USA > Connecticut > Litchfield County > Norfolk > History of Norfolk, Litchfield County, Connecticut, 1744-1900 > Part 50
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58
Stephen Norton married Experience, daughter of Dea. Edward Gaylord of Norfolk, in 1762, and died in Norfolk September 11, 1826, aged 86. His wife died September, 1825, aged 80. They had
556
HISTORY OF NORFOLK.
eight sons and one daughter, the latter, Clarissa, married Dr. Ben- jamin F. Calhoun of Norfolk. Their son Stephen, born March, 1765, married Hannah Coy. Spent their lives on a farm on the Goshen road toward South Norfolk, where he died in 1843, aged 77. His wife died May, 1848, aged 75. They had fifteen children; three of these died in infancy; eleven of them had families. Their eldest child, Anson, married Ruby Burr, and spent their lives in this town. Their son, William, married Rebecca, daughter of Wil- cox Phelps of this town, and spent their lives on a farm in the Loon meadow district. They had five sons and three daughters.
Charles Lyman, son of Stephen Norton, was a large and suc- cessful farmer of Goshen. Several of his descendants are living in Norfolk. None of the descendants of Anson Norton are living in Norfolk.
Probably the most important family in the south part of the town during its history is the family of Grants, some of whom have lived in or near the point called Grantville, a station on the Railroad in this town since 1761.
The first settler in the town of the name was Elijah Grant, the 4th generation from Matthew, who was the first of the name in America, and who lived and died in Windsor, in this state, Decem- ber, 1681.
Elijah Grant, son of Josiah, was born in Litchfield, April, 1.28. Settled in Norfolk in 1761. Represented the town in the General Assembly in 1782. Died August, 1798.
His sons were Joel, born in Litchfield, Feb., 1756.
Roswell, born in Litchfield, August. 1762.
Moses, born in Norfolk, August, 1765.
Levi, born in Norfolk, 1771.
Of the next generation, the children of Joel Grant and Zilpah Cowles, were Deacon Elijah, who was well known in this town, al- though he lived beyond the town line on the old Greenwoods turn- pike in Millbrook.
Jerusha, who married Roswell Griswold.
Nancy, who was the first wife of Dea. Amos Pettibone.
James, a farmer, who died in this town at 36.
Zilpah Polly Grant, born May 30, 1794.
Roswell Grant, the second son of Elijah, born in Litchfield, August, 1762. Married first, Hannah Coy. Married second, Eliza- beth Robbins Lawrence. The compiler of the Grant family says of him :- "Tailor and farmer; private in 7th Conn. Reg. Militia, 1780. While in the Highlands he was posted as guard on one of the bleakest points, in extremely cold weather. The army removed without recalling him, but he stuck to his post until relieved, two days later. While a little eccentric, he was entirely honest and a
557
HISTORY OF NORFOLK.
great lover of justice, but inclined to punish his own faults with great severity.
His daughter by his second marriage, Anna E., "a tailoress; gave valuable aid in the compilation of the Grant family history."
Moses Grant, the third son of Elijah, born in Norfolk, August, 1765; resided at Grantville in the old Grant homestead; farmer and teacher. He had six daughters and five sons. Joel M., the eldest son, was a farmer; died at Chautauqua, N. Y.
Giles Phelps Grant, born March, 1801, died at Caledonia, N. Y., Jan., 1877. In 1852 he settled in Rochester, N. Y .; "was very suc- cessful as a wholesale and retail boot and shoe merchant. The first merchant to send out travelling salesmen. A prominent man, of great nobility of character, kind and generous."
The third son, Garry Cook Grant, died unmarried at Grant- ville when 36 years old. Was a farmer and manufacturer of cheese boxes.
Harry McGill Grant, the fourth son, was a prominent business man of this town; "resided at Grantville in the old homestead, which he bought, together with half of the shop and saw-mill. Was a farmer, lumberman and cheese-box manufacturer. He died Sept. 20, 1870, aged 64.
