History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 41

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 41


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


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Capt. Samuel Chester died in 1710. A sea-captain in the West India line, he receives his first grant of land in New London for a warehouse in 1664, in company with William Condy, of Boston, who was styled his nephew.


William Condy. In connection with Capt. Chester, a brief notice is due to William Condy. His wife was Mary, daughter of Ralph Parker. He had four chil- dren presented together for baptism, March 23, 1672- 73, -- Richard, William, Ebenezer, and Ralph. The family removed to Boston about 1680. A letter from Mr. Condy, dated June 14, 1688, to Capt. Chester is recorded at New London, requesting him to make sale of one hundred and fifty acres of land that had been given him by the town. He says,-


" LOVING UNCLE:


" I would desire if you can sell the land that lyeth on your side of the river to do me that kindness as to sell it for me at the best advantage, and send it down to me the next spring, and give a bill of sale for the same, and this shall be your discharge. If you sell it, take it in pork if yon can, for that will be the best commodity here. I am now ready to sale for Barbadoes," etc.


Thomas Mortimer died March 11, 1709-10. This name was often written Maltimore and Mortimore. We have little information concerning the person who bore it, and with whom, apparently, it became extinct. He was a constable in 1680.


William Mynard died in 1711. This person was an original emigrant from Great Britain; he had a brother George, who died at Fording Bridge, in Hamp- shire, England, to whose estate he was an heir.


Thomas Pember, drowned Sept. 27, 1711, in Na- hantic River, on whose banks he dwelt. He had three children baptized in 1692, viz., Mercy, Thomas, and Elizabeth ; also Ann, baptized 1694, and John, 1696. At the period of his death only four children were living. He left a wife, Agnes, who was for many years famous as a nurse and doctress.


Richard Singleton died Oct. 16, 1711. The record of his death styles him ferryman of Groton. Origin- ally he was a mariner, and probably took the ferry when the fifty years' lease of Latham expired, in 1705, in company with John Williams, or perhaps alternating with him. Both lived on Groton Bank, and were lessees of the ferry about the same time.


Wells. Thomas Wells was one of the early band of planters at Pequot Harbor ; probably on the ground in 1648, and certainly in 1649. He was a carpenter, and worked with Elderkin on mills and meeting- houses.


Jacob Holloway died Nov. 9, 1711. He appears in the plantation a little before 1700. Left a son, John, and daughters, Rose and Ann. His wife died four days after the decease of her husband.


Joseph Nest died Dec. 8, 1711. Mr. Nest's wife deceased before him, and he lived apparently alone in a small tenement in the angle of the Lyme and Great Neck roads.


John Terrall died Feb. 27, 1712. His wife, Mrs. Sarah Terrall, died March 7th succeeding. No chil- dren are mentioned in the will of the latter, but she was probably a second wife.


John Wickwire died in March or April, 1712. This person was an early settler in Mohegan, or the North Parish (now Montville).


Thomas Short. "Here lyeth the body of Thomas Short, who deceased Sept. 27, 1712, aged thirty years." The small headstone in the old burial- ground which bears this inscription shows where the remains of the first printer in the colony of Connec- ticut are deposited. He had been instructed in his art by Bartholomew Green, of Boston, who recommended him to the authorities of Connecticut for a colony printer, in which office he established himself at New London in 1709.


Thomas Munsell died in 1712. We find this per- son mentioned in 1681. He was on a committee to lay out a highway in 1683. His wife was Lydia, and his children Jacob, Elisha, Mercy, and Deliverance. In 1723, Jacob was of Windsor, and Elisha of Nor- wich.


165


NEW LONDON.


Stephen Hurlbut died Oct. 7, 1712. The Hurlbut family of Connecticut commences with Thomas Hurl- but, who was one of the garrison at Saybrook fort in 1636, and settled in Wethersfield about 1640. Ste- phen, who canie to New London after 1690, was prob- ably one of his descendants, and a native of Wethers- field.


William Camp died Oct. 9, 1713. He was an in- habitant of the Jordan district. His wife was Eliza- beth, daughter of Richard Smith. His two sons, William and James, removed to the North Parish (now Montville).


Hallam. John and Nicholas Hallam were the sons of Mrs. Alice Liveen by a former marriage, and prob- ably born in Barbadoes,-John in 1661, and Nicholas in 1664. John married Prudence, daughter of Amos Richardson, in 1682, and fixed his residence in Ston- ington, where he died in 1700. His possessions were large ; a thousand acres of land were leased to him in perpetuity by John Richardson, of Newbury, in 1692, " for the consideration of five shillings and an annual rent of one pepper-corn ;" and his inventory gives evidence of a style of dress and housekeeping more expensive and showy than was common in those days. It contains silver-plate, mantle, and coat of broad- cloth, lined with silk, " seventeen horse kind," four negro servants, etc.


