benjamin, in New London. John Beckwith, in a deposition presented in county court in 1740, stated that he had lived for seventy years near Niantick ferry. He is the ancestor of the Waterford family of Beckwiths.
1 Felt's Salem, pp. 170, 175.
2 This name is written also Beckworth and Becket.
3 Frequently written Jarret.
4 Benjamin Grant died in 1670. He was a son of Christopher Grant, of Water- town or Cambridge, and left a son Benjamin, who in 1693, was of Cambridge.
299 ;
HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
Richard Haughton, died in 1682.
This event took place at Wethersfield, while Mr. Haughton was engaged at work, as a shipwright, on a vessel there. Of his children no regular list has been obtained. Massapeag Neck, a fine tract of land on the river, within the bounds of Mohegan proper, was granted to Haughton by deed of the sachem Uncas, August 19th, 1658. The laws of the colony prohibited individuals from contracting with the Indians for land; nevertheless the General Court confirmed this grant, upon certain conditions, assigning as one reason for their in- dulgence to Mr. Haughton, "his charge of children." We infer from this that he had a young and numerous family. Eight children can be traced; of whom three sons, Robert, Joseph and John, are supposed to belong to a first unknown wife, dating their birth anterior to the settlement of the family at New London.1 Robert's name oc- curs as a witness in 1655. In 1675 he was a resident in Boston, a mariner, and in command of a vessel. He was afterward at Milford, where he died about the year 1678, leaving three children, Robert, Sarah and Hannah.2 His relict married Benjamin Smith, of Mil- ford. The daughter, Sarah, married Daniel Northrop, and in 1735 was apparently the only surviving heir to certain divisions of land accruing to her father from the family rights in New London.
Joseph Haughton was twenty-three years of age in 1662. He died in 1697, and apparently left no family.
John Haughton, shipwright, died in 1704, leaving wife and children.
The wife that Richard Haughton brought with him to New Lon- don, was Katherine, formerly wife to Nicholas Charlet or Chelet, whom he had recently married., She had two daughters by her for- mer husband, Elizabeth (born July 15th, 1645) and Mary, whose .. joint portion was £100.3 The remainder of Richard Haughton's children may be assigned to this wife, viz., sons Sampson and James and three daughters-Abigail, married Thomas Leach ; Katherine, married John Butler ; and Mercy, married Samuel Bill. Katherine, wife of Richard Haughton, died August 9th, 1670. He afterward
1 The name of Richard Haughton is found in 1646, among the settlers in Milford. Lambert's New Haven Colony, p. 91.
2 Judd, of Northampton, (MS.)
3 They had the note and surety of their father-in-law for this sum, which in 1663 was indorsed by Elizabeth Charlet, satisfied. This was probably the period of her marriage. i 1 .4
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
married Alice , who survived him and became the wife of Daniel Crombe, of Westerly.
Massapeag Neck was sold by the Haughton heirs to Fitz-John Winthrop. Sampson Haughton, the ancestor of the Montville branch of the family, in 1746, settled in the neighborhood of Massapeag, on a farm which he purchased of Godfrey Malbone, of Newport, lying on both sides of the country road between New London and Nor- wich. Haughton's farm became a noted halfway station between the two places.
William Douglas, died July 26th, 1682.
He was of Ipswich, 1641;1 of Boston, 1645; made freeman of Mass., 1646;2 of New London, December, 1659. From various depositions it appears that he was born in 1610; his wife was about the same age.3 Her maiden name was Ann Mattle; she was daugh- ter of Thomas, and sister of Robert Mattle, of Ringstead, in North- amptonshire ; both of whom had deceased before 1670, leaving prop- erty to which she was the legal heir.4
Their children were Robert, born about 1639; William, born in Boston, May 2d, 1645 ;5 Anna, wife of Nathaniel Gary ; Elizabeth, wife of John Chandler,6 and Susannah, who came with her parents to New London, and married in October, 1661, John Keeny.
Mr. Douglas was one of the townsmen in 1663, 1666 and 1667; recorder and moderator in 1668 ; sealer and packer in 1673; and on various important committees, civil and ecclesiastical, from year to year. He had a farm granted him in 1660, " three miles or more west of the town plot, with a brook running through it ;" and another in 1667, "towards the head of the brook called Jordan, about four miles from town, on each side of the Indian path to Nahantick." These farms were inherited by his sons, and are still in the possession of their descendants.