Riley Andrews Grant, the youngest of Moses Grant's children, born July, 1817, a farmer, is still living at Grantville.
Levi Grant, the youngest of the sons of Elijah Grant, was a farmer and owned mills in Norfolk. Died in his 45th year. Had two daughters, who married two sons of Launcelot Phelps of Cole- brook; were prominent citizens, farmers, in West Groton, N. Y.
Another daughter married Robert Armstrong, who lived and died in Wisconsin.
Harvey Grant, the only son of Levi Grant, born in Norfolk, July, 1794; married in Norfolk, Nov., 1816, Experience Norton; lived in Norfolk until 1834, then removed to Wellington, Ohio. In 1845 moved to Ripon, Wisconsin, where he became a prominent man, Elder of the Presbyterian Church, member of the Wisconsin As- sembly several terms, and of the Wisconsin Senate one term. He had ten sons, nine of them born in Norfolk; all of them married and had families. His wife, Experience Norton, was a daughter of Stephen Norton, already mentioned; one of a family of fifteen children, and is said to have been a beautiful woman in every regard.
Reminiscences of Roswell Grant (Boyd's Annals): "Roswell Grant, son of Elijah Grant of Norfolk, resided until 1804 in the N. W. corner of Winchester, on part of the Richard Beckley farm, and afterward lived for many years on the same farm in Norfolk. He was a large farmer and a laborious man, honest and conscien-
558
HISTORY OF NORFOLK.
tious in a way of his own. Having carelessly left his barn doors open through a mid-winter night, he punished himself the night fol- lowing by again opening them and sitting in the draft of a bitter northwest wind until morning. In his declining years he became poor, and worked in Winsted as a hired man. Such was his love for work that he would steal off on Sunday and hoe his pious en- ployer's potatoes, without his knowledge and without compensa- tion.
He joined the Continental Army when seventeen years old, and endured hard service with characteristic fortitude. When Baron Steuben was selecting his corps for special discipline, he passed in front of Grant's company while on parade. Grant was surprised to find himself the only man taken from the company; being, as he said, "such a little nubbin of a fellow, I had no idea he would take me." While in the Highlands he was posted as guard on one of the bleakest points, in extremely cold weather. The army moved without recalling him, but he stuck to his post till relieved two days after.
Going to Litchfield in his advanced life, on foot, a neighbor en- trusted him with a letter to be delivered there. He had reached within a mile of his home, after dark, on his return, when he dis- covered that he had brought the letter back. He immediately turned and walked fourteen miles to Litchfield, delivered the letter and came home before daylight the next morning. He died July, 1837, aged 75."
In the early history of the town Jonathan Brown lived on the Winchester road, a half mile or so from its junction with the Goshen road. In 1769 Ebenezer Norton deeded "to Jonathan Brown three and one-half acres of land near said Brown's house, on the south side of the Winchester road." This was probably called the Goddard place many years later. Daniel Hotchkiss, Esq., lived in the old Goddard house when he was first married; later he lived for many years at the junction of the Goshen and Winchester roads, and still later for the balance of his life on the old Palmer place, where he built the present Marvin house.
When Burgoyne's army, in the time of the Revolutionary war, passed through and for a time encamped in Norfolk, a soldier named Bandall, from their ranks, tarried behind and settled here. His son, Frederick Bandall, lived on the road leading from the South End school-house to Grant's. In the '40's Mr. Bandall sold his farm to Moses Cowles and William C. Phelps, and left town.
Mr. Philo Smith married a daughter of Capt. Asahel Case, as is mentioned elsewhere, and spent his life on a farm near Grantville. For a time he raised mulberry trees and silk-worms, and produced some silk, but this enterprise was not a very great and permanent
559
HISTORY OF NORFOLK.
success. He for some years had a saw-mill and a cheese-box shop on a water privilege upon his farm. At one time cataracts formed upon his eyes and rendered him blind, but by an operation his sight was partially restored, so that with the use of very strong lenses he could see to get about. His soul, Obadiah, succeeded him on the farm. His other son, Lorrin E., went to the Pacific coast, and is living at Colton, Washington.