Maj. Edward Palmes died March 21, 1714-15. The same day died Capt. John Prentis (2). They were both buried on the 23d, under arms, Capt. Prentis in the morning, and Maj. Palmes in the after- noon. The latter died on his farm at Nahantick, but was brought into town for interment. Mr. Hemp- stead's diary notices the extreme severity of the weather at the time, and says of Maj. Palmes, "He was well and dead in two hours and a half." His gravestone states that he was in his seventy-eighth year; we may therefore place his birth in the year 1638.


Guy and Edward Palmes were both traders in 1659 and 1660, the latter in New Haven, and the former in one of the towns west of it upon the Sound. In De- ceniber, 1660, Edward had removed to New London. From various sources it is ascertained that he mar- ried Lucy Winthrop, daughter of Governor Winthrop of Connecticut, and after her death a Widow Davis, and that by his first wife he had a daughter Lucy, who married (first) Samuel Gray and (second) Samuel Lynde, of Saybrook, but of these successive events no explicit documentary evidence is to be found in New London. Dates therefore cannot be given. Two children of Maj. Palmes by his second wife are on Mr. Bradstreet's record of baptisms :


" Baptized Nov. 17, 1678, Maj. Palmes his child by his second wife who was Capt. Davis his relict, - Guy.


"Baptized Oct. 1, 1682, Maj. Palmes his child -- Andrew.


The Bentworth farm of Maj. Palmes at Nahantick was mortgaged to Capt. Charles Chambers, of Charles- town, for £853. He left, however, five other valuable


farms. The Winthrop homestead in the town plot, and the Mountain farm, bought of Samuel Royce, he gave to his daughter, Lucy Gray, but the remainder of his estate went to his son Andrew. These are the only children mentioned in his will, and probably all that survived infancy.


Andrew Palmes graduated at Harvard College in 1703, and died in 1721. He had four sons-Guy, Bryan, Edward, and Andrew-and a daughter, Sarah, who married Richard Durfey. The name of Palmes is now extinct in New London. The Brainerd family is descended in the female line from Capt. Edward Palmes, the third son of Andrew.


Richard Jennings died Dec. 12, 1715. Richard Jennings and Elizabeth Reynolds were married " the beginning of June, 1678." They were both emi- grants from Barbadoes. Their children were, first, Samuel, born March 11, 1679; second, Richard, 1680; third. Elinor, who married Richard Manwaring.


Thomas Crocker died Jan. 18, 1715-16. The de- scendants of this person are numerous and widely scattered. At the time of his decease he was eighty- three years of age, and had lived about fifty years in the town. His wife, Rachel, was a daughter of Geo. Chappell.


David Caulkins died Nov. 25, 1717. Hugh Caul- kin(s) and his son John removed to Norwich in 1660. David, the younger son, remained in New London, and inherited the homestead farm given by the town to his father at Nahantick. Edward Palmes, John Prentis, David Caulkins, and William Keeny lived on adjoining farms, and for a considerable period occu- pied a district by themselves around the present Rope Ferry and Millstone Point.


Ensign George Way died in February, 1716-17. This was the period of the "great snow," famous throughout New England. Ensign Way lived at the West Farms, not far from Lake's Pond, and after his decease his remains were kept for eleven or twelve days, on account of the impassable state of the roads. He was finally interred on the 7th of March, being brought into town by men on snow-shoes.


The family of Ensign Way removed from New London. He had several children, but Lyme was probably the place of their nativity. His wife was Susannah, daughter of Joseph Nest.


Joshua Baker died Dec. 27, 1717. He was the son of Alexander Baker, of Boston, and born at the latter place in 1642. He came to New London about 1670, and married, Sept. 13, 1674, Hannah, relict of Tris- tram Minter.


Thomas Jones died Oct. 6, 1718. His wife was Catharine, daughter of Thomas Gammon, of New- foundland, whom he married June 25, 1677. He lived at first near Alewife Cove, but removed into the North Parish, and his only son, Thomas, became a proprietor of the town of Colchester.


Daniel Wetherell was born Nov. 29, 1630, at the Free School-house, in Maidstone, Kent, Old England.


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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.


Daniel Wetherell, of New London, son of William Wetherell, clericus of Scituate, was married Aug. 4, 1659, to Grace, daughter of Mr. Jonathan Brewster.


