History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 70

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 70

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" In his habits he was roving and unsettled, ab- senting himself from home in long and vagrant ram- bles, from one of which he never returned. Accord- ing to report, he was found dead by the wayside on a road little frequented in the northern part of New York.

" Three daughters of Capt. Oliver Arnold, sisters of Freegift and Oliver the rhymester, died aged but un- married, the last of the family in Norwich. The brothers Benedict and Oliver, with their wives, and six children of the former and four of the latter, were interred near the centre of the old burial-lot, but mostly without inscribed gravestones.

"GEN. EBENEZER HUNTINGTON.1 -- Ebenezer, the fourth son of Gen. Jabez, was a member of Yale Col- lege, and within two months of completing his course when the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. He and other ardent young patriots of his class asked per- mission of President Daggett to leave the institution and enlist as volunteers in the army that was gather- ing at Boston. Being refused, they decamped in the night, hastened to Wethersfield, where there was a recruiting station, enrolled their names, and were soon on duty at the heights of Dorchester.

" Mr. Huntington was at first threatened by the college faculty with the loss of his degree, but ulti- mately, as he was under no previous censure, he was allowed to graduate with his class in 1775.

"In the army he rose by successive promotions to the rank of colonel, and took part in several of the most remarkable contests of the war. After his com- mission as captain of a company, in October, 1776, he lived with the army, and was ever at his post in camp and field, losing no time in long furloughs for rest and recreation. Subsequent to the evacuation of New York his regiment was stationed on the Hudson, at Fort Lee, Tarrytown, and Tappan Bay. In 1778 he was sent in command of a battalion to Rhode Island to operate against the British, who then held posses- sion of Newport. He afterwards joined the main army, and participated in several severe engagements with the enemy. At the siege of Yorktown he served a part of the time as volunteer aide to Gen. Lincoln,

1 For biography of Gen. Jedediah Huntington, see chapter xxviii.

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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

and in that capacity witnessed the magnificent spec- tacle of the surrender of Cornwallis to the soldiers of liberty.1 He remained on duty with the army till the troops were disbanded, having served through the whole war from April, 1775, to May, 1783.

"Gen. Huntington retired from the army to the peaceful pursuits of merchandise. But his experi- ence in taet and military evolutions and discipline made it desirable that he should be retained in the home service. In 1792 he was appointed major-gen- eral of the militia of the State, an office which he held more than thirty years, under six successive Gov- ernors.

" In 1799 he was appointed by President Adams, at the recommendation of Gen. Washington, a brigadier- general in the United States army, raised upon the apprehension of a war with France. In 1810, and again in 1817, he was elected member of Congress. He died June 17, 1834, in the eightieth year of his age.

"Gen. Huntington was noted for his fine manly form and military deportment. He was twice mar- ried. His first wife was Sarah Isham, of Colchester; his second, Mary Lucretia, daughter of Gen. Samuel McClellan, of Woodstock.

" Zachariah, the fifth son of Gen. Jabez Hunting- ton, was too young to take part in the Revolutionary contest, but he attained a high rank in the militia, and was endowed by nature with many soldierlike qualities,-a commanding person, a voice of great compass, firmness of purpose, and habits of great precision and accuracy.

" It is seldom that five such distinguished men as the brothers Huntington appear in one family, all living to an age ranging from seventy to eighty-six years.

"JOSEPH TRUMBULL, Commissary .- When the war commenced Norwich had on her roll of inhabitants no one of fairer promise or of more zealous devotion to the cause of liberty than Joseph Trumbull. He was the eldest son of Governor Trumbull, and born at Lebanon, March 11, 1737, but had been for twelve or fifteen years a resident in Norwich, taking an ac- tive part in the business, the municipal affairs and patriotic proceedings of the town. In 1775 he was appointed the first commissary-general of the Ameri- can army, an important and honorable office, but bringing with it a crushing weight of perplexity, labor, and responsibility. He devoted himself with unremitting ardor to his duties, and was soon worn out by them. In July, 1778, he came from Philadel- phia with a desponding heart and a broken constitu- tion. His father and other friends gathered around him, and after a few days of rest he was carefully re- moved from his home in Norwich to his father's house in Lebanon, where he died July 23d, aged forty-two.

"The hopes of his friends, who expected much from his talents and integrity, and whose affections were fondly fixed upon his person, were blasted by his untimely death. In the eulogy pronounced at his funeral great praise is awarded to his abilities, his patriotism, and his moral worth, and it is added, ' In all the winning and agreeable arts of life he had no superior.' .These qualities account for the tender attachment of his friends and ther lamentations that were uttered on his death.

