USA > Connecticut > New London County > Norwich > History of Norwich, Connecticut: from its possession by the Indians, to the year 1866 > Part 19
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* Eight, if we include the first Christopher Huntington, who is usually placed on the list ; but there does not appear to be any contemporary evidence that he held the office. The statement is derived from minutes made by Dr. Lord, in which the first Christo- pher was probably confounded with the second.
¡ " The old Franklin homestead was for a long period in the possession of deacons, and what is not a little remarkable, these deacons, each in his day and generation, kept tavern under the sign of the Seven Stars, which shone with steady lustre for the ben- efit and bountiful cheer of wayfarers on the old Lebanon road." Speech of Hon. Asahel Huntington of Salem, Mass., at the Huntington Gathering at Norwich, Sept. 3, 1857.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
"A great Bible 10s. Another great bible Ss. Rogers his seven treatises, 5s. A practical Catecise Is. 6d. William Dyer, Is. Mr. Moody's Book 8d. Thomas Hooker's Doubting Christian, 9d. New England Psalm Book, Is. Mr. Adams' Sar- mon. The bound book of Mr. Fitch and John Rogers 2s. The same unbound Sd. The day of doom 10d."
At the time of Deacon Simon's death, his six sons and three daughters were all heads of families. His sons-in-law were Solomon Tracy, Dea. Caleb Forbes of Preston, and Joseph Backus. Four of his sons, Simon, Nathaniel, Daniel, and James, settled near their parents, in Norwich, though not all in one parish. Joseph went to Windham, and Samuel to Lebanon.
The oldest son, Simon, born in Saybrook before the removal to Nor- wich, married Lydia Gager, Oct. 8, 1683, and had four children. The oldest of these, bearing his own name, the third Simon in direct descent, was the person killed by the bite of a rattlesnake just after he became of age, as previously related in this work.
This second Deacon Simon Huntington had two other sons, besides the one so suddenly removed, viz., Ebenezer and Joshua, and in the series descending from these are found several names of more than common dis- tinction. The last-named son was born Dec. 30, 1698, and is known in local tradition as Capt. Joshua. He was a noted merchant, beginning business at nineteen, and pursuing it for twenty-seven years, during which time it is said that he traded more by sea and land than any other man in Norwich. In the prime of life, activity and usefulness, he took the yellow fever in New York, came home sick, and died the 27th of August, 1745, aged 47 .* He was the father of Gen. Jabez Huntington, of whom more will be said hereafter.
Among the Huntingtons of note in this and the neighboring towns, besides the clerks and deacons already mentioned, we might enumerate five or six judges of the common courts, five members of Congress, one of them President of the Continental Congress and Governor of the State, and six or seven who acquired the military rank of colonels and generals, one of them a brigadier-general in the army of the Revolution. Of the clergy, also, a considerable list of Huntingtons might be made without going out of New London county for their nativity. i
The name has also been widely disseminated in other States besides Connecticut, and rendered honorable by the talents and virtues of those who have borne it. But it is not on this account wholly that we give it special prominence in these details, but rather for this reason, that the
* His epitaph says, " Very justly lamented by the survivors."
t The Genealogical Memoir of the Huntington Family, published by Rev. E. B. Huntington of Stamford, is a work of great interest and value. It embodies the results of years of patient research, and is clear, full, and almost exhaustive in its details.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Huntingtons are the only family among the proprietors, with whom any connection has hitherto been traced with Norwich in England. As we have seen, Margaret Baret, the mother of Christopher and Simon Hunt- ington, appears to have been a native of Norwich, and it is not improbable that her children were also born there.
XXIII. WILLIAM HYDE.
William Hide, or Hyde-the first mode of spelling being the most ancient-is found at Hartford before 1640, a resident and proprietor. The period of his emigration is not known. He removed to Saybrook, perhaps as early as 1648. His daughter Hester, who married John Post in 1652, probably came with her parents from the old world, but his son Samuel, born about 1636, may have been a native of Hartford. No other children are known.
On his removal to Norwich, he sold his house and home-lot to Francis Bushnell, and other property to Robert Lay .* He died Jan. 6, 1681-2. His age is not known, but he was styled "old Goodman Hide" in 1679. His will was proved in the county court, June. 1682, and distribution ordered to the heirs of his son Samuel, and to his daughter Hester, wife of John Post.
XXIV. SAMUEL HYDE.
"The marriage of Samuel Hyde with Jane Lee was in June Anno Dom. 1659."- [Norwich Records.]
