USA > Connecticut > New London County > Ledyard > History of the town of Ledyard, 1650-1900 > Part 13
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button moulds, three shot moulds, and bullet mould, a looking glass, an hour glass, warming pan, two coffee-pots, tea-pot, spice mill, chopping knife, seven iron pots, four brass kettles, tea ket- tle, lignum-vitæ mortar, eight tubs, nine trays, three sugar boxes, ivory handle knife and fork, case of knives and forks, linen table cloth and napkins, tea and saucers. [B. T. A.]
CAPT. CHRISTOPHER AVERY, was born in Groton, Jan. 25, 1679-80. His parents were James Avery, 2nd, and Deborah (Stallyon) Avery. Both he and his brother Edward settled on Avery Hill in North Groton (now Ledyard), a mile or two south of Poquetanuck, probably on lands granted to their grandfather, James Avery, Ist, in 1653. He appears to have been a very in- fluential and useful man. In the militia he held successively the offices of ensign, lieutenant, and captain. He was also justice of the peace, town clerk, clerk of the ecclesiastical society, and was retained in some of these offices many years in succession. The first pew in the North Groton meeting-house was built by him, so say the society records. For a considerable time after the recognition of North Groton as a separate parish, the pro- fessors of religion residing there were connected with the church in the South Society. On a catalogue of these professors, drawn up Nov. 22, 1727, containing about forty names, appear the names of Christopher Avery and wife, Edward Avery and wife, and Christopher Avery, Jr. The subject of this sketch was mar- ried Dec. 19, 1704, to Abigail Park, daughter of Capt. John Park, of Preston. This wife bore him four children-John, Abigail, Christopher and Nathan, and died Feb. 12, 17.13. On April 14, 1714, he was married to Mrs. Prudence (Payson) Wheeler, widow of Richard Wheeler, of Stonington. Her first marriage was solemnized in Roxbury, Mass., where she probably belonged. She had three sons and a daughter by her first husband. Her children by Mr. Avery were Priscilla, Isaac, Jacob and Temper- ance. After the death of his second wife, Mr. Avery was mar- ried to Mrs. Esther (Hammond) Prentice. This wife also died before him. And in his will, made in 1752, the year before his own death, he speaks of his "wife Susanna," whom tradition af-
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firms to have been a Stoddard. A partial inventory of property, appended to his will, gives the value of his homestead farm as £ 10,000 (old tenor?), Brewster's Neck farm of 70 acres, £2,500; his negroes, Jude, £500; Jenne, £260; Nero, £530; Lydia, £260; Sarah, £240; and Tom, £210. In the year 1888 a plain obelisk of brown stone, commemorating the memory of Mr. Avery and his four wives, was placed over their graves in the cemetery on the east side of Avery Hill, the expense being borne by several of his descendants.
REV. NATHAN AVERY, son of Capt. Christopher and Abigail (Parke) Avery, was born in North Groton, March 10, 1712. He was ordained pastor of the Separate or Strict Congregational Church in North Stonington, April 25, 1759; died in the twenty - second year of his ministry, Sept. 7, 1780. He was married March 21, 1746, to Hannah Stoddard. They had four sons and three daughters. Mrs. Avery died Oct. 10, 1810.
REV. CHRISTOPHER AVERY, son of Christopher Avery, Jr., and Eunice (Prentice) Avery, was born in North Groton, Jan. 23, 1737-8. He succeeded his uncle, Rev. Nathan Avery, in the pastorate of the Separate Church in North Stonington, Nov. 29. 1786, and continued to minister to this church till the time of his death, which occurred July 5, 1819. His grave marked by a large white marble slab, is on Wintechog Hill. He was mar- ried, first, to Dorothy Heath, Dec. 16, 1763. By her he had five children, four sons and one daughter. Mrs. Avery died June 14, 1803, aged 61. Mr. Avery was married again, Nov. 7, 1803, to Miss Mary Eldridge, who out-lived him some nineteen or twenty years, dying Dec. 7, 1848, aged 89.
HENRY WILLIAM AVERY, EsQ., was born in Groton, Oct. 12, 1795, the son of Col. Ebenezer and Mary (Eldredge) Avery, and grandson of Ebenezer Avery, Jr., who was slain in Fort Gris- wold, at the Britishi massacre, Sept. 6, 1781. He was of the eighth generation from Christopher Avery who came from Salisbury, England, in 1630, and settled in Gloucester, Mass.
