History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 39

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1317

USA > Connecticut > New London County > History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 39

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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.

The name Waterhouse was very soon abbreviated into Watrous, which is the orthography now gener- ally used.

John Lewis died Dec. 8, 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 Ten- terden, in Kent.2 This is probably the same that ap- pears on the list of freemen in Scituate, Mass., 1637.3 He afterwards 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, settled in Saybrook or Lyme; his inventory was presented at the County Court in 1670.

Still another John Lewis was living at "Squmma- cutt" (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 Eliza- beth Huntley, of Lyme, where his oldest son, John (3), settled. Sergt. Jolın Lewis was himself in- stantly killed, as he sat on horseback, by the sudden fall of the limb of a tree which men were cutting, May 9, 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,4 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.

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 Church in 1648 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 Lon- don, where he died in 1742, very aged.

Matthew Beckwith died Dec. 13, 1681. His death being sudden and the result of accident, a jury was summoned, who gave their verdict that "he came to his death by mistaking his way in a dark night and falling from a clift of rocks." Estate £393. He left wife, Elizabeth, and children,-Matthew, John, Jo- seph, Benjamin, and two daughters, widows, the relicts of Robert Gerard and Benjamin Grant, both of whom were mariners and had probably perished at sea. No other children are mentioned in the brief record of the settlement of the estate, but Nathaniel Beck-

1 He is called Robert Kidd in the ballad, but William in history.

2 Savage. Gleanings in Mass. Hist. Coll., 3d series, vol. viii. p. 275.

3 Deane's Hist. Scituate, p. 304.

4 Ibid., p. 303.

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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

with, of Lyme, may upon supposition be included among his sons.

Matthew Beckwith, Jr., 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 resided for a time. The next three, James, Jonah, and Pru- dence, 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 4, 1727.

Joseph and Nathaniel Beckwith, sons of Matthew, Sr., 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 ances- tor of the Waterford family of Beckwiths.

Richard Haughton died in 1682. This event took place at Wethersfield, while Mr. Haughton was en- gaged at work as a shipwright on a vessel there. Of his children no regular list has been obtained. Mas- sapeag 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, Aug. 19, 1658. The laws of the colony prohibited individuals from contracting with the Indians for. land; never- theless the General Court confirmed this grant upon certain conditions, assigning as one reason for their indulgence to Mr. Haughton " his charge of chil- dren." 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 sup- posed to belong to a first unknown wife, dating their birth anterior to the settlement of the family at New London.1 Robert's name occurs as a witness in 1655. In 1675 he was a resident in Boston, a mariner, and in command of a vessel. He was afterwards at Mil- ford, where he died about the year 1678. leaving three children, Robert, Sarah, and Hannah.2 His relict married Benjamin Smith, of Milford. The daughter Sarah married Daniel Northrop, and in 1735 was ap- parently 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 London was Katherine, formerly wife to Nicholas Charlet (or Chelet), whom he had recently married. She had two daughters by her former hus- band, Elizabeth (born July 15, 1645) and Mary, whose

joint portion was £100.3 The remainder of Richard Haughton's children may be assigned to his wife, viz., sons Sampson and James, and three daughters,- Abigail, married Thomas Leach; Katherine, mar- ried John Butler ; and Mercy, married Samuel Bill. Katherine, wife of Richard Haughton, died Aug. 9, 1670. He afterwards married Alice -, who sur- vived 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 Norwich. Haughton's farm became a noted half-way station between the two places.

William Douglas died July 26, 1682, was made freeman of Massachusetts ; of New London, Decem- ber, 1659. From various depositions it appears that he was born in 1610. 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 ecclesi- astical, 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 Jor- dan, about four miles from town, on each side of the Indian path to Nahantick."

William Hough, died Aug. 10, 1663, married Sarah, daughter of Hugh Calkin, Oct. 28, 1635.

John Baldwin, of Stonington, died Aug. 19, 1683. Among the original emigrants from Great Britain to the shores of New England were several John Bald- wins.