" COL. JOHN DURKEE .- John Durkee was a native of Windham, but settled early in life at Norwich. He served upon the frontier against the French in several distinct expeditions, and afterwards held the rank of major in the militia. He kept an inn, cultivated a farm, and was often engaged in public business. After the repeal of the Stamp Act he became interested in the purchase made by the Susquehanna Company in Pennsylvania, and was one of the forty pioneers sent out by the company in 1769 to take possession of the Wyoming Valley. Robert Durkee was also of the com- pany, and the first fortress erected by these emigrants was called Fort Durkee.

" Against this scanty band of settlers the Penna- mites or Pennsylvania claimants of the valley soon appeared in considerable force, and an obstinate con- test for the possession of the territory ensued. Maj. Durkee was at one time carried to Philadelphia as a prisoner, but when released returned to the scene of conflict. After a long and stormy experience the Connecticut party so far prevailed as to keep posses- sion of their settlements.

" Maj. Durkee afterwards returned to Norwich, and the trouble with England deepening and gradually overshadowing the land, he relinquished the idea of re- moving to the western wilderness. His brother Robert remained at Wyoming, and was subsequently one of the victims of Indian barbarity in the fearful slaughter of July 3, 1778. His name is on the commemorative monument in the Wyoming Valley.

" Maj. Durkee was promoted to the command of a regiment, and took part in the battles of Long Island, Harlem Heights, White Plains, Trenton, and Mon- mouth. He was also with Gen. Sullivan in the ex- pedition against the Six Nations. But his health gradually failed, and in 1780 he resigned his com- mand, and was succeeded by Lieut .- Col. Thomas Gros- venor, of Pomfret.

" He died before the return of peace, May 29, 1782, in his fifty-fourth year. One of his sons, a youthful volunteer, aged seventeen years, died. in. 1777, of wounds received in fighting for his country.2

" Col. Benjamin Throop was another gallant officer who served in the regular army. He enlisted as first lieutenant in April, 1775 ; was promoted by successive

1 In Trumbull's historical picture of the surrender of Cornwallis, Gen. Huntington Is represented In the group of American officers, his purtralt having been taken by the artist from life.

2 Oul of twenty recruits that enlisted from Norwich in the company of Capt. Nathaniel Webb, of Windham (Durkee's regiment), from 1776 to 1778, engaging to serve during the war, only four were over twenty years of age .- Webb's Orderly- Book.

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steps to the rank of colonel, and continued in the ser- vice to the end of the war.

"Col. Zabdiel Rogers, of the State militia, was often called out during the war. In 1775 his regiment was sent with others from the State to the city of New York. It was afterwards several times ordered to the western border line of Connecticut. In 1781 he was on duty at Rye and Horseneck.

"The brothers Christopher and Benajah Leffing- well, belonging to the State militia, were often sum- moned to the sea-coast upon an alarm of invasion, or to take a turn in manning the forts and batteries. In 1777, Benajah Leffingwell, then captain of a com- pany, performed a tour of duty in Rhode Island.

"Christopher Leffingwell was an early and active member of the Committee of Correspondence, and eminently useful in rousing the spirit of the people, and in devising ways and means by which the common cause might be benefited.

" He was a grandson of the second Thomas Leffing- well, of Norwich, and died Nov. 27, 1810, aged seventy- six years. His life through its whole length was active, useful, and prosperous.

"Capt. David Nevins enlisted early in the contest for liberty, and lived long to witness its happy results. He was first employed as the confidential messenger of the Norwich Committee of Correspondence, one of those voluntary patriotie agencies that managed the whole business of the Revolution in its earlier stages. His personal activity and daring spirit, combined with trustworthiness and ardent participation in the popu- lar cause, peculiarly fitted him for the work. But the battle of Lexington carried him from all minor employ- ments into the army. He joined the Eighth Company, Sixth Regiment, which was organized on Norwich Green in May, 1765, and was its color-bearer on Dor- chester Heights.

" He remained with the army during the siege of Boston, the occupation of New York, and the retreat through the Jerseys, returning home in the winter of 1777. He did not, however, relinquish the service of his country, but was several times again in the field upon various emergencies during the war.

"Capt. Nevins was born at Canterbury, Sept. 12, 1747, and died in New York, Jan. 21, 1838, aged ninety.

