USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Norwalk > Norwalk, history from 1896 > Part 22
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Rufus Lockwood, brother of Betsey (Mrs. Samuel Campfield) and son of Gershom Lockwood, married Sally Maria, born July 12, 1819, daughter of Samuel O. and Deborah (Campfield) Raymond. Sally Maria Raymond was the sister of the late Ebenezer W. Ray- mond of Lewisboro, N. Y. The children of Rufus and Sally Maria Raymond were: Samuel, John, Jo- seph and Frances, mother of the 1896 Justice Stephen G. Seymour of Lewisboro, N. Y. Stephen G. Sey- mour is a son of Rufus, who was a son of Samuel, who was a son of Thomas 2d. (of Ridgefield), who was a son of Thomas ist. and Sarah (Rockwell) Seymour of Ridgefield, Mr. S. G. Seymour has two children, a son, (who married a daughter of Joseph Crawford of New Canaan), and a daughter.
3Jehiel Seymour, on March 13, 1738-9, sold for £457. 12s. to Peter White who had recently removed
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Catharine ; died probably unmarried.
Susanna; married Josiah Rusco.
Daniel Ist.
Note that the only two sons of Matthew "t. and Sarah Seymour who remained in Norwalk were Thomas Seymour 2d. and Daniel Ist.
John 2d., son of Thomas Ist. and Hannah Seymour, married Sarah, daughter of Jachin and grand-daughter of John Gregory, Sr., and had :
John 3d.
Mary : married Thomas Hanford.
Sarah ; married Daniel Trowbridge.
Abigail ; married, Nov. 5, 1729, John Selleck of Stamford.
Rebecca ; married first July 6, 1734, Elijah Whitney ; married second John Bouton of Danbury.
Martha : married Samuel Jarvis.'
John Seymour 3d., son of John 2d. and Sarah (Gregory) Seymour, married Ruth, daughter of William and Margaret Belden. This Seymour-Belden alliance was not only the mingling of strong New England blood, but on account of the Belden sufferings and sacrifices in King William's French, Indian and American troubles, entitles every descend- ant to " Colonial Wars " recognition.
William Belden, born 1671, (nephew of the first John and Samuel Belden of Nor- walk) was the son of Daniel and Elizabeth (Foote) Belden of Deerfield, Mass. Daniel and Elizabeth were married Nov. 10, 1660. Mrs. Belden's father was Nathaniel Foote 2d., son of Nathaniel Foote Ist. who had married, in 1615, in England, Elizabeth Deming, sister of John Deming, Sr., one of the fathers of Wethersfield, Conn. Nathaniel Foote ">". died in this country, in 1646, and his widow married Gov. Thomas Wells. She died, July 28, 1683. Her grand-daughter, Mrs. Daniel Belden "., bequeathed Deming-Foote (a notable union) blood to a large number of Norwalk citizens to-day.
On Sept. 16, 1696, a company of " French Mohawks " made an attack upon Daniel and Elizabeth Belden's Deerfield homestead. It was "lecture day," and the people, in
from Stamford to Norwalk some twenty-six and one- half acres of land occupied at present in part by the Norwalk Armory and also the now vacant lot on West Avenue southeast of the Armory. A barn and the frame of a dwelling house stood upon the land at the time of its purchase by Mr. White, who there erected his home and also a shop for the manufacture of sil- verware. The -hop stood where now i- built the Con- necticut turnpike. The year of said Seymour's sale to said White was the year of the latter's marriage to Elizabeth Jarvis. The oldest child by this union was Samuel, born July 13, 1740. This son married Nov. 1769. Huldah Sanford and had two sons (Samuel zd.,
born Feb. 6, 1772; and Stephen, born May 13, 1775). lle had three daughters (Elizabeth. b. Dec. 12, 1772; Sarah, born Jan. 27, 1784; Huldah, born July 6. 1785.) James was born Jan. 21, 1790. After the birth of the two sons and daughter first named, the senior Mrs. Samuel White died, on June 1, 1778, and Mr. White married, second, in Jan. 1781, Rebecca Pickett. To the three daughters of Samuel White, their grand- father, Peter, bequeathed on April 9, 1802, the twelve front acres of his purchase of March 13, 1738. His oldest grand-daughter, Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel, had married Noah, son of Hezekiah and Mary Jarvis. 'Samuel Jarvis 2d., who married Martha Seymour,
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order that they might be present in season at the meeting house, worked, that day, near home. Daniel Belden, hastened to public worship, but, with several children, was taken prisoner on the way. One of these prisoner-children (William) married Margaret, daugh- ter of William Arms, and was the progenitor of many Norwalk descendants.