Thomas Lee, an emigrant, coming from England with his family to settle in America, died on the passage. His wife, whose maiden name was Phebe Brown, with her three children, Thomas, Sarah, and Jane, completed the voyage, and are afterward found at Saybrook, or Lyme, where the relict married Greenfield Larrabee. Samuel Hyde's wife was the step-daughter of Larrabee.
After the removal to Norwich, the younger Hyde appears to have formed at first but one family with his father, though he afterward settled
* The sales are registered at Saybrook, with the following receipt :
I William Hide of Mohegan do acknowledge to have received of Robert Lay of Six Mile Island the full and just sum of forty pounds which was the first payment specified iu the agreement made 25th day of January 1659 for all the lands I had at Potapauge. Witness my hand 5th of May 1660,
WILLIAM C C HIDE. his mark.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
at the West Farms. In August, 1660, on the Hyde home-lot, in a newly erected habitation, standing upon the border of the wilderness, with a heavy forest growth in the rear, a new member, a welcome addition to the settlement, made her appearance. This was Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel and Jane Hyde,-
The first child born of English parentage in Norwich.
We may imagine that this little God-gift was fostered with tender care, and regarded with peculiar interest and favor by the community, as a token of prosperous import,-the herald of a new generation,-the prom- ise and pledge of multiplied descendants.
In due time this first-born daughter of the town married Richard Lord, and removed to the sea-coast.
"Elizabeth the daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Lord was born Oct 28, 1683."- [Lyme Records.]
So thickly the generations crowd upon each other,-mother, daughter, and grand-daughter, probably born within the compass of forty-five years.
Phebe, the second daughter of Samuel and Jane Hyde, born in Janu- uary, 1663, married Matthew Griswold of Lyme. The two sisters were thus pleasantly settled in the old neighborhood of their mother, upon the border of the Sound. The Lees and Larrabees were at Giant's Neck, and the Griswolds at Black Hall,-two of the most conspicuous and eligi- ble situations on that breezy portion of the coast.
Samuel Hyde did not live to see the settlement of his daughters. He died in 1677, leaving seven children, the youngest an infant, and all sons but the two daughters above mentioned. From various incidental refer- ences, it appears that his relict, Mrs. Jane Hyde, married John Birchard.
The five sons of Samuel Hyde were speedily multiplied into a numer- ous body of descendants.
1. Samuel married Elizabeth, daughter of John Calkins, Dec. 16, 1690. He lived first at West Farms, now Franklin, but removed to Windham, and afterward to Lebanon, where he died in 1742, aged 77.
He was the grandfather of Capt. Walter Hyde, whose monumental inscription in the Lebanon cemetery states that he joined the American army in 1776, with an independent company of which he had command, and died at Greenwich, Sept. 18, 1776, aged 41.
He was also the ancestor of Col. Elijah Hyde, a neighbor and friend of Gov. Trumbull, who commanded a regiment of light horse during the war for liberty, and was on duty with the northern army at the surrender of Burgoyne; and of Gen. Caleb Hyde, who at the period of the Revolu- tion was a sheriff in Berkshire county, Mass., but afterward settled in western New York.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
2. John Hyde, the second son of the proprietor Samuel, married Expe- rienee Abel. He lived upon a farm on Wawekus Hill. Though he him- self died at the age of 60, his relict lived to be near 90, and their family of nine children all lived to be heads of families, six of them ranging in age from 77 to 90 years at their decease.
The longevity of this family is noticed as one illustration, out of many that might be brought, to show that life was not shortened by removal to a new country, but that the active, plain, frugal, and yet comfortable mode of living then prevalent,-the first hardships and hazards of a frontier life having passed away,-was favorable to health, strength, and long life.
3. William Hyde, the third son of the proprietor Samuel, inherited the homestead of his grandfather William, in the town-plot. The number of his days exceeded even those of his long-lived brothers. He died Aug. 8, 1759, in the 90th year of his age. His wife was Ann, daughter of Richard Bushnell, and of their ten children, nine left descendants.
William, their oldest son, born in 1702, was the first of the name of Hyde in this country to receive a collegiate education. He graduated at Yale in 1721, and entered immediately into a promising sphere of useful- ness in his native town, but was early removed by death .*
Two other sons of the second William built houses by the side of their father, upon portions of the original Hyde home-lot.
Richard Hyde, who built and occupied the stone house near his father, was a man in high' local repute, as captain, justice, and judge. He was also popular as a social companion and a narrator of traditionary lore.t
Jedidiah, the third son of William, 2d, became a Separatist in religion, and was ordained in 1746 as a minister of that denomination.