" Capt. Jedediah Hyde, son of the Separatist min- ister, born in 1738, left his farm and family-a wife and eight children-to enlist among the first recruits in the cause of liberty. After the war he removed to Vermont, and about the year 1788 established himself at Hyde Park, in that State, which place derives its name from him. He died in 1825.

" Capt. James Hyde, of Bean Hill, who married Martha Nevins, and Capt. James Hyde, of the West Farms, whose wife was Eunice Backus, were both en- gaged in the Revolutionary contest, the former on the land and the latter on the sea. Capt. Hyde of the army was a man noted for his gentleness and philan-

thropy, yet he enlisted early, fought bravely, and served to the end of the war. Great must have been the hatred of British tyranny that moved such a spirit to rush into the battle-field. He was afterwards a Methodist local preacher.

"Capt. Jared Tracy served as a commissary during the siege of Boston, and subsequently fought the enemy upon the sea. After the war he went into the West India trade, and died at Demerara in 1790. William G. Tracy, an early and prominent settler at Whitestown, N. Y., was his son.

" Capt. Simeon Huntington commanded a company in Col. Huntington's regiment, and served through the first two campaigns of the war. He was a man of bold, adventurous spirit, and had taken a con- spicuous part in resistance to the Stamp Act. He died in 1817, aged seventy-seven.

"Capt. Elisha Prior, of Norwich, was in the gar- rison of Fort Griswold when it was stormed by the British, and received a severe wound. He died at Sag Harbor, L. I., in 1817.

"Lieut. Andrew Griswold, of Durkee's regiment, was wounded at the battle of Germantown by a ball in the knee and made a cripple for life. He lay for ten months in the hospital at Reading, Pa., and was afterwards only able to perform light service in camp and fortress. But he still clung to the army, and when the war closed was at West Point. He died at Norwich in 1827, at the age of seventy-two.

" Capt. Richard Lamb, a native of Leicester, Mass., served during most of the war in the Connecticut militia, and was stationed at Danbury and at Fish- kill, N. Y. He belonged to a company of artificers, and recruited for this company at Norwich in Sep- tember, 1777. After the conclusion of the war he came to Norwich, married the sister of Lieut. An- drew Griswold, and became a permanent inhabitant of the place. He died in 1810.

"Capt. Andrew Lathrop commanded a company in 1776, and was on duty in New York.

" The brothers Asa and Arunah Waterman took an active part in the war as soldiers, agents, and com- missaries.

"Capts. Asa Kingsbury and" Ebenezer Hartshorn, John Ellis, and Joshua Barker, all of the West Farms, were in the service for longer or shorter periods.

" Ebenezer and Simon Perkins, not brothers, but both of the Newent family, were Revolutionary captains.

"Lieut. Nathaniel Kirtland, of Newent, was killed in battle Oct. 12, 1777.

"Lieut. Charles Fanning was an ensign of the Fourth Connecticut Battalion in 1776; was often re- ferred to as one of the town's quota during the war, and is on the roll of Continental officers that served till the army was disbanded.

" It would be a pleasing task to register the names and memorials of all those old soldiers and patriots of

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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

Norwich, to whom later generations are so much in- debted, but after the most diligent gleaning only a few individuals can be named. The town covered a large area. It furnished a throng of volunteers at the opening of the war, and its regular quota afterwards. But we have no muster-roll of the men, and respect- ing many of the officers nothing is recovered beyond a casual reference in the relation of incidental mat- ters or the record of a death.

"The highest honor belongs to those who served during the whole war. The following have an un- doubted claim to this distinction, as various public records and returns show that half-pay during life and bounty lands were awarded to them by the gov- ernment on that account : Rev. John Ellis, chaplain ; Brig .- Gen. Jedediah Huntington, Lieut .- Col. Eben- ezer Huntington, Maj. Benjamin Throop, Lieuts. Charles Fanning, James Hyde, Andrew Griswold, Silas Goodell, Jacob Kingsbury.

"Preston was so near to Norwich and its military companies were so often united with those of the latter that the names of its prominent officers slide easily into our history. Cols. John Tyler and Sam- uel Mott, Majs. Nathan Peters, Jeremiah Halsey, Edward Mott, and Capts. Samuel Capron and Jacob Meech were some of the patriots and soldiers from that town who breasted the first waters of the Revo- lution, and were often afterwards in the field during the war.

" Maj. Peters enlisted as an ensign in the company of Capt. Edward Mott, immediately after the battle of Lexington, and soon rose to the rank of captain. In 1777 he was appointed brigade-major in the Rhode Island campaign under Gen. Tyler, and performed several other tours of detached service during the war.