John Seymour #1, son of John 3d. and Ruth Seymour, (daughter of Wm. and Margaret Belden) married Rebecca Keeler. and lived on the recent John Sammis, now the remodeled McMahon place on West Ave. In 1779 Gen. Garth burned the there standing Seymour house, and its proprietor threw together for a shelter the house below shown (corner West Avenue and Cedar Street) which was not removed until 1896.'
THE SAMMIS HOUSE, 1229-1896.
The above structure was intended to serve the purpose of a transient accommoda-
was the brother of Rt. Rev. Abraham Jarvis the sec- ond Bishop of Connecticut. These two sons of Capt. Samuel ist and Naomi (Brush) Jarvis were brought up in the meadow home in the present Raymond Street, East Norwalk, a few rods north of the residence of Edmund Smith, Samuel and his Seymour wife lived in Stamford. His father had removed from Hunting- ton, 1 .. L., to Norwalk in early manhood, and the bride's father was of the old Norwalk Seymour stock. They had a number of Stamford children, one of whom, Lavinia, born Oct. 5. 1761, married Rev. Am- brose Todd, who was the father of Rev. Ambrose S.
Todd, rector for forty years of St. John's Church. Stamford. The Rev. Charles J. Todd, brother of Rev. Ambrose S., married a daughter of George Can- non, Sr., of Wilton.
Another brother of Samuel Jarvis ad. was the ven- erable Hezekiah Jarvis who lived opposite St. Paul's Church and was the father of Rev. William Jarvis, (father of Mrs. Col. Samuel Colt of Hartford) and of his sisters, the Misses Sarah, Lavinia, Amelia and Mary, who so long occupied the "Jarvis Corner," (Newtown Avenne and Westport Road.)
(This ancient building was torn down in 1896 to
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tion while the new house was in process of erection over the ashes of the old home. Mr. Seymour died before the work was accomplished and the property was bought from the heirs and built upon by his grandson, (son of his daughter Ruth who married Augustus Sammis) the to-day remembered John S. Sammis who so long kept a store on the little hill opposite his house, now a lower section of the Matthews West Avenue property, and whose aged widow, Mrs. Nancy W. Sammis, survived until a recent date. John#h. and Rebecca Seymour had nine children. (See Seymour lineage.)
Seth Seymour, second son of John3d. and Ruth Seymour, married Anna, daughter of Nathaniel and Mary (Lockwood) Benedict, the oldest daughter of which Seth and Anna was named (Anna) for her mother, and married Lewis Mallory. Lewis Mallory was the father of Charles, James and Alfred Mallory, and of their sisters (Mary Esther) Mrs. Algernon E. Beard, and Harriet (Mrs. Geo. H. Hulen). Lewis Mallory resided in the fine old-fashioned East Avenue dwelling, subsequently the property of George W. Betts. Mr. Mallory, who was an infant when Norwalk was burned, died July 21, 1848. His wife sur- vived him, ending her days with her daughter, Mrs. A. E. Beard. The . Meeting-House Hill," John (brother of Lewis) Mallory property has become, in 1896, the ownership of a grand-nephew of John Mallory, Rev. Augustus F. Beard, D.D., whose new purchase covers the ancient "Common," and the site of the second church built in Norwalk.