Mr. and Mrs. Philo Smith were very regular attendants at church, and were usually at the Friday afternoon church prayer meeting, although they lived more than three miles from the church.
Another of the early settlers very near the Grants was Mr. Luther Foot. Very little has been learned about him, save that his wife was a Phelps, that she died in 1833, and that he died in 1834, aged 74. His son, Pliny Foot, for many years carried on a tannery, which stood near his house, and did a prosperous business, tanning different grades of leather: cow-hides, kip and calf-skins, selling his leather principally at Hartford. Under the preaching of Gip Smith and other Mormons, it has been said that for a time Mr. Foot became a Mormon exhorter. He was a great talker, and had a remarkably loud voice. He gave the Mormon missionaries two hundred dollars, and took their note for three hundred more. He went to the Mormon headquarters some years later, hoping to col- lect his note for $300, but he could not collect it, and the Mormons tried to induce him to give them also what money he had with him, and trust the Lord to help him get home without money. This ended his Mormon belief. He had formerly been in the Congrega- tional Church, and later in the Baptist Church.
Mr. Oliver Burr Butler was a son of Hezekiah Butler of New Marlborough, his mother being a daughter of Oliver Burr, and granddaughter of Ebenezer Burr, one of Norfolk's earliest settlers. Born in 1791, he learned the trade of shoemaker when that meant a good deal, all boots and shoes for men, women and children being made to order, by measure, in shops or at people's houses, all hand work,-sewing machines and other machines being then unknown. Mr. Butler never married. It was said during his day that early in life he expected to marry a lady, a native of the town, but that she never had given him any encouragement, and then, as now, it required two persons at least to make a contract. Later in life it was said he thought he was going to marry another lady, with no more reason for so thinking than in the first instance; that "it was simply an old bachelor's eccentricity."
A brother, Dr. Elizer Butler, went out as a medical missionary to the Choctaw Indians, in the early days of missionary efforts, and Mr. Oliver Butler was during all his life deeply interested in missions and missionary work, and was a liberal and constant
560
HISTORY OF NORFOLK.
contributor to the cause of missions, and by his will left most of his property to the American Board of Foreign Missions. The writer distinctly remembers that at Mr. Butler's funeral in Septem- ber, 1865, Dr. Eldridge said in his most emphatic, forcible manner that "Mr. Butler was the most liberal man who had ever lived in this town, considering the way in which he earned his money, what he had and what he gave."
When Mr. William Lawrence left town, Mr. Butler bought his house, then expecting that he might be married any day, and for about twenty years kept it standing vacant, going into and through it daily, but refusing to rent it except in one instance for a short time, as a matter of accommodation, notifying the man that he must be prepared to move out at an hour's notice, as he might him- self want the house any day. This is the house built by Esq. Michael F. Mills, owned by Rev. Ralph Emerson when he was pastor of the church here, then for many years by William Law- rence, a merchant, now the residence of Mrs. Frederick E. Porter.
Mr. Butler was a constant attendant at church services and prayer-meetings, but never took an active part in carrying on the latter. One Saturday evening he was the only man present at the prayer meeting, and seeing the situation he went to the desk after a hymn had been sung, read a chapter from the Bible, and, closing the book, remarked, 'the meeting is out so far as I am concerned,' took his hat and left. He was elected Town Treasurer in 1836, and held the office through annual elections for some twenty years. He was an upright man, of unquestioned integrity of character. He represented the town in the General Assembly of 1847.