John Baldwin's name appeared on the rate-list of 1667, and on the roll of freemen in 1668. He pur- chased two houses in the town plot, and had several grants of land.

His first wife died at Milford in 1658, leaving a son, John, born in 1657. This son came to New London with him, received adult baptism in 1674, and after that event is lost to our records. From some probate testimony given at a much later period, we learn that soon after arriving at maturity he sailed for England and never returned.

Benjamin Atwell died 1683. He settled in New London in 1666. He was constable of the town in 1675.

Daniel Comstock died 1683. William Comstock, the father of Daniel, came from Hartford in 1649, and lived to old age in his house upon Post Hill (near north corner of Williams and Vauxhall Streets).

John Lockwood died in 1683. We suppose this

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.

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NEW LONDON.

person to have been the son of Elizabeth, wife of Cary Latham, by a former husband, Edward Lock- wood, and the same whose birth stands on record in Boston, Ninth Month, 1632.1 He dwelt on Foxen's Hill, at a place since known as a Wheeler homestead. In the settlement of the estate no heir appears but Edmund Lockwood, of Stamford, who is called his brother.

Ralph Parker died in 1683. He had a house in Gloucester in 1647. Sold out there "24th of 8 m. 1651," and was the same year a grantee at New Lon- don. He appears to have been wholly engaged in marine affairs, sending out vessels and sometimes going himself to sea.

Edmund Fanning died in December, 1683. It has been transmitted from one generation to another in the Fanning family that their ancestor, " Edmund Fanning, escaped from Dublin in 1641, in the time of the great rebellion, in which 100,000 Protestants fell victims to the fury of the Roman Catholics,"2 and after eleven years of wandering and uncertainty he found a resting-place in that part of New London now called Groton, in the year 1652. On the town records the name is not mentioned till ten years later, but it is then in a way that denotes previous resi- dence. In the inventory of goods of Richard Poole, April 25, 1662, one article is "two cowes and one steere now with Edmon ffanning."

Charles Hill died in October, 1684. The first co- partnership in trading at New London of which we have any knowledge is that of Hill & Christophers, "Charles Hill, of London, guirdler, and Christopher Christophers, mariner." The earliest date respecting them is June 26, 1665, when they purchased a ware house that had been John Tinker's, on Mill Cove. Hill, though styled of London, had previously been at the South, for in 1668 he assigned to Robert Prowse, merchant, all right to a plantation in Mary- land, with milch cows and small cattle, etc., which had been four years jointly owned and cultivated by them.

Mr. Hill was chosen recorder of the town Feb. 25, 1669-70, and held the office till his death.

Pasco Foote died probably in 1684. We can scarcely err in assuming that he was a son of Pasco Foote, of Salem, and that he was the Pasco Foote, Jr., of the Salem records who married, 2d tenth month, 1668, Martha Wood, and of whose marriage three sons are the recorded issue,-Malachi, Martha, and Pasco. He appears in New London as a mariner, en- gaged in the Newfoundland trade, and married, Nov. 30, 1678, Margaret, daughter of Edward Stallion.

Charles Haynes. His inventory was presented in 1685. This is all the information obtained respecting the period of his decease. His marriage is not re- corded.

James and Jonathan Haynes settled in New London, and left descendants.

Edward Culver died in 1685. He had lived at Dedham, where the births of three children are re- corded,-John, April 15, 1640 ; Joshua, Jan. 12, 1642 -43; Samuel, Jan. 9, 1644-45 ; and at Roxbury, where the record of baptisms adds two more to the list of children,-Gershom, Dec. 3, 1648 ; Hannah, April 11, 1651. His arrival at Pequot is announced by a land grant in 1653. He purchased the house-lot of Robert Burrows, given to the latter by the town, and estab- lished himself as a baker and brewer.

Isaac Willey died about 1685. Willey's house-lot was on Mill Brook, at the base of Post Hill. He was an agriculturist, and soon removed to a farm at the head of Nahantic River, which was confirmed to "old goodman Willie" in 1664. It is probable that both he and his wife Joanna had passed the bounds of middle age, and that all their children were born be- fore they came to the banks of the Pequot.