William, the third son of John 3d. and Ruth Seymour, married Jan. 6, (Little Christ- mas) 1757, Lydia, daughter of Moses, the son of James St. John. This couple lived in rural quiet at the foot of Flax Hill. The Seymour yard was handsome with flowers as was the yard at " The Bridge" of Mrs. Seymour's sister, (Mrs. Capt. Jabez Gregory) with veg- etation. Their son Belden, named for his grandmother, removed to Vermont, where he to- day has influential representation. Their daughter Mary (Polly) married Lieut. Finch Gil- dersleeve of the Continental Army. The Lieut. had charge of artillery when Danbury and Norwalk were burned. His parents were Benjamin and Elizabeth (Huntington) Gil- dersleeve of Long Island. In 1791 himself and wife Polly removed to a farm of some hundred acres in Dutchess County, N. Y. In this same year (Dec. 5, 1791) was born, in Dutchess County, their son, the late eminent Benjamin Gildersleeve, D.D. Dr. Gilder- sleeve was a classmate of Pliny Fiske, Benj. Chase and Dr. Beman. In 1845 he removed to Richmond, Va., where he bought the " Watchman of the South" from the Rev. William Plummer, D.D., who is well remembered in Norwalk. He changed the name of the paper to that of " Watchman and Observer," of which organ he was editor and proprietor. He
make room for the contemplated new residence of Col. Frost. The hill at the base of which it was built was formerly known as " Shovel Hill," and the path over it led, it is supposed, to a small Indian settlement at the present " Bull Run." The brook which flowed adown said hill has of late years been known as " Gosling Brook," upon which stream the Seymours of long ago seemed to have had a "malt" estab-
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lishment. The brook was later utilized for hatting pur- poses by Charles Mallory and the brothers George W. and William H. Benedict. The geography of the de- clivity is now almost completely changed and the Sammis house picture, taken in the old one - track Norwalk Horse Railway days, will serve as a reminder of the past. The trolley system has gratefully trans- formed West Avenue.
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married Sarah E. Elliott (Indian Apostle family) and here brought his bride, on his wed- ding trip, to visit his widowed mother and aged Seymour grandmother. The learned man has conferred honor upon his ancestral Norwalk. He is survived by Virginia children.
James Seymour, youngest son of John3d. and Ruth Seymour, married Rebecca, daughter of Matthew Keeler'st. Said Matthew was a grandson of Samuel and Sarah (St. John) Keeler and a great-grandson of Ralph Keeler the settler. James and Rebecca Sey- mour lived on a portion of the afterward West Avenue LeGrand Lockwood property. They here kept a public house and have distinct mention at this day. They had a large family and their descendants are easily traced.
James Ist. (youngest son of John 3d. and Ruth Belden Seymour) and Rebecca (Keel- er) Seymour had James2d., born March 16, 1775, who married, first, Feb. 3, 1799, Sarah, daughter of Seth and Elizabeth (Squire) Raymond of the present widow George A. Daven- port home - site in Wilton, Conn. The children by this marriage' were, Giles, Anna Ist., Charles, Ira, George, Harriet, Mary and Anna2 .. Of these daughters, Harriet and Anna2d. are unmarried, and living to-day at the foot of Prospect Hill. The remaining sister, Mary, married Samuel Aymar, father of Mrs. Robert Van Buren now of West Ave- nue. (See Seymour lineage.) Of the brothers, Giles, who built the present First Congre- gational Church on The Green, married Rebecca Burr Guyer ; Charles married Jane Wood of New York ; Ira married Julia A., daughter of Dr. Percival. There was a son George, who has mention in the Seymour lineage.
John Seymour, born Feb. 24, 1796, youngest son of James ">t. and Rebecca Seymour, married Sally, daughter of Hutton Smith, and was the father of the present Henry Sey- mour, whose West Avenue residence adjoins the " Hungry Spring" of ancient Norwalk. James 'st. (father of John and James"d. Seymour) and his wife Rebecca represented the old- est Norwalk families. The two lived in what is recalled to-day as the West avenue Hotch- kiss house, which stood (before the LeGrand Lockwood improvements) on the brow of "Sammis Hill" (obliterated by modern public and private topographical changes). The double maple row between the homes of James SeymourIst. and his son Jamesd., was a touch of "Castillian" shade. The entire town grew, perhaps, no more grateful noonday shadow. The house of James"st. was often frequented, as its second story offered room fa- cilities for large gatherings. At one of these post-Revolutionary assemblies His Majesty's officials were guests. Approaching a Norwalk lady one of these gentlemen inquired of her as to the whereabouts of the people during the days of the town's burning. "O we all went to the woods" was the quick reply. A number of British officers seem, for some reason, to have been quartered in the vicinity of Old Well.2
Married, second, Sarah Hanford.