" Happening to be at home on furlough in Septem- ber, 1781, when the British made a descent upon New London, with characteristic ardor he rushed to the scene of action, and was the first person who entered Groton fort after it had been deserted and a train laid for its destruction by the British troops. Hovering in the vicinity, he scarcely waited for them to leave the premises before he cautiously entered the fort, and with water from the pump extinguished the train which had been laid to cause an explosion of the mag- azine. In five minutes more the whole would have been a heap of ruins, under which the dead and dying would have been buried.

"Maj. Peters died in 1824, aged seventy-nine.

CHAPTER XXIII.

NORWICH-(Continued).

ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY.

First Congregational Church-Second Congregational Church-Broad- way Congregational-Park Congregational-Greeneville Congrega- tional-Taftville Congregational-Christ Church-Trinity Church- Methodist Church, Bean Hill-East Main Street Methodist Episcopal Church-Central Methodist Episcopal Church-Sachem Street Metho- dist Episcopal Church-Greeneville Methodist Episcopal Church- First Baptist Church-Central Baptist-Greeneville Baptist-Mount Calvary Baptist-Universalist Church-St. Patrick's Church-Roman Catholic, Taftville.

The First Congregational Church of Norwich was organized in 1660. Most of its original members, with their pastor, the Rev. Mr. James Fitch, were from Saybrook.

Mr. Fitch was a native of Boeking, in Essex County, England. He was born in 1622, and came to this country in 1638, with thirteen other young men, de- signed and in a course of preparation for the minis- try. He spent seven years under the tuition of the Rev. Messrs. Hooker and Stone, of Hartford.

It is not improbable that young Fitch had been a pupil of Mr. Hooker, in Chelmsford, England, which is in the vicinity of Boeking. John Elliott, the dis- tinguished missionary to the Indians, was an usher in the school which Mr. Hooker taught in that place. From him Mr. Fitch may have imbibed the mission- ary spirit which he afterwards exhibited.

In 1646 he was ordained and installed pastor of the church in Saybrook. The Rev. Messrs. Hooker and Stone assisted in the ordination services ; but so jeal- ous were the people of their rights as an independent church, subject only to Christ the Supreme Head, that the imposition of hands was by a " presbytery" chosen from the church for that purpose.

As early as 1653 or'54 a company was organized in Saybrook for the planting of a colony at Mohegan. Capt. John Mason was one of the leaders of this en- terprise. The township was purchased and prepara- tions for the settlement made in 1659. But it was not till the spring of 1660 that Mr. Fitch with the great body of his church and other members of his congre- gation removed to Norwich, and here, uniting with others from other places, "were incorporated into a Religious Society and Church State."

In 1694, Mr. Fitch was disabled by a stroke of the palsy. The town, however, continued to vote him £30 to £50 a year till 1702, when he retired to Leba- non to spend the evening of his days with his chil- dren. He survived but a few months, and died No- vember 18th, aged eighty.

Mr. Fitch was twice married. By his first wife, Abigail, daughter of the Rev. Henry Whitfield, he had two sons and four daughters. She died at Say- brook. After removing to Norwich he married Pris- cilla, daughter of Capt. John Mason. By her he had seven sons and one daughter. He was a large land-

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holder. His residence was on the southeastern side of the green.

Mr. Fitch was distinguished for the penetration of his mind, the energy of his preaching, and the sanc- tity of his life. Cotton Mather characterized him as " the acute and holy Mr. Fitch." He was one of the leading men of his day. Many of the younger min- isters studied theology with him, one of the last of whom was the Rev. Samuel Whiting, the first minis- ter of Windham.

Soon after coming to Norwich he was invited to settle in Hartford. His laconic answer was, " With whom shall I leave these few sheep in the wilder- ness ?" He preached to the Mohegans in their native tongue, and gave them of his own lands to induce them to adopt the habits of civilized life, but with little success. Uncas, their chief, though friendly to the whites as a matter of policy, was an enemy to their religion, and opposed its introduction among his people.

A sermon preached by Mr. Fitch on the death of his wife's mother, Mrs. Anne Mason, and published in 1672, is still preserved. He published an election sermon in 1674, and letters concerning his labors among the Indians. In 1675, " the bloodiest year of Philip's war," he drew up a covenant, which was solemnly renewed by the church.

In 1683 he published a treatise concerning the judg- ments of God upon New England, and another upon the Sabbath.