James Morgan died about 1685. He was about seventy-eight years of age. The earliest notice of him is from the records of Boston, where the birth of his daughter Hannah is registered, eighteenth day, fifth month, 1642. He was afterwards of Gloucester, and came with the Cape Ann company to Pequot, where he acted as one of the townsmen from 1653 to 1656, inclusive. His homestead, "on the path to New Street," was sold Dec. 25, 1657. He then removed east of the river, where he had large grants of land. The following additional grant alludes to liis dwell- ing :

"James Morgan hath given him about six acres of upland where the wigwams were in the path that goes from his house towards Culver's among the rocky bills."

He was often employed by the public in land sur- veys, stating highways, and determining boundaries, and was nine times deputy to the General Court. His estate was settled in 1685 by division among his four children,-James, John, Joseph, and Hannah, wife of Nehemiah Royce.

Cary Latham died in 1685. Elizabeth, wife of Cary Latham, was daughter of John Masters, and relict of Edward Lockwood. Two children are re- corded in Boston,-Thomas, born ninth month, 1639; Joseph, 2d of tenth month, probably 1642.3 John Latham, who died at New London about 1684, is sup- posed to have been a third son. The daughters were four in number,-Elizabeth, wife of John Leeds ; Jane, of Hugh Hubbard; Lydia, of John Packer ; and Hannah, unmarried at the time of her father's decease. Mr. Latham served in various town offices ; he was one of the townsmen or selectman for sixteen years, and was six times deputy to the General Court from May, 1664, to 1670. His large grants of land enriched his descendants.

Thomas Latham, oldest son of Cary, married, Oct.

1 Hist. and Gen. Reg., vol. ii. p. 181, and vol. iv. p. 181.

2 MS. information from the late Capt. John Fanning, of Norwich.

3 Hist. and Gen. Reg., vol. iv. p. 181.

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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

15, 1673, Rebecca, daughter of Hugh Wells, of Wethersfield. He died before his father, Dec. 14, 1677, leaving an only son, Samuel. His relict mar- ried John Packer.

Joseph, the second son, had a numerous family. His marriage is not recorded at New London. His first child, Cary, was born at Newfoundland, July 14, 1668. He died in 1706, leaving seven sons and a daughter, Lydia, the wife of Benjamin Starr.

Thomas Forster died in 1685. Of this sea captain nearly all that is presented to our view is the registry of his marriage and birth of his children.

" Thomas, son of John Forster, of Kingsware, was married to Susan- nah, daughter of Ralph Parker, 27th of March, 1665-66."

Hugh Hubbard died in 1685. "Hugh Hubbard, of Derbyshire, Old England, was married to Jane, daughter of Cary Latham, in March, 1672-73."

Gabriel Woodmancy died in 1685. He is first in- troduced to our notice by the purchase of a home- stead on what is now Shaw's Neck and Truman Street, in November, 1665.

Aaron Starke died in 1685. This name is found at Mystic as early as 1653. In May, 1666, Aaron Starke was among those who were to take the free- man's oath in Stonington, and in October, 1669, was accepted as freeman of New London. In the interim he had purchased the farm of William Thom- son, the Pequot missionary, near the head of Mystic, which brought him within the bounds of New Lon- don.

John Stebbins died probably in 1685. In one de- position on record his age is said to be sixty in 1661, and in another seventy in 1675. Where the mistake lies cannot be decided. It is probable that he was the John Stebbins who had a son John .born at Watertown in 1640.1

The name is almost invariably written in the carlier records Stubbin or Stubbing.

No chie has been obtained to the period of decease of Thomas Marritt, Nathaniel Holt, John Fish, and William Peake. Their names, however, disappear from the rolls of living men about 1685.

Thomas Marritt. The name is given in his own orthography, but it is commonly recorded Merrit. He was probably the Thomas Maryot made freeman of the Bay colony in 1636,2 and the Thomas Merrit, of Cambridge, mentioned in the will of John Benja- min in 1645.3 At New London his first appearance is in 1664 ; he was chosen custom-master of the port, and county marshal Dec. 15, 1668, and was for several years the most conspicuous attorney in the place.

