USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Stamford > History of Stamford, Connecticut : from its settlement in 1641, to the present time, including Darien, which was one of its parishes until 1820 > Part 22
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" At length he got into heaven beyond the clouds, and so be-
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yond storms, waiting the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the clouds of heaven when he will have his reward among the saints."
As was his wont in his brief biographical sketches of the ministers noticed in his Magnalia, Mather appends to this canon- ization of Mr. Denton, what he deemed an equally appropriate epitaph. Its original and the translation, I shall give as they are found in Robins's edition of the Magnalia.
"EPITAPINUM.
Hic jacet et fruitur tranquilla sede RICHARDUS, DENTONUS, cujus fama perrennis erit. Incola jam coeli velut astra micantia fulget, Qui multis fidei lumina clara dedit.
TRANSLATION.
Here Denton lies, his toils and hardships past ; Whose name no memory of dishonor mars, On earth a light of faith he shines at last,
Full orbed and glorious with the eternal stars."
Of Mr. Denton's career while in Wethersfield but very little has ever transpired. Precisely what his official connection with the new church was, does not appear, from any contemporane- ons account I have been able to find. Mr. Chapin's excellent and reliable account of the beginning of that church in his " Glastonbury for two hundred years," leaves the matter much in the dark. Nor do the occasional references to Wethersfield matters in the old Colony Records, much add to our informa- tion. For reasons never fully explained, the materials gather- ed for that new community were so discordant and infusable, as never to mingle together into a body politic or religious. Two pretty well defined parties sprang up and Mr. Denton took side with that which seems to have been the progressive and radi- cal. He carried with him the majority of the church, but a minority only of those not connected with the church.
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On reaching Stamford, an experience somewhat like that which fell to him in Wethersfield seems to have been his lot. The restless and disaffected portion of the new colony, not liking the overshadowing influence of New Haven jurisdiction, found as before, a leader in their minister, and in 1644, we find him removing with them to attempt a new settlement at "Manetos, New Netherlands," now Hempsted on Long Island. Here he labored acceptably for several years, when he returned to Eng- land in 1659, where he died in 1662 aged 76 years. He left four sons, Richard, Samuel, Nathaniel and Daniel. Richard was among the settlers of IIempstead, L. I., and Nathaniel in 1660, was living in Jamaica, where he and his squadron were author- ized " to mow at the Haw-trees."
HOLLY, JOHN, the ancestor, probably, of the numerous family of this name, in this vieinity, was one of the most prominent of our early settlers. He was from the first employed in the al- most constant service either of the town or of the colony. In 1647, he was appointed marshal for the settlement, an office re- quiring a man of no inferior intelligence or business taet. He was later made collector of customs and excise here, which of- fiee he discharged to the acceptance of the general court, to which he was responsible. He was repeatedly one of the select- men of the town, and one of its representatives in the general court. He was often appointed on responsible commissions, both by the town and by the legislature. In 1654 he was made associate judge with those worthies Law and Bell, for the court to be held at this plantation. After the union of New Haven with the Connectieut colony he was made commissioner with Law, for Stamford, Greenwich and Rye, and to assist in the execution of justice at the Fairfield County Court. It seems to have been a singular appointment, as he is next year, 1569, pro- pounded for freeman in the Connectient jurisdiction, where he is distinctly indicated by the title of senior. It would seem that he had shown himself so competent and useful under the New IJaven administration, that he was appointed to the most re-
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sponsible offices before the usual form of enfranchisement. Mr. Holly seems to have been as active in ecclesiastical as in civil and judicial matters.
The family descended from him have been both numerons and respectable. Alexander H. Holley, of Salisbury, governor of the state in 1857, was one of his great, great, great grand-sons, and Horace Holley, D.D., late President of Transylvania Univer- sity, Ky., was another. The family number among their ances- try in England, Dr. Luther Halley who was born Oct. 29, 1556, in St. Leonard's parish, Shordith, London.
Mr. Holly died here, May 25, 1681, aged 63 years. A portion of the land which he received in the early allotment of lands, still remains in the hands of his descendant, our honored citizen Alexander N. Ilolly, Esq.
