Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 17

Author: Selleck, Charles Melbourne.
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: The author,
Number of Pages: 553

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Daniel and Hannah Keeler were residents of New Canaan, where their daughter Hannah married Dec. 29, 1748, Benjamin, son of John and Elizabeth Bolt, the founders of the Norwalk Bolt, Boalt or Boult family. Some of the most advantageously situated land in New Canaan was Bolt owned, noticeably the acres contiguous to the Congrega- tional Church. Benjamin Bolt ended his days in the extreme northerly section of the town and in a domicile the door-yard plants of which bloom and blossom to this day.

Daniel Keeler made his will Nov. 14, 1764, and it was probated within two months. He will-named five sons, Daniel,2d. John, Joseph, Isaiah and Jeremiah, and mentions his daughters, Lydia, Hannah (Mrs. Benj. Bolt), Dorothy (Mrs. Abram Hoyt), Dinah (Mrs. James Campfield) and Elizabeth. His son Daniel,2d. born about 1730, married at about twenty-one, and had two sons, Isaac and David, and two daughters, Hannah and Ruhama. Both these sons served their country in the Revolutionary War. They lived at the upper

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end of Smith's Ridge,' where now resides the widow of Stephen E. Keeler, who was the grandson of Isaac Keeler and wife Catherine.2 Mrs. Isaac Keeler, who was a Tuttle, was brought up in what is now "Luke's Woods," a portion of which sylvan stretch, lying between Canaan Ridge and Vista and bordering the New England and Middle States demarkation line, was, in the days of the Tuttles more than now, a cleared and cultivated tract, and remarkable for the purity of its water springs.

OF RALPH KEELER, SR., DESCENT THROUGH HIS SON SAMUEL.

Samuel KeelerIst. married March 10, 1681-2, Sarah, born Jan. 18, 1659, daughter of Mark and Sarah (Stanley) St. John. These had a son (Samuel2d.)3 who married, first, Jan. 18, 1704-5, Rebecca, born 1679, daughter of James and Sarah Benedict, of Danbury, and grand-daughter of Thomas Benedict and John Gregory of Norwalk. Samuelad. and Rebecca Keeler had two children, Samuel3d. and Rebecca, when the mother died, March 20, 1709. Her husband married, second, Dec. 11, 1712, Sarah, born Jan. 22, 1686-7, daughter of Thos.2d. and Sarah (Marvin) Betts, and had Matthew, Ist. who was born March 14, 1717.

Matthew KeelerIst. and Sarah, his wife, had Rebecca, who married Feb. 13, 1774, James, 'st. son of John and Ruth (Belden) Seymour. This was a noticeable ancestry-union from the fact not alone of the Keeler, Stanley, St. John, Betts, Marvin, Benedict and

"Smith's Ridge is one of the sightly summits for which the adjoining town of New Canaan is famous. It derived its name, obviously, from the early Norwalk family of Samuel and Rachel (Marvin) Smith. This branch of the Smith household originally owned a considerable portion of the elevation. One hundred and twenty-five years ago the Lombardy poplar was looked upon with considerable favor in southwestern New England. A quaint ancient Norwalk entry records a provision for the setting out of a "row " of the species near the Norwalk Green. Their re- mains are still seen in various portions of the country designated. It is ascertained that a poplar-row lined the sides of both "Smith" and its twin "Canaan" heights in that now sister town. The former travel- route from the Oblong to New Canaan was via. Smith's Ridge, Isaac Richard's cross-road and Enoch St. John's corner down Haynes Ridge. The old-time " Bouton path from Smith's Ridge to the meeting house," however, must, at the south end of the ridge, have deflected from this "way." It was the delight of the southern Isaac St. John children, during their summer visits to the north, to accompany farmer Monroe when he drove the stock from the Samuel St. John home, on Church Hill, up to their great- grandfather Richard's splendid Smith's Ridge mead- ows. To-day, these same meadows are cedar-over- grown. but in Isaac Richards' time their green,

velvety surfaces were a beautiful landscape feature. The lower end of Smith's Ridge is a view-point at which to tarry. The southerly and southwesterly " scape " from that spot, terminating land, water and sky, in the distant Greenwich pearly-haze, is a "joy forever." "The gods of the hills are not the gods of the valley," wrote Ethan Allen, and if one can stand at the Eliphalet St. John Canoe Hill school-site or on the Frederick Lockwood Brushy Ridge veranda, or the noble-dimensioned Alexander piazza, or the fine Child sunset plazza, or Hollingsworth summit, and remain unimpressed, one must be well nigh color, comprehension and conviction-blind.