On the retirement of Mr. Fitch, his son, Jabez Fitch, then a member of college, was invited to sup- ply the pulpit. After preaching a year he was called, in January, 1695, to settle, but declined the call. He was afterwards settled in Portsmouth, N. H. In De- cember, 1696, Mr. Henry Flint was invited to preach six months, with an allowance of "twenty shillings a week, with his board and horse meat." The next April he was invited to settle as a permanent pastor,- salary, £52 while he remains unmarried ; when mar- ried, £50 in money, £20 in work or grain, and sixty loads of wood, to be increased after the death of Mr. Fitch, besides one hundred and fifty acres of land on Plain Hills. This call was declined.

Three years later he was chosen Fellow of Cam- bridge College, his Alma Mater, and was soon after appointed tutor. This office he retained for nearly fifty years. He never married, and to this fact Dr. Allen ascribes "the few foibles which he exhibited."

In 1698, Joseph Coit supplied the pulpit for a time, but declined to settle on the ground of disagreement with the church in matters of church polity. At length, in October, 1699, Mr. John Woodward, of Dedham, Mass., accepted a call, and was ordained in December following. During his ministry of sixteen years the church was constantly agitated by contro- versies and dissensions respecting " the order and ex- ercise of church disipline." The pastor, who was one of the scribes of the convention which framed the

Saybrook Platform, urged the adoption of that plat- form as the basis of church government. The church insisted on their independence, in accordance with the Cambridge Platform.

Sept. 13, 1716, Mr. Woodward was dismissed, and retired to a farm which he owned in East Haven, where " he lived in private life and good state till he died," in 1746.

The third pastor was the Rev. Benjamin Lord. He was a native of Saybrook, born in 1693, graduated at Yale College in 1714, appointed tutor in 1715, ordained Nov. 20, 1717, elected member of the corporation in 1740, and received the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1774. At the time of his ordination the church, by a formal vote, renounced the Saybrook Platform, and adopted "that form of church government called CONGREGATIONAL, as formerly practiced by the gen- erality of the churches in New England, and according to the agreement of the Synod at Cambridge in 1648." The church has ever since maintained its independ- ence, and adhered to the Congregational form of church government.

The pastorate of Dr. Lord extended over a period of sixty-seven years. In the year 1745 some irregu- larities, which he greatly deplored, in connection with the religious excitement of the times, resulted in a secession from the church, and the establishment of a separate place of worship. Dr. Lord was an earnest friend of revivals of religion, and had the satisfaction of witnessing several in connection with his own labors. He lived to see eight religious societies grow out of the one of which he had charge. He published several occasional discourses, and died in April, 1784, aged ninety-one.

Dr. Lord was three times married. His first wife, Ann, was the daughter of the Rev. Edward Taylor, of Westfield, Mass., not by his first wife, Elizabeth Fitch, but by his second, Ruth Willis, of Hartford. His second wife was the widow of Henry Tisdale, of Newport, R. I. His third was Abigail Hooker, of Hartford. His children, five in number, were all by his first wife. Two sons, Joseph and Ebenezer, were graduated at Yale College in 1753.

Dr. Lord was of medium height, with a mild coun- tenance, engaging manners, and venerable appear- ance. He was a man of respectable talents and ac- curate scholarship, a sound theologian, and an able expounder of Scripture. In the pulpit his deport- ment was graceful, his voice pleasant, his delivery natural and easy, his discourses plain, pungent, and edifying. He was able in prayer, a faithful pastor, and greatly esteemed in all the region.

The fourth pastor was the Rev. Joseph Strong. He was a son of the Rev. Nathan Strong, of Coventry. Born in 1754, graduated at Yale College in 1772, or- dained in 1778 colleague pastor with Dr. Lord, re- ceived the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Prince- ton College in 1807, and in 1808 was elected Fellow of Yale College. He died Dec. 18, 1834, aged eighty.

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HISTORY OF NEW LONDON COUNTY, CONNECTICUT.

During his ministry two seceding congregations be- came extinct, and a considerable portion of their members returned to the church.

Dr. Strong is described by one whose youth was passed under his ministry as "in person of more than middle size and stature, with a calm dignity in his movements, appearance, and address, blended with gentleness and courtesy of manner. In the pulpit he was grave and reverent; in prayer, impres- sive and solemn. His sermons were short, explana- tory, natural in arrangement, and abounding in quo- tations from Scripture. His ministrations, in general, were distinguished rather for the mild and soothing than the fervent and awakening. In all the social and domestic relations of life he was most exemplary. His conversation was genial, enriched and illustrated from the results of his long experience. His old age was beautiful, like a soft twilight after a serene day."

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History of New London county, Connecticut : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 70

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