Elisha, the fourth son of William, occupied the old homestead, and was the father of Elisha Hyde, Esq., third Mayor of Norwich city.
4 and 5. Thomas and Jabez, younger sons of Samuel the proprietor, settled at the West Farms, (Franklin,) where they died at the ages of 82 and 85 years. The late Judge Hyde of Norwich town, and Lewis Hyde of Yantie, are among the descendants of Jabez. Other branches of the same line are widely disseminated in western New York, Pennsylvania, and states yet father west.
The five sons of the proprietor Samuel had forty children, of whom twenty-three were sons, and twenty-one married and reared families of children. This accounts for the rapidity with which the name spread
* Hempstead's Diary has this notice :
June 11, 1738. " Received news of the death of William Hide Jun. of Norwich aged 35. He had 150 convulsion fitts in two days. He was brought up at the College and hath been Captain and justice of the peace many years."
t Elihu, second son of Richard, removed to Lebanon, N. H., and was one of the first magistrates of that town.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
through the country, -. a rapidity that seems unexampled when considered in connection with the fact that all are derived from Samuel, whose first son was born in May, 1665.
An enumeration made in 1779, showed upwards of twenty families of Hydes, numbering over 150 members, in the town-plot and western part of Norwich. And notwithstanding the removals to other parts of the country, the census of 1791 records thirteen families of the name in Franklin, and eight others in Norwich or its immediate vicinity .*
XXV. LEFFINGWELL. 1
Thomas Leffingwell, according to minutes preserved among his descend- ants, was a native of Croxhall in England. The period of his emigration has not been ascertained. In his testimony before the Court of Commis- sioners at Stonington in 1705, he says he was acquainted with Uncas in the year 1637, and was knowing to the assistance rendered by the sachem to the English, then and ever after, during his life. According to his age as given in depositions, he must have been born about the year 1622,- therefore, at the time of the Pequot war, not more than fifteen or sixteen years of age.t
The earliest notices of his name connect him with Saybrook. From the Colonial records we learn that in March, 1650, a petition was pre- sented "from the inhabitants of Saybrook by Matthew Griswold and Tho:
* Chancellor Walworth of Saratoga Springs is descended in equal degrees from Wil- liam Hyde and Thomas Tracy, through their sons, Samuel Hyde and John Tracy, all of whom were original proprietors of Norwich. Apphia Hyde, of the fifth generation from William, Ist, daughter of the Rev. Jedidiah Hyde, the Separatist minister, and his wife, Jernsha Tracy, of the fifth generation from Thomas, 1st, married in 1782, Benjamin Walworth, a native of Groton. They settled at Bozrah, then a part of Nor- wich, but made an independent town in 1786. Reuben Hyde Walworth, the third of their ten children, was there born Oct. 26, 1788.
The Hyde Genealogy, published by Chancellor Walworth, is a work of great value in the line of family history, embodying a vast amount of pedigree, and displaying clearness of perception and skill in arrangement, as well as unwearied perseverance and accuracy in research. It forms a grand memorial record of paternity and lineage, spreading far and wide, but taking the Nine-Miles-Square of Norwich as the center from which it radiates. Such a work is a monument to perpetuate the name of the author, more lasting than statues of marble or pillars of granite.
t A tradition has obtained in some branches of the family, that Thomas Leffingwell came to this country from Yorkshire, at fourteen years of age, but returned to England at twenty-one, and married there Mary White. When he emigrated a second time, he brought with him his youngest brother Stephen, fifteen years of age, leaving seven or eight other brothers in the old country. The author is unable to decide whether these traditions should be ranked as fable or fact.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Leppingwell."* The births of his children are also registered at Saybrook, but under the simple heading of "Children of Thomas Leffingwell,"-the name of the mother not being mentioned. The list is as follows:
" Rachell born 17 March 1648; Thomas 27 August 1649 ; Jonathan 6 Dec. 1650; Joseph 24 Dec. 1652 ; Mary 16 Dec. 1654 ; Nathaniel 11 Dec. 1656."
It is probable also that Samuel Leffingwell, who married Anna Dickin- son Nov. 16, 1687, and died in 1691, was the son of Thomas, though his birth is not found recorded.
Following Mr. Leffingwell to his new home in Norwich, we find him an active and influential member of the plantation. He was one of the first two deputies of the town to the General Court, in October, 1662; an officer of the first train-band and during Philip's war, lieutenant under Capt. Denison in his famous band of marauders, that swept so many times through Narragansett, and scoured the country to the sources of the Quin- ebaug.
He lived to old age, but the record of his death does not give his years, and no memorial stone marks his grave.