Andrew Davis, of Groton, died April 23, 1719. John Davis was one of the .planters of Pequot in 1651, and came probably from Ipswich. In 1662 he was master of a vessel. His death is not registered, but there is little hazard in assuming that his relict was the Widow Davis whom Maj. Palmer married for his second wife, and that Andrew Davis, of Groton, was his son. It is difficult to construct a family his- tory out of the scanty materials afforded by early records.


Lieut. John Richards died Nov. 2, 1720. He was the oldest son of the first John Richards, and his wife was Love, daughter of Oliver Manwaring. He had a large family of ten or twelve children, of whom only four (John, George, Samnel, and Lydia) survived their father. His inventory, which comprises gold buttons, silver-plate, and gold and silver coin, shows that an advance had been made beyond the simple frugality of the first times. He owned the Bartlett farm on the river, one-half of which was prized at £315, which indicates a still greater advance in the value of lands. No spot in New London was more noted than the corner of Lieut. Richards (now oppo- site the court-house). It was for many years the most western dwelling in that direction, with only the school-house and pasture-lots beyond.


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Col. John Livingston died 1720. "The inventory of Lieut .- Col. John Livingston, late of New London, taken at the house of Mrs. Sarah Knight, in Norwich, at the desire of Mrs. Elizabeth Livingston, widow of ye deceased, who is appointed administratrix, March 10, 1720-21." The list of effects under this heading is slender. The principal items are 103 ounces of wrought-plate at 10s. 6d. per ounce, a japanned cabi- net, and a field-tent. Col. Livingston died abroad. His residence in New London has already been no- ticed. He speculated largely in Indian lands. In 1705 he purchased "Pawmechaug," three hundred acres, of Samuel Rogers, and sold it subsequently to Charles Whiting. In 1710 he was one of the four purchasers of all Mohegan, the reservation of the In- dians excepted. He had a farm on Saw-mill Brook (now Uncasville), of four hundred aeres, which he cultivated as a homestead. Here he had his mills and dwelling-house, the latter standing on the west side of the road to Norwich. It was here that his first wife, Mrs. Mary Livingston, the only child of Gov- ernor Fitz-Jolin Winthrop, died, Jan. 8, 1712-13. She was not interred till the 16th ; the weather being very inclement and the snow deep, she could not be brought into town till that time.


Col. Livingston's second wife was Elizabeth, dangh- ter and only child of Mrs. Sarah Knight, The mar- riage has not been found registered. To Mrs. Knight, Livingston first mortgaged and then sold the Mohegan farm. The title therefore accrued to Mrs. Livingston


from her mother, and not her husband. She sold it to Capt. Stephen Harding, of Warwick. Col. Liv- ingston had no children by either wife. The grave of the first, the daughter of Winthrop, is undistinguished and unknown. A table of freestone, with the follow- lowing inscription, perpetuates the memory of the second :


"Interd vnder this stone is the body of Mdm Elizabeth Livingston, relict of Col. John Livingstone of New London, who departed this life March 17th, A.D. 1735-6, in the 48th year of her age."


The following are items from the inventory of her effects :


A negro woman, Rose; man, Pompey.


Indian man named John Nothing.


Silver-plate amounting to £234 13s.


A damask table-cloth, 80s.


Four gold rings, one silver ring, one stoned ring.


A pair of stoned ear-rings, a stone drop for the neck.


A red stone for a locket, two pair of gold buttons.


A diamond ring with five diamonds (prized at £30).


John Edgecomb died April 11, 1721. His will calls him aged. His estate was appraised at £681, and consisted of a homestead in the town plot and two considerable farms.


Capt. Peter Manwaring died July 29, 1723. He perished by shipwreck on the south side of Montauk Point. This enterprising mariner is first named a little before 1700. His relationship with Oliver Man- waring has not been ascertained, but the probability is that he was his nephew. He followed the seas with great assiduity. His family consisted of a wife and three daughters.


Oliver Manwaring died Nov. 3, 1723. He was then ninety years of age, and had been an inhabitant of the town about sixty years. His house-lot of eleven acres was bought on the 3d of November, 1664. The nucleus of this homestead, consisting of the house- plot and garden, is still in the possession of a de- scendant in the direct male line from Oliver. ,


Sergt. Ebenezer Griffing died Sept. 2, 1723. His age was fifty years, and he had been about twenty-five in New London. His parentage and native place have not been ascertained.


Richard Dart died Sept. 24, 1724. This was sixty years and twelve days after the date of his first pur- chase in New London. He was eighty-nine years of age. His oldest son, Daniel, born May 3, 1666, mar- ried, Ang. 4, 1686, Elizabeth Douglas, and about the year 1716 removed to Bolton, in Hartford County.