JONES, REV. ELIPHIALET, was the son of Rev. John and Su- sanna Jones of Concord. His father had emigrated to this country in the Defence, in 1635, and settled first in Concord, from which place he came to Fairfield in 1644, where he died in 1644, leaving six children, of whom Eliphalet, born Jan. 9, 1641, entered IIarvard but did not graduate and was ordained about 1677. Savage says he was a preacher at Rye. Our ecclesias- tical record shows that he was living in Greenwich when he was called, in 1672 to Stamford. Here he labored under the Rev. Mr. Bishop, probably until he was called in April, 1673, to Huntington, L. I., where he was ordained in 1676. The long period, during which he maintained his post, must be held as good proof of his faithful and acceptable service. He died June 5, 1731, leaving no children. While living in Greenwich, in 1670, he was made a joint trustee, with Joseph Mead and John Renolds all of Greenwich, of all the lands of William Grimes, also of Greenwich, to be disposed of by them in such way as, they should judge best for "inlarging of ye town of Greenwich." These trustees appropriated the lands to the use of a minister and in case there was no minister in town, Mr. Jones, as his own affidavit dated at Huntington, L. I., April 22, 1691, testi-
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fies, proposed to give the profits of the land " to helpe maine- taine such as shall bee Imployed in teaching children to Reade."
In May, 1674, the Connecticut court desire Mr. Jones " to take the paynes to dispence the word of God to the people of Rye once a fortnight on the Lord's day till the Court, October next, and then this court will take further order concerning them and for Mr. Jones satisfaction." Mr. Jones remained in Huntington, preaching and laboring with general acceptance down to his death. He is not known to have left children.
LAW, RICHARD, was perhaps the first civilian among the Stam- ford settlers, the acknowledged legal adviser of the community for more than a quarter of a century. His scholarly and cleri- cal abilities gave him great advantage among the settlers. Though not one of the first twenty to inaugurate the settlement, he was at Wethersfield, arranging to join the colony at the opening of their second season in their new home. He probab- ly took with him from Wethersfield, as his gifted help-meet, Margaret, the oldest daughter of Francis Kilborn; and their home, though not the most expensive, was to be one of the most honored of the colony. Their family, though not to remain through other generations to honor the town they were so help- ful in founding, was to furnish names to give a new luster to the state whose highest civil and judicial seats they were to fill. From the first he seems to have been the scribe of the colony. His pen was equally ready for the records of the town, the church, and the courts. He was the only town clerk appointed for about twenty-four years. He was the ready lawyer, in the age preceding, technically that profession among us. He was oftener a deputy in the general court at New Haven than any other of the settlers, and apparently more in demand when there. As constable, he was noted for a fearless and tireless efficiency. He seemed to have exercised a sort of personal dis cretion in regard to prosecutions, which was not. always most acceptable to parties who would dictate his official duty. John Mead once had good proof of his fidelity, never to be bribed
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He had sought the help of the constable to recover damages from a neighbor for some harm done by him. The sharp-eyed official saw at a glance that there was no ground for the attach- ment, and refused the process. Mead scolded and threatened, but to no purpose. He then goes into court with an action against him for neglecting his official dnty. But the angry plaintiff soon finds himself a sorry defendant, with but a miser- able advocate. Law had him put under trial for scandalizing the church, for slanders and defamatory reports and for disturb- ing the peace of the church and the town. To all which nothing in extenuation could be said, and the court exculpating their officer, sentenced Mr. Mead to make full acknowledgement at Stamford, to the satisfaction of the church and Mr. Law, to pay Mr. Law ten pounds for his expense in the trial, to pay ten pounds more for disturbing the jurisdiction, and then that he and his brother or some other acceptable man, be bound over for his good behaviour. After the sentence Mr. Mead made the fullest confession and retraction, and Mr. Law was left thence- forward to prosecute his official business unhindered.
Mr. Law had married in Wethersfield, Margaret Kilbourn, by whom he had three children ; Jonathan, b. 1636-7; Abigail, who married, May 11, 1665, Jonathan Selleck of Stamford ; and Sarah, who married, Oct. 28, 1669, John Selleck, also of Stam- ford. The son Jonathan, married June 1, 1664, Sarah Clark, daughter of Dea. George Clark of Milford, and removed to Mil- ford, where he was a man of note. His son, Jonathan, b. Aug. 6, 1674, graduated at Harvard College, 1695; was chief-justice of Connecticut for sixteen years and governor of the state from 1741 to 1750.