" Lieutenant Thomas Leffingwell died about 1710.
Mrs. Mary Leffingwell died Feb. 6, 1711."
The staff of the venerated lieutenant, reputed to have been brought with him from his native place, and bearing his initials on its silver head, is now in the possession of one of his descendants, Rev. Thomas Leffing- well Shipman of Jewett City, Conn. This memorial staff is interesting on the score of antiquity, but far more so from its association with the venerable men of successive generations to whom it has been a staff of support. It calls up from the misty past the image of the old soldier, or the deacon, on the Sabbath day, slowly marching up to his seat under the pulpit ; we see his white hair, and hear the steady sound of the staff brought down at every step.
Thomas Leffingwell, Jun. and Mary Bushnell were married in Septem- ber, 1672, and might have celebrated their golden wedding in 1722, with a house-full of prosperous descendants gathered around them. The hus- band died March 5, 1723-4, leaving five daughters, all married to Bush- nells and Tracys, and three sons, Thomas, John, and Benajah.
Mrs. Mary Leffingwell long survived her partner, as the epitaph on her grave-stone proves.
* Col. Ree., 1, 205. Leppingwell and Leppenwell often appear on the early Norwich records. It is suggestive of the supposed origin of the name,-Leaping-well, denoting a bubbling or boiling spring.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
IN MEMORY of an aged nursing Mother of GOD'S New- english Israel, vIz. Mrs. Mary Leffingwell, wife to Ensign Thomas Lef- fingwell Gent" who died Sept. ye 2ª A. D. 1745. Aged 91 years.
The inventory of Ensign Leffingwell in 1724 shows that he was richly furnished not only with the household comforts and conveniences of that era, but with articles of even luxury and elegance. He had furniture and linen in abundance, wooden ware, and utensils of iron, tin, pewter, and silver .*
Wearing apparel valued at £27.
Wig, 20s. Walking-staff with silver head, 20s.
Rapier with silver hilt and belt, £6.
A French gun, £3. Silver watch, £5.
3 tankards, 2 dram-cups.
4 silver cups, one with two handles.
Copper pennies and Erabians,t £6.18.7.
Total valuation of estate, £9793.9.11.
It is doubtful whether, at that time, any other estate in the town equaled this in value.
The third Thomas Leffingwell, son of the Ensign and born in 1674, is distinguished as Deacon Thomas. He married Lydia, daughter of Solo- mon Tracy, and died July 18, 1733. He had six children.
His brothers, Capt. John and Benajah Leffingwell, had large families : the former, eight daughters and four sons ; the latter, eight sons and four daughters. Capt. John Leffingwell married, first, Sarah Abell, and sec- ond, Mary Hart of Farmington.
The first wife is commemorated in the following epitaph :
Here lyes ye Body of that Worthy, Virtuous and most injeneous and jenteel Woman, Mrs Sara Leffingwell, who Dyed May ye 9th, 1730. Aged 39 years.
* In the inventory of Nathaniel Leffingwell at an earlier date, we find a castor hat, one coffee-cup, a beaker, a pair of campaign boots, &c.
t An Arabian is supposed to have been a small gold coin.
.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
Benajah Leffingwell married Joanna Christophers of New London. Col. Christopher Leffingwell of the Revolutionary period was the third of his eight sons.
Thomas Leffingwell, 4th, (son of Deacon Thomas,) married Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Benjamin Lord, Jan. 23, 1729. He died in 1793, in the 90th year of his age.
Thomas Leffingwell, 5th, born in 1732, died in December, 1814, aged 82. These five generations were in direct succession, each the oldest son of the oldest son, but the lineage is here interrupted, as Thomas the 5th died unmarried.
The Leffingwell tree has a multitude of branches. Samuel Leffingwell, who married Hannah Gifford, March 2, 1714-15, was the progenitor of several large families. A district in the southern part of the township is known by the familiar designation of Leffingwell-town, from the predom- inance of the name in that neighborhood. In a field upon old Leffingwell land in this district there is a quiet village of the dead, where Leffingwells, Chapmans, Posts, and other names of the vicinity, are found. Here is the grave of Dea. Andrew Leffingwell, who died in 1803. He was the son of Samuel, and born Dec. 12, 1724.