2Bradley and Edwards Eli Keeler were the only children of Isaac and Catherine ( Tuttle) Keeler. Bradley married Polly, daughter of Stephen and Polly Hoyt, (see note page 266) and had Sylvester, Isaac and Stephen Edwards. Sylvester lived west, Isaac in Bridgeport, and Stephen E., who took the grandparents' property on Smith Ridge, married Ann Augusta, daughter of Amos N. and Lucy Ann Ray- mond, and had Julia Bradley (Mrs. Dr. Willis Cum- mings); Jane Augusta (Mrs. Corodyne O. Hanford); Polly Hoyt ( Mrs. Hiram Wakeman); Stephen Ed- wards, Ist .; Warner; Stephen Edwards2d. ; Alice Bush- nell; and Agnes Brownson (Mrs. Edwin B. Adams). 3Samuel Keeler2d. son of Samuelist. and Sarah St. John Keeler and grandson of Ralph Keeler, Sr., died

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Seymour contribution, but by reason of the Belden blood also, which in this particular Belden family branch involves descent from the New England Footes, Demings and Arms. (See Belden lineage.) Mrs. John Seymour, mother of James Ist., was a daughter of William and Margaret Arms Belden, and the descent grows in interest from the additional fact that James Seymour 2d., born March 16, 1775, married Sarah, born July 27, 1778, daughter of Seth and Phœbe (Squires) Raymond. Seth Raymond was a son of Benj. Raymond, whose grandmother was Elizabeth Belden. (See Raymond lineage.) This gives to the children of James Seymour 2d. viz., Giles, Ira, George, Charles, Harriet, Mary (Mrs. Samuel Aymar) and Ann, a double Foote and Deming claim.

Sarah, a sister of Matthew Keeler Ist., married John Ray of the old New York Knickerbocker Ray family. The Keeler interest in ancient Norwalk was an important one and the Ray claim (see foot note, page 94) was ably managed. Mrs. Henry Lott, mother of the wife of Rev. Dr. George Warner Nichols of " Waldegrave Cottage " West Avenue, Norwalk, was a Ray representative, and her father, Hon. John Ray, Chancellor, cared for the Ray rights. After the Lott-Ray nuptials the family established themselves in the, at

Aug. 8, 1763, but blood lives and " blood tells." His daughter Hannah, born Oct. 18, 1725, married, Dec. 17, 1751, Nehemiah, son of Thos. Benedict 4th. Nehe- miah and Hannah Benedict had several children, most of whom, Nehemiah. Wm. and Waters, died young. Their daughter Hannah, born Dec. 11, 1759, mar. Oct. 14, 1779, Isaac, born Sept. 15, 1759, son of Samuel and Abigail (Warren) Richards, and grandson of Samuel and Abigail (Peck) Richards.

No better couple than Isaac and Hannah Richards ever. it is probable, dwelt in New Canaan. While these lines are being written their old hearthstone (south end of Smith's Ridge, on road connecting Smith and Haynes Ridges) is fast falling to pieces. Only a " gable" of the building now survives, but the memory of its once living, laboring and loving parents and children is a benediction. As an illustra- tration-in a single direction simply-of Isaac Rich- chards' reliability the following is to the point. He was called, on a certain day, to the coast and knowing the fact a neighbor asked of him a favor, which was with pleasure entertained. Arrived at Darien the pressure of business drove all thought of his neighbor's commission out of Mr. Richards' mind. After re- turning home and putting out his horse, his duty- neglect occurred to him. It was night, but he at once went to his stable, harnessed his horse anew and started for the shore. His mission accomplished the faithful man rode home, once more put out his beast, exclaiming at the close of his twelve miles' trip, if asked again to do the like my answer will be, " Yes, if I do not forget it." Mr. Richards discharged important trusts to the satisfaction of conscience and of a large constituency. His only daughter, Hannah, married Samuel St. John of New Canaan, of whom it

is sufficient to say that he was the parent of one of that town's noblest of noble sons, the late Professor Samuel St. John, and of the latter's brothers, Wm., Isaac and David, and their sister, Hannah, the wife of the Rev. Theophilus Smith.