Mr. Law probably died in Stamford, though there is no re- cord to show it. His will, the last document in which his name appears, bears date March 12, 1686-7. His widow had pro bably died before this date as no mention is made of her in the will.
There is a paper, entered on the town records in 1686, bearing
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date Feb. 15, 1680, which speaks of the misunderstanding under which he had given his son, Law, his land. It seems that the son removed from Stamford to Milford, and this removal was a source of dissatisfaction to the father. Still adhering to the former grant to his son, he now insists on dividing the lands which had come into his hands since that former gift, to his daughters, the two Mrs. Selleck, so that they may each have a half as much as he; for which he says " the word of God is clear, and good reason for it, and why any Christian man that loveth righteousness and equity should be against this, I see not."
MITCHELL, REV. JONATHAN, was son, not of Jonathan, as Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit has it, but of Matthew Mitchell, the wealthiest and otherwise most noted of the lay settlers of Stamford. He was born, so Savage supposes, at Halifax, Yorkshire, Eng., and in the year 1624, according to Mather. He came with his father, in the James, from Bristol, in 1635, to Cambridge, Mass., and thence to Concord and Spring- field, and in 1640 to Stamford. He remained here probably un- til he entered Harvard College, where he graduated, A. B., in 1647. He was ordained, Ang. 21, 1650, at Cambridge, where he labored in the ministry for eighteen years.
He was one of the early New England ministers whom the quaint Mather has immortalized in his Magnalia. He styles him the " Ecclesiastes;" "a Pastor of the Church, and a glory of the College in Cambridge, New England." In his epistle dedicatory, he calls him "blessed Mr. Mitchell," and in his sketch of the life and labors of Mr. Mitehell, he makes him the " excellent," the famous pastor" and "this best of preachers in our new English nation." The opening of his biographical sketch is worthy of a place here, as illustrating the times to which our subject belonged, and also, as furnishing us an in- teresting clue to bis character and that of his family :-
" If it were counted an honor to the town of Halifax in York- shire that the famous John de Sacro Bozco, author of the well known treatise "De Sphoera," was born there ; this town was
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no less honored by its being the place of birth to our no less worthily famous Jonathan Mitchell, the author of a better trea- tise of heaven, who, being descended, as a printed account long since has told us, of pious and wealthy parents, here drew his first breath, in the year 1624. The precise day of his birth is lost, nor is it worth while for us to inquire, by an astrological calculation, what aspect the stars had upon his birth, since the event has proved, that God the Father was in the horoscopes, Christ in the mid heaven, the Spirit in the sixth house, repent- ance, faith and love, in the eighth ; and in the twelfth an eternal happiness, where no Saturn can dart any malignant rays. Here while the " father of his flesh " was endeavoring to make him learned by a proper education, the "Father of Spirits " used the methods of grace to make him serious ; especially by a sore fever which had like to have made the tenth year of his life the last, but then settled in his arm with such troublesome effects, that his arm grew and kept a little bent, and he could never stretch it out right until his dying day. * The ship which brought over Mr. Richard Mather, * * was further enriched by having on board our Jonathan, then a child of about eleven years of age ; whose parents with much difficulty and resolution carried him unto Bristol to take shipping there, while he was not yet recovered of his illness."
Mather thus speaks of his mental ability and scholarship. " The facilities of mind, with which the 'God that forms the spirit of man' enriched him, were very notable. IIe had a clear head, a copions faney, a solid judgment, a tenacious memory and a certain discretion, without any childish lasehete or levity in his behaviour, which commanded respeet from all that view- ed him. * * Under these advantages, he was an hard student, and he so prospered in his indefatigable studies, that he became a scholar of illuminations, not far from the first mag- nitnde ; recommended by which qualifications, it was not long before he was chosen a Fellow of the College."