Some of the Leffingwells, who lived on farms, have the traditionary renown of having been stalwart men, able horsemen, enterprising, robust, dread-nought kind of people. They would ride to Boston in a day, with a led horse for relief, and return on the morrow, unconscious of fatigue. One of them, it is said, performed the feat with a single horse, but the noble animal was sacrificed by the exploit, being found dead the next morning .*
XXVI. OLMSTEAD, OR HOLMSTEAD.
Richard and John Olmstead were kinsmen and wards of James Olm- stead, who came from England in 1632,* and died at Hartford in Septem- ber, 1640.#
* On one of these gallops to Boston, a spirited dog accompanied his master, but the next morning, when the family arose, he was at home, whining at the threshold for admittance. It was afterward ascertained that at night, in Boston, he had been acci- dentally shut out of his master's lodging, upon which he turned immediately upon the track and followed the trail home, traveling the whole distance between nine o'clock at night and six in the morning.
Such traditionary stories are usually exaggerative ; but even then they have a degree of interest, and are worth collecting, as examples of growth by repetition, and the mag- nifying power of common report.
t Gen. Hist. Reg., 14, 301.
# Conn. Col. Rec., 1, 447.
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
John Olmstead married Elizabeth Marvin, and settled at Saybrook, where he was appointed leather-sealer in 1656. He is mentioned inci- dentally upon the Saybrook records in 1661, as "John Olmsted of Mohe- gan, shoemaker," which shows that he had removed to the new plantation. At this place, however, he appears as a doctor or chirurgeon, and was undoubtedly the first physician of the settlement, though the articles enu- . merated in his inventory would imply that he still continued his practice with the last and lap-stone. For several years he was on the grand jury of the county.
He possessed a considerable estate, and was very precise respecting the date and bounds of his grants. Though the H. is uniformly given to his name by the Norwich recorders, it was not used by himself. The blazed trees and mere-stones by which he indicated the corners and limits of his lots, were marked I. O .*
He died Aug. 2, 1686; his age was about 60. No children are men- tioned. He left most of his estate to his wife, who made over to his two nephews at Norwalk a large tract of land (stated at 2,000 acres) owned by him in the new plantation at Windham. Several slaves that he pos- sessed were to receive their freedom at the death of his wife.
Mrs. Olmstead died in 1689. Her will, made in October of that year, was contested by the relatives of her husband, but confirmed by the Gen- eral Court. She bequeathed £50 to the poor of Norwich, and £10 to Mr. Fitch; recognizing also by legacies Sergt. Richard Bushnell, "brother Adgate's four children," and the children of her husband's sister Newell, but left most of her real estate to her "friend and kinsman Samuel Lo- throp," whom she appoints executor. This was the second Samuel Lothrop, whose wife was Hannah Adgate. The word kinsman, as used in ancient records, has a wide range of meaning. Deacon Adgate's sec- ond wife was the sister of Mrs. Olmstead, but Hannah, the wife of Samuel Lothrop, was the child of the first wife; and this is the only relationship that in this instance has been traced.
XXVII. PEASE.
The name of John Pease appears incidentally at New London in 1650, and it may be conjectured that he was a seaman, then belonging to Boston or Martha's Vineyard .; It is probable that he resided for a time at Say- brook before joining the company of Norwich proprietors, and that he took
On County Court Records, when his inventory was exhibited, it was written Vm- steade.
t There was a seaman in Boston of this name in 1656. Gen. & Hist. Reg., 9, 142.
13
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HISTORY OF NORWICH.
a family with him to the new settlement. His home-lot was at the west- ern limit of the town-plot, and bore the date of Nov., 1659.
But in the course of a few years, his family, if he had one, his posses- sions and his character had all passed away. The Court Record for 1672 has the following item :
"John Pease complained of by the townsmen of Norwich for living alone, for idle- ness, and not duly attending the worship of God.
"This Court orders that said Townsmen do provide that Pease be entertained into some suitable family he paying for his board and accommodation, and that he employ himself in some lawful calling, which if he neglect or refuse to do, the townsmen may put him ont to service in some approved family. Except he dispose of his aecommo- dations and remove out of the town."
Again, in 1682, we find that John Pease being in arrears for town and ministry rates, a levy was ordered on his estate.
It is not necessary to infer from these notices that Pease was wholly a worthless vagrant. He may have been a lonely, disappointed man,-a recluse, an anchoret, world-disgusted and unsocial,-or a secret dissenter, cherishing unpopular tenets, and choosing therefore to keep out of the way of his neighbors. Persons with any of these characteristics found but little sympathy in the plantations at that day. In Norwich they were particularly rigid in their requirements, not only of accepted inhabitants, or voters, but also of common town-dwellers. Men were not allowed to live alone, but obliged to connect themselves with some household, to have some specific employment, to assist in supporting the institutions of the town, and to appear in the house of worship on the Sabbath.
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