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Through his mother he was of the eighth generation from Elder William Brewster of the Mayflower. His education was gained in the district school of his home opposite the New London fort, the house of his parents and grandparents still (1900) standing. At the close of school age the family moved to the house in North Groton which, in 1836, became the south-east house in the new town of Ledyard. At the age of seventeen he served about two months in the War of 1812. When nine- teen years old he united with the First Congrega- tional Church in Groton, under the ministry of Rev. Timothy Tuttle, after- wards, by letter, Feb. 22, 1835, with the Congrega- tional Church in North Groton (Ledyard), under the same ministry. He was married Nov. 27, 1817, to Betsey, daughter of Fred- erick and Hannah (Fish) Denison. As justice of the peace his services were re- HENRY W. AVERY, ESQ. garded as very valuable in adjusting difficulties and reconciling contending parties. For many years he held the position of judge of probate, rendering kindly and faithful serv- ices in the fulfillment of the delicate duties of that office. He was ever helpful in his relation to the church, usually among the first to reach the Sabbath services with his family in a drive of five miles. As teacher and superintendent of the Sabbath- school he showed his loving devotion to the spiritual interests of the young. He had the charge of the large farm where, with his parents, he resided for thirty years, giving his loving and faithful care to his aged parents while they lived. When this filial service was no longer needed, he laid aside the responsibili-
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ties and labors of his active life, and with his wife moved to Belvidere, Ill., to live in the house which he built on the prairie for the use of himself and his son who preceded him, a few years, to that place. The rest of his days were spent in comparative quiet, yielding what labors he pleased to his garden and the farm of his son. On his removal from Ledyard he connected himself with the Presbyterian Church in Belvidere, and con- tinued to be a punctual attendant at the Sabbath services as long as strength permitted, and with as interested attention as his serious and prolonged defect of hearing would allow. The great and sore trial of his life was the sudden death of his de- voted companion in Belvidere, May II, 1866, at the age of 66. He had hitherto lived much with his Bible, in private and family devotions, but when she who had walked on with him from early manhood until near the jubilee was taken from him, then es- pecially the loved Book became his daily, almost hourly, com- panion, and this is his own record : "June 21, 1866, commenced reading Scott's Bible with notes and commentaries ; finished the first volume Nov. 15, 1866. Finished the second volume Dec. 20, 1866. Finished third volume Jan. 14, 1867. Finished fourth volume Feb. 11, 1867. Finished fifth volume March 9, 1867. Finished sixth volume April 8, 1867." After that he read the Bible, in course without notes, so frequently, that his record shows that he had read it ninety-six times since April, 1867. The hours of the Sabbath were sacredly observed, secular papers and ordinary books being discarded, and sometimes three or four sermons being read instead.
He retained an active mind and deep interest in passing events. His correspondence was quite extensive and continued to the last-the latest letter which came to him, a short time be- fore his death, being from his life-long friend and frequent cor- respondent, Jonathan Whipple, of Ledyard. The blessing of almost uninterrupted health and strength had been his through his long life. His last sickness kept him to his room and bed only twelve days, and, having no desire to abide, he went to his heavenly home March 5, 1883, aged 87 years, 4 months, 21 days. Two sons, Frederick D. and Henry W., survive. [F. D. A.]
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REV. FREDERICK DENISON AVERY, son of Henry W. and Betsey (Denison) Avery, was born in the north-east corner house of the present town of Groton, Oct. 30, 1818. His childhood and youth was spent in the house a few rods above, now in the town of Ledyard. Having graduated from the "Pumpkin Hill" school, he took a "short course" in the study of his pastor, Rev. Timothy Tuttle, whose daughter, Anna Maria, was his prin- cipal teacher. At the close of his farm life, when - seventeen years old, in February, 1836, his father gave him a sleigh-ride, a week long, to Sherburne in Central New York, where he entered the shop of his uncle, Sidney Avery, to learn the cabinet trade. The first lesson, however, for him to learn was to be a Christian, as he passed im- mediately into the pro- tracted meetings which his REV. FREDERICK D. AVERY. uncle wished all his family to attend. Very