Mrs. Issac Richards ist. died, Feb. 21, 1786. Her husband married, second, Emma Taylor.

Hannah, daughter of Samuel Keeler 2d. mother of Mrs. Isaac Richards, had a brother, Matthew Keeler ist., eight years older than herself. This Matthew had a son, Isaac, born April 20, 1759, who married, Sept. 26, 1781, Deborah, daughter of David and Elizabeth (Hyatt) Whitney. Isaac and "Aunt Debby" Keeler lived in primitive simplicity, in a house that stood about where stands the Henry P. Price West Avenue residence to-day.

The widow, for nearly a quarter century after her husband's decease, kept up the comfortable old fash- ioned family "style," and lived to pass her eightieth birthday. Her son, James Harvey Keeler, born July 17, 1801, married, Sept. 9, 1822, Matilda, daughter of Tertullus Stephenson. Seventy odd years ago, the old " Keeler Mill " (Union Manufacturing Co., 1896) was owned by Buckingham Lockwood and William St. John. The same had for many years been Keeler property, but now Messrs. Lockwood and St. John had purchased it and the adjoining land on the north side of the Belden Avenue of to-day as far west as Riverside Avenue. In those days this latter avenue was only a Belden cow path approached by a " pair of bars " at the foot of the modern "Spring Hill." The "mill," in question, was a grist, saw and kiln-drying mill, and "run" during its Lockwood and St. John own- ership, by Tertullus Stephenson, who occupied the house at present standing on the north-eastern corner

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that day. " Court " vicinity (Bleecker St.) of the city Leonard Kip was a neighbor and his son, the future California prelate, Wm. Ingraham Kip, was the Ray children's young companion. Mrs. George Warner Nichols, loyal to the memory of her sister (Mr. Richards H. Schell,) caused to be erected, in 1894, a rare " In Memorian " in the Chapel of Our Holy Saviour, in central Norwalk. Her husband also, at the same time, made valuable donation to said Chapel's crystal embellishment.

Matthew Keeler 2d., son of MatthewIst. and brother of Rebecca (Mrs. James Sey- mour 1st.) married, Dec. 1769, Anna, daughter of Daniel Benedict, (son of Samuel, and grand- son of Thos. Benedict 3d.) and had Samuel, born June 4, 1778, who married, July 29, 1798, Lydia, daughter of Azariah Waterbury of Stamford. This Samuel Keeler was the army officer who, in the war of 1812, marched his command (see foot note, page 42) from New London, Conn., to Detroit, Mich. Samuel and Lydia Keeler's children were Sally Esther, born Feb. 24, 1799, (Mrs. Jonathan Selleck of Troy, N. Y.); Mary Ann, born May 7, 1802, (Mrs. Henry Selleck of Norwalk) and James Stevens Keeler, born May 7. 1804, of Troy, N. Y

HOME-LOT VIII (SECOND OCCUPANT.)

RICHARD RAYMOND of Salem, in the Jurisdiction of Massachusetts Bay, bought, on Oct. 21, 1662, of Ralph Keeler, "my housings contained at present within my home- lot and cow yard, together with all the conveniences and appointments thereunto belong- ing. as videlicet, the house-floors, doors, glass windows, shelves or ought else that may properly be said to belong to the same, . . and to frame and erect a new building adjoining the same, clapboarding the sides and ends as high as the upper ways;" for all of which Mr. Raymond was to pay Mr. Keeler the sum of 642. This introduces Capt. Richard Raymond, (who was in Massachusetts as early as 1634,) at Norwalk. He evidently came hither as soon as the reconstructed Keeler house was ready for occupancy. He was

of the lane-way leading, in 1896, from Belden Avenue to the Union Co. office. Here were brought up Mr. Stephenson's four children, David, (formerly proprie- tor of the Norwalk Hotel,) Morris (latterly of Dan- bury, ) Matilda ( Mrs. James H. Keeler) and Antionette (Mrs. Samuel Pennover.) Mrs. James H. Keeler was the mother of James, who died unmarried, and Fran- ces E., who married the late Samuel R. P. Camp, and Antionette, who married Edwin, son of Charles Mallory. The Keeler, afterward Lockwood and St. John mill, was burned down about 1727-8. The fire occurred late in the season and some time elapsed before the building was replaced. \'pon its restor- ation by "Governor " Platt of Silver Mine, it was turned into a cotton mill, with a " run of stone" for grist purposes, the original deed of the town to the