Nathaniel Holt. William Holt, of New Haven, had a son, Nathaniel, born in 1647, who settled in New London in 1673, and married, April 5, 1680, Re- becca, daughter of Thomas Beeby (2). Only two

children of this marriage are recorded,-William, born July 15, 1681 ; Nathaniel, July 18, 1682. From Thomas Beeby the Holt family inherited the original homestead granted by the town to Thomas Parke, lying southwest of Robert Hempstead's lot, with a highway (Hempstead Street) between them. Sergt. Thomas Beeby purchased this lot of five acres, and left it to his descendants. In the original grant it is said "to run up the hill among the rocks." This description remained characteristic of the surface for nearly two hundred years, but its aptness is now fast melting away before an advancing line of neat dwell- ing-houses, from whose windows the occupants look out over the roofs of their neighbors upon a goodly prospect.4

John Fish. Probably identical with the John Fish who was of Lynn, 1637. In New London he appears early in 1655, with wife and children.5

William Peake, or Pike. His residence was west of the town plot, on the path leading to Fog Plain. Only three children are mentioned.

Christopher Christophers died July 23, 1687. Two brothers of the name of Christophers, both mariners, and engaged in the exchange trade with Barbadoes, settled in New London about 1665.

Jeffrey was aged fifty-five in 1676 ; of course born about 1621. Christopher was at his death aged fifty- six; born about 1631. That they were brothers con- clusive evidence remains in documents upon record, wherein the relationship is expressed.

John Richards died in 1687. Of this person no ac- count previous to his appearance in New London has been found. His marriage is not recorded, and it is probable that it took place elsewhere. He had seven children baptized March 26, 1671,-John, Israel, Mary, Penelope, Lydia, Elizabeth, and Hannah. David was baptized July 27, 1673. It is presumed that these eight form a complete list of his children.

Samuel Starr died probably in 1688. Mr. Starr is not mentioned upon the records of New London at an carlier date than his marriage with Hannah, daugh- ter of Jonathan Brewster, Dec. 23, 1664. His wife was aged thirty-seven in 1680. Their children were Samuel, born Dec. 11, 1665; Thomas, Sept. 27, 1668; Comfort, baptized by Mr. Bradstreet in August, 1671; Jonathan, baptized in 1674; and Benjamin, in 1679.

The residence of this family was on the southwest corner of Bradley lot (corner of Main and State Streets, or Buttonwood corner). Mr. Starr was ap- pointed county marshal6 in 1678, and probably held the office till his death. No will, inventory, or rec- ord of the settlement of his estate has been found, but a deed was executed Feb. 2, 1687-88, by Hannah,

1 Farmers' Register.

2 Savage's Winthrop, vol. ii. p. 366.

3 Hist. and Gen. Reg., vol. iii. p. 177. In Mass. Hist. Coll., 3d series, vol. x. p. 118, Mr. Myrior Is probably a mistake for Myriol.

4 About the year 1846, Mr. David Bishop with great labor succeeded in cutting a chamber out of the solid rock for a foundation, upon which he erected a handsome house. A street has since been opened over the hill, a number of neat houses built, and the name of Mountain Avenue given to it.

5 Farmers' Register.

G Equivalent to sheriff.

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NEW LONDON.

widow of Samuel Starr, and it is probable that her husband had then recently deceased.

Samuel Starr was undoubtedly a descendant of " Comfort Starr, of Ashford, chirurgeon," who came to New England in the "Hercules," of Sandwich, 1635, with three children and three servants.1 The coincidence of names suggests an intimate family connection. The three children of the chirurgeon are supposed to have been Thomas, John, and Com- fort. Thomas followed the profession of his father, is styled a surgeon, and was living in Yarmouth, Mass., from 1648 to 1670.2 He had two children born in Scituate,-Comfort, in 1644, and Elizabeth, in 1646. It is probable that he had other children, and, accord- ing to our conjecture, one older, viz., our Samuel Starr, of New London. The church records of Ips- wich state that Mary, wife of Comfort Starr, was ad- mitted to that church in March, 1671, and in May, 1673, dismissed to the church in New London. She was received here in June, and her husband's name appears on the town record about the same period, but he is supposed to have removed to Middletown. This was probably the brother of Samuel, and iden- tical with Comfort Starr, born in 1644.