He first received a call to preach in Hartford, with the most
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flattering offer of generous aid to him in supplying himself with a suitable library. They had sent a man and a horse to Boston for him and he preached to their acceptance, June 24, 1649. On his return to Cambridge, through the entreaties of the venerable Mr. Shepard, who was providentially just abont vacating by death his field of honored usefulness, he was induced to preach there as a candidate for settlement. He commenced his labors there Aug. 12, 1649, to continue them with great acceptance and success until his death, July 9, 1668.
His preaching talents were of a high order. His sermons were " admirably well studied." " He ordinarily meddled with no point but what he managed with such an extraordinary in vention, curious disposition and copious application, as if he would leave no material thing to be said of it by any that should come after him. And when he came to utter what he had prepared, his utterance had such a becoming tunableness and vivacity, to set it off, as was indeed inimitable, though many of our eminent preachers, that were in his time students at the college did essay to imitate him."
Mr. Mitchell married at Cambridge, Margaret, widow of his predecessor, Rev. Mr. Shepard. Two of his sons, Samuel and Jonathan, were graduates of Harvard. One of his daughters, Margaret, married Stephen Sewall of Salem, and was mother of Chief Justice Stephen Sewall of Massachusetts,
MITCHELL, MATTHEW, the second on our list of pioneers, and the first in point of wealth, probably, was a man of marked ability. Ilis name is not so prominent among our early towns- men as it would have been, if he had decided to make this his permanent home, and that of his family. In the great secession of 1644, he went with his minister Mr. Denton, over to Hemp. sted; but probably soon repented of the move, and returned According to contemporaneous accounts, he must have been sorely tried, as he seems to have been much reduced in his po- cuniary condition, by various adverse providences. He had left his home in England to secure the freedom denied his religious
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faith there, and perhaps this very aim, rendered him restless, until he should attain it. His wanderings and trials are a very fair illustration of what the pioneers of our town had to endure and suffer.
Born in 1590, we find him, Feb. 24, 1622-3, a witness to the will of widow Susan Feild, whose husband William Feild, had died in North Onram, parish of Halifax, in 1619. Here he was doubtless enjoying the instructions of Richard Denton, then curate of Coley Chapel; and it is not to be wondered at that he heartily united his fortunes with those of his minister. May 23, 1635, seems the probable date on which he set sail for the new world ; and if so, he reached Boston, Aug. 17th. His first temporary home was among the pioneers of Charlestown, where he spent a winter of great discomfort. And, indeed, his trou- bles had preceded his landing. Two days before reaching the harbor, a furious storm had arisen, which almost dismantled their ship. The following spring he went to Concord, where a fire consumed much which the coast wreck had spared. Find- ing here no fitting home he next appears at Springfield, in May 1636, in the company of William Pynchon, where he and two other of our Stamford settlers, Edmond and Jonas Wood, have prominent lots assigned them. From Springfield he went to Say- brook, where he stayed but a few months, when he cast in his lot with the Wethersfield planters, as before stated. Here, also, he was particularly unfortunate. On his visit to Saybrook, he had encountered that savage irruption of the Pequots and lind barely escaped with his life ; and in Wethersfield, his estate was doomed to suffer still more seriously, from frequent Indian raids. Other difficulties were in his way. He could not com- ply with some of the requisitions of the unsettled times and people among which he was called to live. He was evidently a man of positive and independent character, and was wont to assert and defend himself. He became obnoxious to a Mr. Chaplin, and in the heat of the contest, excited the displeasure of the court, which at that time was the only legislature known. His townsmen had chosen him their reeorder. The court would
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not ratify the choice. He discharged his clerical duties, and was fined, as elsewhere appears.
At this point in his Wethersfield experience, he betakes him- self with those of his fellow colonists, who had ineurred like censure from the general court, to a new home. Stamford was the chosen site. His position among the settlers here is evinced by that of his name. Our pioneer list reports it. As member of the New Haven Court, and one of the judges of the local colony court, and as townsman for two years before he tempo- rarily removed to Hempstead, he seems to have met the approval of his new townsmen. On what contemporaneous authority he is reported as having removed to Hempstead, I have not found. It is not at all unlikely that he did so; yet he must soon have returned to Stamford. He died before May 19, 1646, as is evi- dent from the statement of the court that approved his will.