William Douglas, Sen., and wife, with his two sons and their wives, and his daughter, Keeny, were all members of Mr. Bradstreet's church, in 1672. Robert Douglas married, September 28th, 1665,
1 Hist. and Gen. Reg., vol. 2, p. 175.
2 Savage's Winthrop, vol. 2, p. 374.
3 He was sixty-five in 1676; his wife sixty in 1670.
4 Depositions taken before Gov. Bellingham, of Mass., on record in New London.
5 Boston Records.
6 Lincoln's Hist. Worcester, p. 275.
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
Mary, daughter of Robert Hempstead ; the first-born of New Lon- don. William Douglas, 2d, held the office of deacon in the church at New London, about thirty years. He married, December 18th, 1667, Abiah, daughter of William Hough. His oldest son, William, removed to Plainfield, and was one of the first deacons of the church in that place. He is the ancestor of the Douglas families of Plain- field.
No family among the early settlers of the town has sent more colo- nies to other parts of the Union than that of Douglas. The descend- ants of William, 1st, are widely dispersed through New York, and the states farther west, and also in some of the southern states. He and his immediate family wrote the name Douglas, with one s; Douglass is a variation of later times.
[The Chandlers, of Woodstock, were connected with New Lon- don by so many ties, that a short digression respecting them may not be amiss. John Chandler, son of William, of Roxbury, Mass., re- moved with a company from Roxbury, to a place then regarded as a portion of Worcester county, Mass., and called New Roxbury. It was afterward named Woodstock, and included in Connecticut, form- ing a part of New London county.1 This John Chandler, second of the name in this country, was the one who married Elizabeth, daugh- ter of William Douglas. His oldest son, John, married Mary, daugh- ter of Joshua Raymond, of New London, and resided several years in the place. The births of his first four children, John, Joshua, William and Mary, are recorded here. The family afterward re- turned to Woodstock, but the third John, agreeably to the custom of his ancestors, came down to the salt water for a wife, and married, about 1718, Hannah, daughter of John Gardiner, of the Isle of Wight. He also resided for a short period in New London, and the fourth John Chandler, in lineal succession, was born here, February 26th, 1720.]
Robert Burrows,2 died in August, 1682.
Robert Burrows married in Wethersfield about the year 1645, Mary, relict of Samuel Ireland.3 She had two daughters by her
1 Now in Windham county.
2 This name is now generally written Burroughs or Burrough.
3 Ireland came to America in 1635. "Samuel Ireland, carpenter aged thirty-two, Uxor, thirty-Martha, one and a half." Sav. Gleanings, p. 261.
26
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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON.
first husband, Martha and Mary, whose portion of £30 each was de- livered to their father-in-law, Burrows, by John Latimer of Weth- ersfield, Oct. 20th, 1651. For the faithful performance of his trust, Burrows pledged his house, land and stock at Pequonock, which shows how early he had settled east of the river. Mary, wife of Robert Burrows, died in Dec., 1672. Only two children have been traced : Samuel and John, both presented to be made freemen of the colony in October, 1669. The subsequent history of Samuel is not known. John married, Dec. 14th, 1670, Hannah daughter of Ed- ward Culver, and had a large family of children. He died in 1699.
Amos Richardson, of Stonington, died Aug. 5th, 1683.
Mary, his relict, survived him but a fewweeks. John, the oldest son of Mr. Richardson, was minister of the church in Newbury, Mass., where he was settled in 1674. He had two other sons, Ste- phen and Samuel, and a daughter, Prudence, who married, first, March 15th, 1682-3, John Hallam; second, March 17th, 1702-3, Elnathan Miner.
A lingering lawsuit was sustained by Mr. Richardson for several years against the town of New London to obtain possession of a house lot, formerly granted him, which, comprising the greater por- tion of the Parade, (State St.,) had been assumed by the town for a highway and public square. Mr. John Plumbe was Richardson's attorney. It was at last decided that Richardson should be indemni- fied for his lot, out of the nearest unoccupied land that the town owned. In execution of this judgment the marshal took four pieces ; one piece of ninety-six rods, being a part of the original lot and on the north side of it, the same on which the first Episcopal church was afterward erected; a lot at the corner of Main and State Streets, west side,1 which had hitherto been left common and uninclosed ; ten rods on Mill Cove, and one hundred rods on the Beach.
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