During the early history of this town there were a large num- ber of families here by the name of Holt. They were principally, if not all, descendants of William Holt, who was one of the early settlers of New Haven. Isaac Holt, a great-grandson of William, born in East Haven, Ct., October 14, 1720, removed to this town from East Haven on the organization of the town in 1758. He mar- ried in 1741, Mercy, daughter of Eleazer and Mercy Morris. He lived in the northeast part of the town, west from the Great Pond. They had nine children. He died in 1806, aged 86. His wife died in 1801. They had lived together as husband and wife sixty years. Their children were Mercy, who married Samuel Knapp of Dan- bury, Conn., and settled in Norfolk; they had seven children.
Isaac, who married Mabel Dowd, and had no children. "In his will he left a legacy of £45 to the town for school purposes, on condition that the Assembly's Shorter Catechism should be taught. He died October, 1797, aged 55." His brother, Jacob, born in 1750, had three children, who were said to have removed to Kentucky. He was killed at Norfolk in 1774 by the falling in of a well. A
561
HISTORY OF NORFOLK.
sister, Desiah, married John Phelps of Norfolk. They had seven children, viz: John, Isaac, Morris, Daniel, Mercy, Desiah, and Abiram, all born in Norfolk.
The fifth child of Isaac and Mercy Holt was Eleazer, born in East Haven, August, 1752; married Elizabeth Stone of Norfolk; lived and died there in 1835, aged 82. He was many years a justice of the peace and represented the town in thirteen sessions of the General Assembly. He served in the war of the revolution, and was present at the taking of Burgoyne. He lived in the north part of the town. Had one son, Allen S., who is mentioned later, and two daughters. The sixth child of Isaac Holt was Nicholas, born in East Haven in 1755; lived in the north part of this town; married first, Keturah Pratt; married second, Mrs. Sarah Bingham, daugh- ter of John Phelps; married third, Mrs. Lydia Phelps, daughter of Reuben Gaylord, and widow of Jedediah Phelps. He had ten chil- dren, and died April, 1832, aged 76. He was a soldier in the Revo- lutionary war, under Captain Watson; enlisted when he was only 17 years old; they were ordered to proceed to Quebec and assist General Montgomery. Captain Watson met the enemy on the re- treat. discomfited, enfeebled and sick with the smallpox. Nicholas took the disease in crossing Lake George, and leaped into the water as the disease was breaking out. He took a severe cold which settled in his hip, occasioning a large swelling, which partially maimed him for life.
The eighth child of Isaac Holt was Stephen, born in East Haven, September, 1760; married Elizabeth Bunce. They had eight children. In the early part of his life he lived in the north part of the town, but spent his last years and died at the home of his son in West Norfolk. He was for sixty years a church member, and voted at every Presidential election until 1852. He died June 12, 1855, aged 95. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary war.
The youngest child of Isaac Holt was Morris, born in East Haven, April, 1763. He spent his life in Norfolk; married Sarah Kingsbury. They had seven children. He died March, 1815, aged 52.
Some of the descendants of Isaac Holt, the first settler of that name in the town, were the children of Samuel Knapp and Mercy Holt, his wife; Rev. Isaac Knapp; born in this town in 1775; gradu- ated at Williams College 1800; was ordained the fifth minister of Westfield, Mass., in 1803; died there July, 1847, aged 72.
Ezekiel Knapp, a physician, of New Marlboro, Mass.
Bushnell Knapp, born in 1777; married Desiah Hall; was a life long resident of this town, living in the north-west part of the' town. He was a farmer, and in early life a military man, receiving the title of Major, by which title he was designated through life.
562
HISTORY OF NORFOLK.
Major Bushnell Knapp died September 27, 1868, aged 91. His father, Samuel Knapp, died in 1816, aged 90. Colonel Horace Bushnell Knapp, only son of Major Knapp, a life long resident of this town, died October 4, 1895, aged 83.