Keeler's demanding such a use of the establishment. After the replacement of the structure two English- men rented the industry, and one Florence was its manager. Florence occupied the old St. John house that stood in the street (Main Street) somewhere near the present marble works. The " Norwalk Scales " of that day were directly opposite this house on the west side of the street, the mode of weighing by which (sometimes hoisting into the air) was somewhat pe- culiar. The Keeler-Lockwood mill, afterward "run" by John Arnold, was for years an important local industry. The " Factory Bell," before the advent of steam whistles, was a faithful Norwalk morning mon- itor, and, like the Anson Quintard noonday horn, a familiar Norwalk memory.

'Some of the original "lots" soon changed owners.

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a mariner, and did a coasting trade along the Sound and East River as far South as Man- hattan Island. His Norwalk life was short, as he left here for Saybrook in 1664, where he died in 1692. At the close of the year 1664, his son John Ist, who had been his father's Norwalk attendant, married Mary, daughter of Thos. Betts, who himself had only recently arrived in the plantation. John Ist., who at the time, seems to have been not far from twenty- seven years of age, and Mary, who was about nineteen, took possession of the Raymond home and there founded the Norwalk branch of the family. The old Keeler-Raymond house continued Raymond property until 1699, when it passed into the hands of William Haynes, who occupied it about twelve years. The children of John 'st., and Mary (Betts) Raymond' were :

JOHN 2d., b. Sep. 9, 1665. SAMUEL, b. July 7, 1673.

THOMAS, b. 1678. DANIEL.

HANNAH.

OF JOHN RAYMOND2. DESCENT.

John Raymond 2d,, son of JohnIst., married March 7, 1690, Elizabeth St. John. Elizabeth was the daughter of Samuel, who was a son of Matthias St. John, Senior and the settler. Her mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Walter Hoyt, and her father at her mar- riage, had been six years dead. John and Elizabeth Raymond had six sons and four daughters, (Mary who married Nathaniel Street, Elizabeth who probably died young, Hannah who married Nathaniel Finch and Sarah who married Nathan Burwell.) Their son Jabez, born April 1, 1705, lived to a good age. His will, drawn August 26, 1783, was court-proven August 3, 1789. His wife, Rebecca, born April 9, 1713, daughter of

'Horses, as has been elsewhere noted, seem to have been early Norwalk introduced. Of John Ray- mondist. there is a record that when his first child was two years old (1667) he had "one black horse, one black mare, one Dunnish gray mare and one young colt." The mill at that time had been removed from the lot adjoining Mr. Raymond's premises to the N. W. corner of the present Main and Wall streets, and Norwalk's first Raymond "team" was, it is possible, often seen along the route to the new Whitney mill.

John Raymond Ist., who came from Saybrook to Norwalk, had a next younger brother, Joshua, who, four years previous to the Norwalk removal of his father and brother John, went to New London where belonged his wife, Elizabeth . Smith. Joshua and Elizabeth's oldest son, Joshua 2d., married in the spring of 1683, Mercy, daughter of Capt. James Sandys or Sands of Block Island, of which sea-girt territory the captain, in 1660, had been one of the purchasers. Joshua3d., the second son of Joshua 2d. and Mercy, married on the last day of the summer of 1719, Elizabeth Christophers, and their daughter Eliza-

beth married in 1736 Oliver Hazzard, of Rhode Island. Oliver and Elizabeth (Raymond) Hazzard had a daughter Mercy who married Judge Freeman Perry, of South Kingston, R. I., and these were the parents of the veteran Commodore Christopher Raymond Perry, who was the parent of Commodore Oliver Hazzard Perry of Lake Erie fame, and of Capt. Ray- mond H. J. Perry who commanded one of the vessels of Commodore McDonough's Lake Champlain squad- ron, and of Commodore M. C. Perry, who opened the ports of Japan to the world, and of Lieut. James Alex- ander Perry who was a midshipman before he was twelve years old, and who, serving as his brother's aide on Lake Erie, was wounded while in the small boat that was sent from the Lawrence to the Niagara with word to bring up this ship into battle line. This was the youth, drowned at barely twenty years of age, in bravely saving the life of another, to whom the United States Congress voted a sword. A truly admirable descent from one of Norwalk's Home-Lot VII occupants.