soon the great question of his life was decided, and, with many others he united with the Congregational Church in Sherburne, in April, 1836. In attendance upon the commencement exercises at Oneida Institute where his cousin, Colby C. Mitchel, was to graduate, his attention was earnestly directed by his cousin to the work of the gospel ministry. Having spent eighteen months in the cabinet shop he returned to his father's house to confer with his parents, and in a short time went to a proposed school in Derby, with Isaac Jennings as instructor. This enterprise failing, he followed his instructor to a classical school in New Haven, in preparation for college. He united, by letter, with the Congregational Church in Ledyard, March 3, 1839. After a
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winter's practice as schoolmaster, boarding around in the Union- ville district in Ledyard, he entered the freshman class in Yale College, in September, 1840, having two years previously secured the privilege and pecuniary aid and had the care of the chapel for his senior year. With a fair standing in his class of 104, he was graduated in 1844. Passing immediately into the Yale Di- vinity School, he received his graduation there in 1847, in a class of thirty-three, the Rev. John Avery, of Preston, being one. He was licensed to preach Aug. 12, 1846, by the New Haven West Association. Having preached two months in South King- ston, R. I., and two months in Exeter (Lebanon), to aid the minister in each place, and as stated supply in Eden, N. Y., fifteen months, he received a call from the Congregational Church in Columbia, Conn., where he was ordained and installed, June 11, 1850. This pastorate terminated in accordance with the following announcement made July 14, 1895: "To the Congre- gational Church and Ecclesiastical Society: Forty-five years ago necessity was laid upon me to preach the gospel, and in this house taking the pastoral charge of the church and congrega- tion worshipping here. With this protracted service the neces- sity is now laid upon me to lay down this charge because of these accumulating years with my increasing disabilities, es- pecially my difficulty of hearing. I, therefore, hereby resign this pastorate, the resignation to take effect on the thirty-first day of October, next. Affectionately, Frederick D. Avery." At the beginning of his pastorate in that farming town, where there was no other church, the church numbered 118, and at its close 178. There were seven special revival seasons, and benevolent con- tributions were trebled. When his active service closed Mr. Avery, by vote of the church, became Pastor Emeritus. He was a member of the school board 36 years, a large portion of the time being acting school visitor. He has now (1900) been a member 32 years, and president 27 years, of a board of trustees of the "Hale Donation Fund" of $10,000. for the perpetuation and increase of a minister's' library for the vicinity of Coventry, and for giving aid to needing theological students. He has attended sixty-six ecclesiastical councils. He was registrar of
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Tolland Association of Congregational Ministers seventeen years, and of Tolland County Conference seventeen years. In 1880 he was moderator of the General Association of Connecticut, and in the following year delivered the moderator's address. His published writings have been pamphlets, including "Historical address at the 150th Anniversary of the Columbia Congrega- tional Church, in 1866;" "Historical address at the 100th Anni- versary of the Tolland County Association of Congregational Ministers, June, 1889;" "Loyalty to the Church," an essay, read at the county conference, October, 1893. He was a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1885. In the sum- mer of 1879, as a member of the excursion party, directed by Eben Tourjee, he visited the Scottish lakes and cities London, Paris, chief cities of Switzerland, Italy and Holland.
March 12, 1849, he married Julia Sophia, daughter of Ros- well and Phebe (Harrison) Smith, in New Haven, Rev. Edward Strong, his former college tutor, officiating. A daughter, Julia Sophia, born June 11, 1855, was graduated from Mount Holyoke Seminary in 1876, and has been engaged in teaching since that time. Her mother died June 24, 1855, at the age of 32. He married at Hagaman, N. Y., May 18, 1857, Charlotte, daughter of Benjamin and Barbara (De Graffe) Mansy, Rev. Lansing Pearce officiating. A son, Frederick Henry, born July 10, 1863, married Lillian Irene, daughter of George B. and June (Clark) Fuller, November 20, 1889, his father officiating. Hugh Fred- erick, son of F. H. and L. I. Avery, born April 15, 1891, died Sept. 5, 1896. Another son, Frederick Denison Avery, was born Sept. 13, 1895.
Residence of Rev. F. D. Avery, and of his son, F. H., is now at East Hartford, Conn. [F. D. A.]