Samuel Starr, Jr., is mentioned in 1685, and again in 1687. He then disappears, and no descendants have been found in this vicinity. Of Comfort, third son of Samuel, nothing is known after his baptism in 1671. It may be presumed that he died young. The second and fourth sons, Thomas and Jonathan, set- tled east of the river, in the present town of Groton, on land which some of their descendants still occupy. Thomas Starr is called a shipwright. In the year 1710 he sold a sloop called the "Sea Flower," which he describes as " a square-sterned vessel of sixty-seven tons and six-sevenths of a ton burden, built by me in Groton" for £180. This is our latest account of him till we meet with the notice of his death, which took place Jan. 31, 1711-12.

Thomas and Jonathan Starr married sisters, Mary and Elizabeth Morgan, daughters of Capt. James Morgan. Samnel, the oldest son of Jonathan, re- moved to Norwich, and is the founder of the Norwich family of Starrs. Jonathan, the second son, was the ancestor of the present Jonathan Starr, Esq., of New London, and of the late Capt. Jared Starr. Richard, another brother of this family, removed to Hinsdale, Mass., and was one of the fathers of that new settle- ment, and a founder of its infant church.

The descendants of Jonathan Starr have been re- markable for longevity,-eight of his children lived to be eighty, and most of them over eighty-five years of age. One of his daughters, Mrs. Turner, was one hundred years and seven months old. In the family of his son Jonathan, the father, mother, and four children averaged ninety years of age. The third

Jonathan lived to be ninety-five, and his brother, Capt. Jared Starr, to his ninetieth year. A similar length of years characterized their partners in mar- riage. Mrs. Mary (Seabury) Starr lived to the age of ninety-nine years, and Elizabeth, relict of Capt. Joseph Starr, of Groton (brother of Jonathan, 2d), died at the age of one hundred years four months and eight days.

Benjamin Starr, the youngest son of the first Sam- uel (born 1679), settled in New London, and has had many descendants here. He purchased in 1702 of the heirs of Thomas Dymond a house, garden, and wharf upon Bream Cove, east side, where the old bridge crossed the cove, which was then regarded as the end of the town in that direction. The phrase " from the fort to Benjamin Starr's" comprehended the whole length of the bank. The water at high tide came up to the base of Mr. Starr's house, and the dwellings southeast of it, known as the Crocker and Perriman houses, founded on the rocks, had the tide directly in their rear, so as to preclude the use of doors on the water side. The quantity of made land in that vicinity, and the recession of the water con- sequent upon bridging and wharfing, has entirely altered the original form of the shore around Bream Cove. A foot-bridge, with a draw, spanned the cove by the side of Mr. Starr, and connected him with his opposite neighbor, Peter Harris.

Philip Bill died July 8, 1689. Mr. Bill and a daughter named Margaret died the same day, victims of an epidemic throat distemper. He settled east of the river, in that part of the township which is now Ledyard, before 1670. Mr. Bradstreet baptized his son Jonathan, Nov. 5, 1671, and adds to the record that the father was member of the church at Ipswich. Another son, Joshua, was baptized in 1675. The older children, probably born in Ipswich, were Philip, Samuel, John, and Elizabeth. Hannah, relict of Philip Bill, married Samuel Bucknall. Philip Bill, Jr., was sergeant of the first company of train-bands formed in Groton. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Andrew Lester. Their oldest son, Philip, was lost at sea or died abroad. Sergt. Philip Bill, who "lived near the Long Hill, in Groton," died July 10, 1739, aged above eighty. " The church-bell" (says Hemp- stead in his " Diary") " tolled twice on that occasion." We infer from this that it was customary at that day to have only a death-bell to announce decease, but no passing-bell to solemnize the funeral.

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History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 39

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1317

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1317