Admiral Francis Hoyt Gregory of Norwalk, stood

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Samuel and Rebecca Platt, evidently survived him but a few months as her estate was inventoried March 26, 1790. The heirs of Jabez and Rebecca Raymond were their son Josiah and the children of their deceased daughter Ann, (wife of Samuel, son of John Platt 3d.) They appear to have lost an unmarried daughter, Hannah, in 1770.

Josiah Ist. son of Jabez and Rebecca Raymond, married, Nov. 5. 1765, Molly Mer- wine. She was from Greenfield Hill and belonged originally, it seems, to the New Haven family of that name. She, albeit but eighteen years of age, brought with her to her Nor- walk married home (later the Geo. A. Raymond property in the rear of the Eli B. Bennett East avenue home) several of the Greenfield slaves who worked in and out doors and were a domestic power. It sometimes happened, not unnaturally, that the Raymond children, after having been sent to early bed, would indulge in a little before sleep "fun," but "Chloe" was depended upon to see that the "up stairs" peace was preserved. Of the boys, Thomas, Platt, Merwine, Josiah Jr. and Jabez, were born in the old pre-Tryon house which stood a little south of the yet standing Geo. A. Raymond home and which was close by (opposite side of street) the house of Capt. Samuel Jarvis, in which was born the second bishop of Connecticut, Rt. Rev. Abraham Jarvis. Geo. A., the youngest son of Josiah"". and Molly Raymond, and whose old time methods are unforgotten, was not born until six years after the town's conflagration. He married Pamelia Banks, of Greens Farms (a sister of a true Norwalk mother, Mrs. John L. Smith) and the two lived in the rebuilt house which is still in existence. Thomas, the oldest son of Josiah 's", took his bride (Eunice Meeker) from his mother's Greenfield vicinity, and was the father of William Raymond, one of whose sons, Thomas I, now resides in West Street, South Norwalk.'

godfather for one of old Commodore Christopher Raymond Perry's grand-children, Capt. Geo. W. Rogers, U. S. N., who was killed in the Civil War. Commodore McDonough's sons were educated in Norwalk. The Norwalk affinity to the Sands-Ray- mond-Perry connection (an honorable relationship) is thus traced. Capt. John Sands, son of Capt. James and Ann ( Palmer) Sands of Block Island (1660), mar- ried Sybil, daughter of Simon Ray of Block Island. In 1696 Capt. John removed to Long Island and established himself at the famous neck, named for him. Sands Point. One of Capt. John's daughters, Abigail, married Hon. John Thomas, the first Judge of Westchester county, and Capt. John's nephew, Samuel Sands, married Mary Pell, of the Manor of Pelham. Capt. John Sands had a brother Samuel, and the two brothers (sons of Captain James) mar- ried two Ray sisters. Mary Sands, daughter of Capt. John, married, Dec. 1710, at Jamaica, L. I., as his second wife, Nathan Selleck, son of Jonathan and Abigail (Gold) Selleck of Stamford. Nathan Selleck was named for his grandfather, Hon. Nathan Gold, of Fairfield, the purchaser of the splendid Roger Lud- low American estate. The first wife of Nathan Sel-

leck was Susanna, only child of William Hooker, of Farmington, Conn. She was married to Mr. Selleck on Aug. 12, 1708, at only eighteen years of age. She died Oct. 5, 1709, leaving one child, Susanna, born Sep. 3. 1709. This child grew to become the wife of Joseph St. John and hence the ancestress of the Nor- walk Buckingham St. John, Buckingham Lockwood and Isaac Scudder Isaacs children's blood.