HENRY WILLIAM AVERY, JR., son of Henry William and Betsey (Denison) Avery, was born in Groton, Conn., May 31, 1823. His childhood and youth were spent in the home of his parents, upon the farm, attending the district school during the winter months, until at seventeen years of age he taught the winter term of school at Ledyard Centre, near the church, and
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for three winters and one summer at Burnet's Corners in Groton. He was one of twenty-five, who united with the Congregational Church in Ledyard, Jan. 1, 1843, under the pastorate of Rev. Timothy Tuttle. This was the largest accession ever made to that church at any one time previous to that date. The summer of 1844 was spent in the family of his uncle, Sidney Avery, in Sherburne, N. Y., and in attendance upon the Sherburne Acade- my. He was married Sept. 10, 1844, to Miss Lydia Goodell Avery, daughter of Sidney and Mary (Dickey) Avery. The fol- lowing winter they were with his parents in Ledyard, Conn., he teaching in the school-house on Pumpkin Hill, where his early education was obtained. In the spring of 1845 they joined his wife's parents in Sherburne, N. Y., and all emigrated to Belvi- dere, Boone County, Ill., and united by letter with the First Presbyterian Church of that place. He was soon thereafter elected superintendent of the church Sunday-school, which posi- tion he held most of the time for forty years. In 1852 he was elected and ordained ruling elder of the church, and in 1855 he was elected clerk of session, both of which offices he has con- tinuously held and retains to this date, April, 1900. As secretary and treasurer of church and society for forty-five years nearly all the records have been kept by him, and all funds, for all purposes. His occupation for thirty-five years in Illinois, was farming, having converted the natural prairie soil into well-cul- tivated and fruitful fields. During these years upon the farm, five miles from the city and the church, he organized and helped sustain many country Sunday-schools. In 1881 he retired from the farm of three hundred acres, and located in the city of Belvi- dere. At the county Sunday-school convention in that year, he was elected president of the Boone County Sunday-school As- sociation, which office was continued by re-election for ten years. In 1887, after having been elected moderator of presby- tery and having delivered the address as retiring moderator. Freeport Presbytery, upon its own motion, granted him licensure to preach. Having this authority he has often supplied vacant pulpits and conducted funeral services. Many of his public ad- dresses and essays at Presbytery Sunday-school conventions,
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dairymen's conventions and farmers' institutes, have been pub- lished. Numerous estates have been entrusted to him for settle- ment, and his counsel and aid are often solicited. For twenty years he has been and yet is secretary and business manager of "The Belvidere Farmers' Mutual Fire and Lightning Insurance Company of Boone County, Illinois." In May, 1847, the wife of his youth was removed by death, leaving one daughter, Eliza- beth Denison, about six months old. In October, 1848, he was united in marriage with Miss Rachel Patterson McCord, daugh- ter of Elder Robert McCord, of Carlisle, Pa. They have no children. His daughter, Elizabeth, was married in June, 1873, to John C. Thompson, of Belvidere, Ill. She died in December, 1880. Two sons, Edward Avery Thompson and Henry Sidney Thompson, survive her. The eldest is now a senior in Ann Arbor, Michigan, University. The youngest is now a senior in the Belvidere High School. The last visit of Mr. Avery to the home of his youth was in 1891, when he preached for his friend, Rev. James A. Gallup, in Madison, for his brother, Rev. F. D. Avery, in Columbia, and for Rev. John Avery, in his home church in Ledyard. He also, by special invitation, made an ad- dress at the Bill Library dinner in the Bill homestead, now occu- pied and used as a parsonage for tlie Congregational Church. [H. W. A.]
CHRISTOPHER SWAN AVERY, M. D., son of Isaac and Lucy (Swan) Avery, was born in North Groton, Nov. 25, 1788. "He served in the medical department of the army in the War of 1812; was a successful practitioner, both in physic and surgery. and no man in his time was his superior." His practice as a physician was chiefly in the town of Windham, in this State; though a portion of it, toward the close of his life, was near the home of his childhood, in the village of Poquetanuck and the surrounding community. His first wife was Margaret Brew- ster, a daughter of Judge Benjamin Brewster, of Windham. She bore him three children-Benjamin Brewster, who died April 4, 1827, aged 8 years. Susan, who married a Prior, and Lucy
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Swan, who died July 12, 1827, aged 4 years. Mrs. Avery died April 7, 1827, aged 32. He married for a second wife, the widow of Dr. Kent, from the State of New York. He died in Windham, July 19, 1862, aged 73.