Allen S. Holt, son of Eleazer Holt, married Elizabeth Butler; lived in this town; they had ten children. One of his sons, Eleazer, born June, 1810, married Melissa Sexton. Nicholas and Keturah Pratt Holt, mentioned above, had ten children. Eunice married Alvin Norton. They spent their lives in this town, as did also their son, Isaac Norton. Keturah, another daughter, married Isaac Spaulding. He died, and she married as a second husband Deacon Dudley Norton of this town, who had married as his first wife Phebe Holt, a younger sister of Keturah, his second wife. Lyman, a son of Nicholas Holt, removed to Homer, N. Y., and then to Genesee, Wisconsin. Another son, Rev. Nicholas Holt, died at Cole- brook River, October, 1847, aged 62. He had twin sons, Erastus and Aretus, who settled in Atlanta, Ga. Nathan, another son of Nicholas Holt, was an organ builder; resided at Guilford, N. Y.
Erastus, still another son, born 1795, married Harriet, daughter of Benjamin Warren of Tyringham, Mass. She died; he married second, Caroline Dutton. Lived at Sheridan, N. Y. Had seven children.
The children of Stephen and Elizabeth Bunce Holt were :- Har- riet, born March, 1787 lived unmarried in this town; died March 30, 1880, aged 93. Her sister, Almiris, born September, 1796, lived unmarried in this town and died April 1, 1880, aged 84, while the friends had gone to the burial of her sister Harriet. Isaac lived in Salisbury; had one son, Roger. Rev. Eleazer, graduated at Yale College 1823. Was pastor of a Presbyterian Church at Reading, Penn., where he died, February, 1835, aged 35.
Stephen Jay, born November, 1794; lived on the farm in West Norfolk, near the Canaan line. - Married Amanda Rice; died in 1874, aged 80. Had one son, Henry J., who spent most of his life on the farm in West Norfolk, and is now living at Hays City, Kansas. His sons, George H. and Edward D., are residents of this town.
Almira, twin with Almiris, married Col. Augustus P. Pease. They had seven children. Dr. William A. lived at Dayton, Ohio; died November, 1889.
Elizabeth, married Frederick Lawrence; died 1840.
Helen E., married Frederick Lawrence; died 1895.
Harriet A., married Augustus P. Lawrence of Norfolk.
Stephen Holt, lives at Fairplay, Colorado.
George Eleazer Pease, born August, 1832. Graduated at Yale College, 1856. Studied law with Judge George B. Holt at Dayton,
563
HISTORY OF NORFOLK.
Ohio. Was admitted to the bar and practiced his profession for ten years in Illinois. In the War of the Rebellion he was Captain of Company M, Third Illinois Cavalry. He married Isabella L. Bond in 1863; had four children; one of them is a prominent lawyer of Park County, Colorado. Mr. Pease went to Colorado in 1873, and engaged in the practice of law at Fairplay in Park County; for some time he was interested in mining at Leadville, Colo. He was an active politician; was a member of the Constitutional Con- vention of Colorado in 1875, and also a member of the Sixth Gen- eral Assembly of that state, and a State Senator in the Ninth and the Tenth General Assemblies. He was elected President pro tempore of the State Senate in the Tenth General Assembly, and died while holding that office, in 1895.
JUDGE GEORGE B. HOLT.
One of the sons of Norfolk who in his day distinguished him- self, honored his family name and his friends, did credit to his native town as well as to his native state and the state of his adoption, was Honorable George Bunce Holt, son of Stephen and Elizabeth Bunce-Holt, who was born in this town June 13, 1790; married June, 1821, Mary Blodgett; their children were three daughters.
In P. K. Kilbourn's Biography of distinguished sons of Litch- field County, it is said of George B. Holt: "His parents designed him for the legal profession; he entered the Law School of Reeves and Gould in Litchfield, and, passing the required examination and being found qualified, in 1812 he was admitted to the Bar, and licensed to practice law. Ohio at that time was in the far west, and from the reports of the early emigrants of its vast fertility, young Holt wished to see the country, to become a part of it, to share the privations of its settlers, and to assist in building up the new state. In 1819 we find him a citizen of the then small village of Dayton, and the following year he there raised his sign as Attorney-at-Law.