2It is an old tradition that several of these officials while, for some purpose, temporarily quartered at "Old Well" were made the victims of a severe joke. It was the "melon" season and the foreign
young gentlemen were invited to look at a rather re- markable "yield." After wending their long journey from Flax Hill to the "Capt. Gregory" meadows (now West Main Street, Norwalk) the members of the party were pointed to a fine " pumpkin patch."
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A DOUBLE SEYMOUR "SOCIETY OF COLONIAL WARS" ELIGIBILITY.
BELDEN.
KEELER.
Gen. I .- DANIEL Ist, AND ELIZABETH BELDEN.
II -WILLIAM AND MARGARET BELDEN.
" III .- JOHN 3d. AND RUTH (BELDEN) SEYMOUR.
" IV .- JAMES SEYMOUR ISt.
Gen. I .- RALPH KEELER.
" II .- SAMUEL ISt. AND SARAH KEELER.
" III .- SAMUEL 2d. AND SARAH (BETTS) KEELER.
" IV -MATTHEW KEELER.
JAMES SEYMOUR Ist. married February 13, 1774, Rebecca, daughter of MATTHEW KEELER.
Daniel Belden '"., (Hatfield and Deerfield, Mass., 1648-1731,) and his two childen were captured in King William's War, Sept. 16, 1696, taken to Canada and returned in 1698. On the same day, viz : Sept. 16, 1696, his first wife, Elizabeth, and three children were killed by the savages. His second wife was captured and killed by the Indians during Queen Anne's War. Daniel BeldenIst. was appointed upon the committee of fortifications in this war with Col. Partridge. Reference, Sheldon's History of Deerfield, Mass., Vol. I.
Samuel Keeler Ist. of Norwalk was in the Narragansett fight in King Philip's War, Dec. 19, 1675. Reference, Savage Gen. Dictionary, Vol. III., page 2.
All the descendants of John Seymour 3d. and his son James 'st. are (under organization restrictions) entitled to recognition by the Orders (male or female) of Colonial Wars, which fact opens an interesting Norwalk "Colonial Wars" study.
The Deerfield-Belden story is tragic. Daniel Belden, son of William, and brother of John Ist. and Samuel Belden Ist., the earliest of the name in Norwalk, was working in a field near his house in the autumn of 1696. It was a week day but the church was open for a special service, and Mr. Belden had prolonged his work until the hour for public wor- ship was almost at hand. Hurrying to his house to make preparation for the service he saw his wife and two children killed on the spot by the Indians, while himself and two or three other children were made prisoners and taken to Canada. One boy, Samuel, was left in the field. The Indians dealt him a hatchet blow and supposed that he was dead. The child lived and established the Belden family of Ashfield, Mass. A daughter hid her- self in a bed of tobacco leaves and so was saved. The family, for the time being, was broken up. The son William returned with his father and married Margaret, daughter of William Arms. William and Margaret came, naturally, to Norwalk where resided the mar- ried uncle John ". and their bachelor uncle Samuel Ist .. The husband and wife founded the Wilton branch of the Belden family and resided in the Pimpewaugh Valley. The mother gave birth to a number of children, among them Ruth, named in all probability for the child's cousin (the departed daughter of its uncle John) whose little grave (see page 88) is the earliest marked grave in the oldest cemetery in Norwalk. This Ruth married John Seymour3d., and was the ancestress of a long Norwalk Seymour-Belden line. The story of the Seymour occupation of Home-Lot XI., which home-lot proprietors barely introduce the Norwalk important Seymour lineage, very properly concludes with the Belden martyr- mention.
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HOME-LOT XI -SUPPLEMENTAL.
JAMES ROGERS34, OF NEW LONDON, AFTER-OCCUPANT IN PART.