AMOS GEER AVERY, M. D., youngest son of Nathan and Matilda (Babcock) Avery, was born in North Groton, March 3, 1822. He studied with his uncle, Dr. Christopher S. Avery ; attended lectures in Connecticut and New Hampshire, and re- ceived his diploma from the Medical Institute in Louisville, Ky., in 1845, in a class of 345 members. "Soon after graduating he went to Iowa, then to California and stayed till 1857, when he returned east, and practiced medicine a few years in Orleans County, N. Y. On the fitting out of the Burnside expedition to North Carolina, he was on the staff of William O. Howard, as marine agent, and had charge of eleven boats. He returned broken in health, and crippled by internal injuries, contracted in the line of duty, and was pensioned at seventeen dollars per month. He returned to the army and held an appointment from Surgeon-General S. Oakley Vanderpoel, to the Forty- fourth New York Regiment (Ellsworth's Avengers), General Rice then in command. * He was then chosen for the service in New York and vicinity, in examining men and supervising army camps and hospitals, and this continued to near the close of the war." After the war he located at Bergen, N. J., where he practiced medicine for several years ; then moved to Portland, Oregon. But the climate not agreeing with him he went to Florida and resumed his professional work in that sunny state. He was married, about 1859, in Wilna, Lewis County, N. Y., to Caroline Amanda Johnson. They had one son and two daughters. Only one of the three children, the youngest, Frederikie, lived to grow up. She was married April 13, 1872, to Adelbert Vrooman, of Great Bend, N. Y. Mrs. Dr. Avery died in Florida, May 2, 1892. Dr. Avery died at the home of his daughter, Sept. 18, 1898,
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HENRY BILL. Few of the sons of New London County have made a more lasting impress upon its material and moral in- terests than the subject of this notice. He was born in that part of the old town of Groton (now Ledyard) on the 18th of May, 1824, the second born of the large family of Gurdon and Lucy Bill. At the early age of fifteen he entered the office of the Newe London Gasette as an apprentice, but soon afterwards re- turned to his native town, and the following winter engaged as a teacher in the Broadbrook district in Preston. In order to qualify himself for the profession of teacher he afterwards entered the Academy in Plain- field, then one of the most celebrated schools in the coun- try From this time, till the age of twen- ty, he taught in the schools of Plainfield and Groton in the winter and helped his father on his farm in summer, in- terspersing his occu- pations with a brief period of trade in New London. At age of twenty he purchased of liis father his remaining year of minority, HON. HENRY BILL. and soon after en- tered upon a busi-
ness which was destined to occupy the remainder of his active life, and in the prosecution of which he achieved all the objects of his highest ambition. A near kinsman, the Hon. James A. Bill of Lyme was then engaged in book publishing in the city of Philadelphia. Into his service he entered, and for three years he traveled for
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him through the Western States. At the end of that time, in the fall of 1847, he returned to his native county and engaged in book publishing on his own account, locating in the city of Norwich. He was encouraged to do this by the elder Harper Brothers, of New York, who, instinctively, saw the material for success there was in him, and who gave him unlimited credit and remained his warmest friends during their lives. Here, for more than twenty-five years, he pursued his profession of a book publisher with ceaseless energy and with uniform success. Re- warded with the possession of an ample fortune, and failing in health, he then formed his large business into a joint stock cor- poration, which still flourishes under the title of the Henry Bill Publishing Company, and personally retired, as the world ex- presses it, from active life. But in temperaments like his, there is no period of a man's life more active than that which succeeds a retirement from that occupation by which he is best known among men.
A list of the works which he has published and distributed by hundreds of thousands all over the United States by agents would include "Stephens' Travels in Yucatan," "Maunder's History of the World," "Murray's Encyclopedia of all Nations," "Kitto's Bible Histories," and "Abbott's History of the Civil War."
Among the many works which have distinguished his life may be mentioned his founding of Laurel Hill, now one of the most thrifty and beautiful of the suburbs of the city of Norwich ; the reclaiming of this rugged hillside and meadow was emphatic- ally his work ; the establishment of the Bill Library in his native town of Ledyard, a work purely for the benefit of the people of the town, and which, in connection with his gift of a parsonage, has cost him at least twelve thousand dollars ; and the donation of a public park on Laurel Hill to the city of Norwich valued at eight thousand dollars. He has been deeply interested in the education of many colored young men in the Southern States since the war, one of whom is now a professor in the Richmond University in Virginia, and one an editor of a paper in Georgia.
In early life Mr. Bill's political affiliations were with the
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Democratic party, as his father's were, before him, and as a Democrat he represented the Norwich district in the State Senate in 1853, receiving in the election a large portion of the votes of his opponents ; but in the split in that party in 1856 he cast his lot with the anti-slavery sentiment, and has been from its formation an active and uncompromising member of the Re- publican party. During the Civil War he was greatly relied upon by Connecticut's war Governor, Buckingham, and was his devoted friend. His time and means were always at the service of the State. Mr. Bill from early life was a member of the Congregational Church, and during his residence in Norwich was connected with the Broadway Society. He was married on the 10th of February, 1847, to Miss Julia O. Chapman, of Groton. Seven children have been born to them, of whom two daughters and a son are living. Mr. Bill has always had great faith in the future of his adopted city. His investments have been almost wholly there in real estate. In its care and manage- ment he found ample occupation. In all the leading traits of his life, his example has been a safe guide, and when the roll of the sons of New London County, who have made them- selves an honored name, is called, his will be found among the first.
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