John Arnold died Aug. 16, 1725, his gravestone says "aged about 73." His wife died November 28th of the same year. We assume with confidence that John Arnold was a son of Joseph Arnold, of Brain- trec, Mass., the latter having the birth of a son John registered April 2, 1650-51. He was a resident in Norwich in 1681 and later, but before 1700 removed to New London, where he married, Dec. 6, 1703, Mercy, relict of Samuel Fosdick.


167


NEW LONDON.


Harwood. George Harwood can be traced as a res- ident in New London only between the years 1651 and 1657, inclusive.


Thomas Bolles1 died May 26, 1727, aged eighty- four; Samuel Bolles died Aug. 10, 1842, aged ninety- nine. The person last mentioned was grandson to the former, and yet the time between the birth of the one and the decease of the other was one hundred and ninety-nine years, an immense space to be covered by three generations, and a remarkable instance for our country, where the practice of early marriages oper- ates to crowd the generations closely together. The intervening link is John Bolles ; Samuel was the son of his old age, born when his father had numbered sixty-seven years.


A family tradition states that Thomas Bolles came to this country with brothers, and that they arrived first upon the Kennebeck coast, but Winthrop, the founder of New London, having some knowledge of the family, invited them all to his plantation. Only Thomas answered the call, the others remaining where they first landed. It is some corroboration of this account that the name of Bolles is found among the early settlers of Wells, in Maine.


Thomas Bolles is found at New London about 1668. Of his marriage we have no account. He bought a house and land at Foxen's Hill, and there lived with his wife Mary and three children,-Mary, born in 1673; Joseph, in 1675 ;2 and John, in August, 1677.


On the 5th or 6th of June, 1678, while Mr. Bolles was absent from home, a sudden and terrific blow be- reaved him of most of his family. His wife and two oldest children were found dead, weltering in their blood, with the infant, wailing but unhurt, by the side of its mother. The author of this bloody deed proved to be a vagabond youth, who demanded shelter and lodging in the house, which the woman refused. Some angry words ensued, and the reckless lad, seizing an axe that lay at the wood-pile, rushed in and took awful vengeance. He soon afterwards con- fessed the crime, was carried to Hartford, tried by the Court of Assistants, October 3d, condemned and exe- cuted at Hartford, Oct. 9, 1678.


The records of the town do not contain the slightest allusion to this act of atrocity. Tradition, however, has faithfully preserved the history, coinciding in im- portant facts with the account contained in documents on file among the colonial records at Hartford. John Bolles, the infant thus providentially preserved from slaughter, in a pamphlet which he published in after- life concerning his peculiar religious tenets, alludes to the tragic event of his infancy as follows :


" My father lived abont a mile from New London town, and my mother was at home with only three little children, I being the youngest, about ten months old. She, with the other two, were murdered by a youth about sixteen years of age, who was afterwards executed at Hartford, and I was found at my dead mother's breast."


Tradition states that the blood of the child Mary, who was killed as she was endeavoring to escape from the door, flowed out upon the rock on which the house stood, and that the stains long remained.


Samuel Fox died Sept. 4, 1727, aged seventy-seven. Samuel and John Fox were sons of Thomas Fox, of Concord. Samuel Fox married Mary, supposed to be daughter of Andrew Lester, and born in Gloucester in 1647, March 30, 1675-76. They had a son Samuel, born April 24, 1681.


Mrs. Sarah Knight. It is known that she was born about 1665, but where, of what parentage, when mar- ried, who was her husband, and when he was taken from her by death, are points not yet ascertained. All that is known of her kindred is that she was re- lated to the Prout and Trowbridge families of New Haven. The few data that have been gathered re- specting her in this vicinity will be rehearsed in order. In 1698 she appears at Norwich with goods to sell, and is styled widow and shop-keeper .. In this connection it may be mentioned that among the planters in a settlement then recently commenced by Maj. James Fitch, of Norwich, at Peagscomtuck, now Canterbury, was a John Knight, who died in 1695. It is possible that Mrs. Knight was his relict; she appears to have had one child only, a daughter Eliz- abeth ; and it is probable that John Knight had no sons, as the continuation of his name and family has not been traced. He is not the ancestor of the Knight family afterwards found at the West Farms, in Norwich, which originated with David Knight, who married Sarah Backus in 1692, had sons and daughters, and died in 1744.