His only children of whom I find any mention were, Rev. Jonathan, (see preceding sketch), and David, who settled in Stamford, and had four sons. A list of their descendants can be found in Cothren's History of Ancient Woodbury.
UNDERHILL, CAPTAIN JOHN. No name among the Stamford settlers was as famous as this-equally famous for successful military feats, and for a strangely erratic social and domestic career. History transmits his character to us variously shaded, uow to be envied for its self-sacrificing and brilliant achieve- ments, and again to be deplored for its shameful humiliations,
Though here but a short time, his name deserves to be record- ed among our settlers ; and special mention is due to it, because it was so closely connected with the preservation of the young settlement.
llis descent was from an honorable family in Warwickshire. His earliest years must have exhibited more than the ordinary restlessness of boyhood. Though we have no account of his childhood, we may be assured that they were no ordinary feats of mischief and of daring which were his pastime. Nothing less than a mock broad sword, or a mumie battle, could have
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met and satisfied the deepest longings of this child-hero; and so, as soon as his years would let him, we find him ready for the deed and daring of the thickest fight. That was no unmeaning pupilage through which he went in the English service, under such a leader as the gallant Essex in his wars with Spain. That was, to the young soldier, no useless lesson which he learned in the fierce and successful storming of Cadiz. And those later days of service in the ranks with veterans who had grown old and wise in war, were full of hints for his judgment and stimulants for his courage, preparatory to his career in the new world. Nor were those successful struggles of the Dutch, in which he shared, and from which they arose to a merited independency of their haughty Spanish masters, without many a lesson to him on the fundamental question of his personal rights and respon- sibility. So that by the time the way was open for him to seek a home for himself and his, across the Atlantic, he had received, in some sort, a providential training for a special and needed work.
What special reasons induced him to leave England, are not given by the historian. That his spirit would brook with much patience even slight restraint, whether upon his conscience or practice, either in religion or in politics, was not to be expected ; and the probability is, that greater freedom than the staid po- licy of the fatherland allowed, moved him to the change. But without such a reason, the very restlessness of his excitable and roving disposition, would have tempted him to try the novelties, while the utter recklessness of his fearless soul, would have taken richest pleasure in braving and conquering the dangers of the yet savage wilderness.
We find him in 1630 in Boston, then a new settlement, enroll- ing himself among the pioneer founders of New England; and that he was deemed worthy of position among them, is eviden- ced by his appointment to responsible offices, civil and military. The old " Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company " of the Bay state bears testimony to his military standing ; and the
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general court of Massachusetts honored him as their metropoli- tan deputy.
But he was soon found to be most serviceable in the field. The exposed colonists were perpetually harassed and endanger- ed by wily and hostile Indians ; and Underhill was more than a match for them. He was inferior to them, neither in celerity, nor in cunning ; he was greatly their superior in intelligenee, judgment and skill. So signal were the services which he ren- dered, that as early as 1632 he received a pension of thirty pounds ; and thenceforward he is one of New England's most reliable defenders against their most dreaded foe.
The Pequod war soon enabled him to show his courage and his skill. Under the resolute and prudent Mason, he performed prodigies of valor at the storming of their principal strong- hold on the banks of the Mystic All the intrepid heroism of his nature found room for play ; and the boldest savage of that most untamable tribe quailed before him, whenever he moved about among the falling and the fallen of their race.
And, now, we begin to find developing another phase of the hero's character. He had beeome professedly a Christian. His religion, as might be expected, was in earnest. Zeal, whether according to knowledge or not, was its most noticeable charac- teristic; and he began to suspect and denounce those who could not sympathize and work with. him. The Boston clergy were too tame to suit him. Their only zeal was that of the scribes and pharisees or that of Paul before his eonversion. Mrs. Hntehinson's piety, and Wheelwright's liberty, and Vane's polity had much more in them to suit his tastes. When, there- fore, these were condemned by a majority of the Boston author- ities, he could do no less than to utter his protest, and he accordingly signs the petition to have Mr. Wheelwright restor- ed. For this, he too, is disfranchised and given permission to depart. We next find him the governor of the new colony at Dover, but not to hold his position long. Gov. Endicott, writes a member of the colony, " how ill we should relish if they should advance Captain Underhill whom we have thrust out for abus-
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