Her father, married second, Mary Sands, who, as was the case with Mr. Selleck's first wife (Susanna Hooker) lived only a short time. She died July 13. 1712, and her husband married her cousin Sarah Sands, (daughter of Samuel Sands). There were nine child- ren by this union. (See Selleck lineage).

'The present West street in South Norwalk may with propriety be designated AN HONOR-WAY. As early as 1641 Andrew Ward and Francis Bell picked out their way over it en route to and from Stamford and New Haven. A portion of the aclivity was first called "Campfield's Hill" from the fact that Samuel, son of Matthew Campfield (King Charles 1662 char- ter nominee), and a grandson of Sarah, sister of Gov. Robert Treat, planted one (probably the first) of its hearthstones. Madam Knight, in her memorable trip

1 11

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Platt Raymond, another son of Josiah '', married Hannah Benedict, and was the parent of Lewis, the father of the present Mrs. Chas. Ambler and her sister of Hurlburt St., Wilton. Merwine, next brother of Thos. and Platt, married Phoebe, daughter of Stephen Marvin who was an influential churchman in the war days of the last century. Josiah 21 .. still another son of Josiah ">., married Clara Mott. The bride, while a maiden, lived with her father and mother, who were from New York, on what is to-day known as Harbor ave- nue and south of the ancient Dr. Bryan place. After marrying, Josiah 2d. made his home for a season at his father's, and then on the Rev. Thomas Hanford's premises (S. W. corner, 1896, of East avenue and Fort Point street.) Himself and wife here awaited the building of their new home, where, in recent years, dwelt their son Rufus. Mrs. Raymond, a woman of energy and business ways, was a help-meet to her husband who was a just man and of unswerving principle. The report made to him to the effect that the produce sent, on one occasion, to the New York market, had exceeded the quantity "billed," gratified him. This, surplus rather than struck measure, was the measure of the man. His children were Amanda (Mrs. William Marvin); Rufus and Harriet (Mrs. Enos Osborn.) His brother Jabez, who was two months to a day old when Norwalk was burned, married Sarah, daughter of Timothy and grand-daughter of Gov. Thomas Fitch. This staunch couple had a Strawberry Hill home where now resides the widow of the late Walter T. Gray, and the hospitality such as was there dispensed is a rarity. Could the to this day standing walls of the Jabez and Sally Raymond hearthstone speak they would be vocal with the recital of

of 1704, ascended and descended it, Paul Revere climbed it, John Adams wheeled over it, Benjamin Franklin traversed it, Gov. William Tryon was famil- iar with it, George and Martha Washington and Parke and Eleanor Custis rode along it and Dr. Timothy Dwight and "Prince de Benevento," (Charles Maurice Talleyrand*) trotted, presumably, over it, either a little before or after the great couple had morning-met in the identical old fashioned New England inn still pre- served by Col. Alexander Nichols and forming a part of his fine Greenfield Hill establishment. The street in question ( West street) is also an annals-shrine because that near where now stands the new Raymond residence was formed a 1779 Sunday morning sort of "hollow square" for the purpose of concealing British interment operations. This storied upland, Cam de Philo-claimed to be the primitive of the Norwalk proper noun, Campfield, and to be the ancient appellation of the country adjacent to the site of the University of Oxford-merits, in some of its hill parts, Campfield name perpetuation.

Merwine and Phæbe Raymond were the parents of

a quartette of sturdy, sensible Norwalk sons, viz .. Stephen, Josiah, Marvin and Thomas M. Stephen married Amelia, daughter of Jonathan and Sarah (Cannon) Fitch, and lived in the house erected by his father-in-law and now occupied by his son-in-law, Oscar W Raymond. Josiah, who lived in Westport, married Abigail, daughter of Ebenezer Crofoot of Silver Mine, and sister of the mother of the late Wm. G. Thomas of East Avenue. Marvin married, May 3, 1831, Laura Morehouse and brought up a large family in Silver Mine. Thomas M. was twice married and lived on Belden Hill.

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Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 17

Author: Selleck, Charles Melbourne. Publication date: 1896 Publisher: The author, Number of Pages: 553

Author: Selleck, Charles Melbourne.
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: The author,
Number of Pages: 553