Mrs. Knight remained but a short time in Norwich, perhaps three or four years. At the time of her cele- brated journey from Boston to New York, in 1704, she was a resident of Boston. In 1717 she was again living at Norwich; a silver cup for the communion service was presented by her to the church, and the town by vote, August 12th, gave her liberty to "sit in the pew where she used to sit." In 1718, March 26th, Mrs. Knight and six other persons were presented in one indictment " for selling strong drink to the In- dians." They were fined twenty shillings and costs. It is added to the record, " Mrs. Knight accused her maid, Ann Clark, of the fact." After this period Mrs. Knight appears as a land purchaser in the North Parish of New London, generally as a partner with Joseph Bradford ; she was also a pew-holder in the new church built in that parish about 1724, and was sometimes styled of Norwich, and sometimes of New London. This can be easily accounted for, as she retained her dwelling-house in Norwich, but her farms, where she spent a portion of her time, were within the bounds of New London. On one of the latter, the Livingston farm, upon the Norwich road, she kept entertainment for travelers, and is called inn-keeper. At this place she died, and was brought to New London for interment.


1 At first frequently written Bowles.


2 In some papers at Hartford this child is called Thomas ; at his baptism the name registered was Joseph.


168


HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.


George Geer died in 1727. The Isbell farm bought by George Geer, Oct. 31, 1665, was bounded north by the line between New London and Norwich (now Ledyard and Preston).


Fargo. The first of this name in New London was Moses, who became a resident in 1680. He had nine children, of whom the five youngest were sons,- Moses, Ralph, Robert, Thomas, and Aaron. Moses Fargo, or Firgo, as it was then often written, and his wife Sarah were both living in 1726.


Thomas Leach died Nov. 24, 1732. He was eighty years of age, and had dwelt in the town upwards of fifty years.


John Ames died June 1, 1735. He had been about forty years an inhabitant of New London, and had sons,-John, Robert, and Samuel.


CHAPTER XII.


NEW LONDON -- (Continued). War of the Revolution.1


Votes of the Town concerning the War-First Committees of Corre- spondence-Soldiers' Families-The First Naval Expedition-The Militia-Two Companies from New London at Bunker Hill-Nathan Hale-Cannonade of Stonington-Fort Trumbull-Officers on Duty -Enlistments - Maranders - Smugglers-Shaving Notes-Various Alarms-British Fleets in the Sound-Rumors and Alarms of 1779 and 1780-Sketches of Soldiers.


"So copious are the details connected with the Revolution that may be collected from one source and another, that even after the lapse of more than seventy years the historian is embarrassed by the affluence of materials. He is in danger of losing the thread of his narrative in the labyrinth of interesting incidents presented to him. In the present case, how- ever, there can be no doubt but that it will be proper to notice first what was done by the town in its cor- porate capacity. This will not require a long article. The records are meagre. The Revolution, as it re- gards New London, was achieved by public spirit and voluntary action, rather than by organization and law. From the town records we learn but little of the contest in which the inhabitants were such great sufferers.


" A letter from the selectmen of Boston, inclosing the famous resolutions of Oct. 23, 1767, was laid be- fore the town December 28th, and the subject referred to a committee of fifteen of the inhabitants, viz., Gur- don Saltonstall, Daniel Coit, William Hillhouse, Richard Law, Jeremiah Miller, Joseph Coit, James Mumford, Nathaniel Shaw, Nathaniel Shaw, Jr., Eze- kiel Fox, Samuel Belden, Winthrop Saltonstall, Guy Richards, Russell Hubbard, Titus Hurlbnt.


" This committee entered fully into the spirit of the Boston resolutions, and drew up a form of sub-


scription to circulate among the inhabitants, by which the use of certain enumerated articles of European merchandise was condemned and relinquished. These articles appear to have been generally adopted and faithfully kept.


"In December, 1770, the town appointed four dele- gates to the grand convention of the colony held at New Haven : Gurdon Saltonstall, William Hillhouse, Nathaniel Shaw, Jr., William Manwaring.


"We find no further record of any action of the town relative to the political discontent of the coun- try until the memorable.month of June, 1774, when the edict of Parliament shutting up the port of Boston took effect, and roused the colonies at once to activity. Votes and resolutions expressive of indignation, re- monstrance, and sympathy were echoed from town to town, and pledges exchanged to stand by each other, and to adhere with constancy to the cause of liberty. The town-meeting at Groton was on the 20th of June, William Williams, moderator. The Committee of Correspondence chosen consisted of seven prominent inhabitants, - William Ledyard, Thomas Mumford, Benadam Gallup, Amos Prentice, Charles Eldridge, Jr., Deacon John Hurlbut, Amos Geer.


" The meeting at New London was on the 27th, Richard Law, moderator, and the committee five in number,-Richard Law, Gurdon Saltonstall, Na- thaniel Shaw, Jr., Samuel H. Parsons, Guy Rich- ards.




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