In 1822 Mr. Holt established and for three years conducted the "Miami Republican," a newspaper devoted to news, agriculture and the dissemination of democratic doctrines. In the fall of 1824 Mr. Holt was elected to the Legislature of the state, and partici- pated in the passage of the laws which made that session a most important one. Under the auspices of DeWitt Clinton, New York had commenced the canal, by which the waters of the Hudson were united with those of Lake Erie, making direct communication between the great lakes and the waters of the Atlantic. The neces- sity of similar communications between the lakes and the Ohio
564
HISTORY OF NORFOLK.
river had excited public attention, and with it opposition of a bitter kind. Mr. Holt was a prominent advocate of the work, and em- ployed the columns of his paper to favor the measure. He was elected again to the Legislature and during that session the first canal law was passed, the Ohio and Miami Canals com- menced, and the policy of the state, in favor of internal improve- ments, settled.
Ohio at that time had no school system; money was scarce; but little produce was exported, farmers were in too straitened circum- stances to give their children the benefits of a common school edu- cation. Mr. Holt was a member of a committee of the Legislature of 1824 and '25, that reported a bill which became a law, establish- ing the common school system of Ohio. In 1827 Mr. Holt was elected Brigadier General of the State Militia, and for some years commanded one of the finest brigades in the state.
In 1827 he was elected Brigadier General of the State Militia, and for some years commanded one of the finest brigades in the state.
In 1828 he was elected to the State Senate, and served two terms. In 1830 he was elected presiding Judge of the Circuit Court, in which he had practiced, and served the constitutional term of seven years.
In 1842 he was re-elected as presiding Judge of the same circuit, and served out his constitutional term. During the interval be- tween his first and second terms as Judge, he divided his time be- tween his practice and agriculture and stock growing, of which he was always passionately fond, and spent large sums in improving the breed of cattle, introducing to his state the first thorough-bred short-horned Durham cattle. In 1850 he was elected a member of the convention to revive and amend the constitution of the state. For half a century Judge Holt was a member of the Presbyterian Church, ever recognized as a sincere Christian man, and was among the early and ever steady friends of the temperance cause."
THE HUMPHREY FAMILY.
The first of the name in this town was Deacon Michael Hum- phrey, born in Simsbury, Ct., November, 1703. He settled in his native town, where he introduced the manufacture of leather. He was a deacon in the Congregational Church in Simsbury, and rep- resented the town in the General Assembly in 1759. He removed to Norfolk about 1760, and was chosen deacon at the organization of the church. He was town clerk from 1760 until his death in 1778, at the age of 75; and held other important positions. He married Mercy Humphrey of Simsbury, and they had nine children.
565
HISTORY OF NORFOLK.
His son Daniel first settled in Norfolk, but soon returned to Simsbury, and became eminent as a lawyer and in public positions.
His son Dudley, born August, 1733; died March, 1794; married Keziah Griswold. They had no children. She died in this town in 1833, aged 96, with unimpaired mind and memory. Dudley Hum- phrey was a lawyer, prominent in the affairs of the town; repre- sented the town in fourteen semi-annual sessions of the General Assembly. He lived on Beech Flats.
Phebe, daughter of Deacon Michael Humphrey, born May, 1745; married Dr. Ephraim Guiteau. In 'The Humphreys Family' it is said :- "Dr. Gittian was of French extraction, a gentleman of high culture, and eminent in his profession. During the War of the Revolution he held a commission as Surgeon in the American Navy, under which he rendered distinguished service. He died at Nor- folk April 21, 1816, in his 79th year. His wife, Phebe Humphrey Gittian, is still remembered as a noble woman, universally be- loved, whose goodness and benevolence in society secured for her in advanced years the tender title of 'Mother Gittian.'
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.