MRS. NEHEMIAH ROGERS RW ELIZABETH FITCH.
(From a portrait formerly in the possession of the Wilton Lamberts, now belonging to the Canada Cruikshanks.)
James3d, and Freelove (Holiboat)' Rogers came, about 1726, from New Lon- don to Norwalk, the descent from whom is both numerous and noticeable. Rogers or Roger is an honored name, writes an annalist, in Italy, Sicily, France, England, Scot- land, Ireland, Wales and America, adding, there have been great men and small men, fish- ermen and popes, day-laborers and noblemen, good men and bad men in the family. The hearthstone in Norwalk has been a worthy one and its children have done it credit.
"The purchase, in 1726 ;, of James Rogers 3d. ap- peared to have embraced a portion of the original Norwalk Seymour (Home-Lot XI) acreage.
2Possibly this name should be written Hurlbutt. Mrs. Freelove Rogers was born in 1694 and was nine- teen years younger than her husband. She was mar- ried at the age of nineteen and bore to her partner several children. She died Jan. 26, 1738, having sur- vived her husband nearly six years. Her step son, Dr. Uriali Rogers, had studied medicine in Hartford
and being licensed by the General Court in 1733 came about the time his father died to Norwalk, and her only step daughter, Mary, married Jan. 2, 1724, Jona- than Chester of Groton, Conn. Her will was pro- bated Feb, 18, 1739-40, the executors being Samuel Cluckston and her son Nehemiah. Her estate in- cluded a silver tankard, suits of silk, a " lace suit." gold rings, gold beads, silverware, a velvet and " game hood," and "Law and Latin books." The estate record is preserved in Fairfield.
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James Rogers3d., who was married on June 29, 1713, by Eliphalet Adams of the First Congregational Church, New London, to "Freelove Holiboat," was born in New London, Feb. 2, 1675. He married, first, about 1701, Elizabeth Harris of New London, by which union there were five children, viz. : EDWARD, JAMES#h., JEDEDIAH, URIAII, and MARY. By his second marriage there were nine children, viz .: NEHEMIAH, STEPHEN, MOSES, AARON, ESTHER, LEMUEL, ELIZABETH, CLARON, and SAMUEL. The oldst child, Edward, was born May 14, 1702. James 4th. was born Aug. 20, 1704, Jedediah 1709, Uriah in 1711, Mary of not satisfactory ascertained date. Whether Nehemiah, who was born May 18, 1718, was the oldest child by the second marriage is not fully determined.
James Rogers3d. was a son of James2d. and Mary (Jordan) Rogers of New London. This family comprised eight children, viz .: James3d., Mary, Elizabeth who died young (be- tween forty and fifty years before her brother James came to Norwalk), Sarah, Samuel, Jonathan, Richard and William.
James Rogers2d., born in Milford, Conn., Feb. 15, 1652, was the fifth child of James '>t. and Elizabeth (Rowland) Rogers of Stratford. This family (James Ist.) numbered eight members, viz .: Samuel, Joseph, John, Bathsheba, James2d., Jonathan, Elizabeth and Sarah.
From the estate distribution of James Rogers 3d., made about one month later (March 15, 1739-40) than the probating of his wife's will, it is inferred that several of the children had then died. His second son, James4th., is first named by his executors. This son married in New London, March 21, 1723, Mary, daughter of Peter Harris. He had nine children, named largely, after his own brothers and sisters. His second son, Peter, born Dec. 3, 1725, had a son Peter2d., born July 1, 1754, who married July 6, 1782, Nancy, daughter of Benjamin Green. He had Roswell, born May 5, 1783, and Col. Henry Rogers, born Sept. 24, 1784, who was the father of Mrs. Samuel Daskam, Sr. (1896) of Norwalk. James Rogers3d. instructed his administrators to make provision for the education of his four younger children, some of whom were possibly deceased at the date, a few years later, of the distribution of the estate.
Nehemiah and Dr. Uriah were the two sons of James Rogers3d. who figured, princi- pally, in ancient Norwalk history. The first was a lad of eight or nine summers when he came with his parents to this town, in which it was to be his fortune to found an eminent family. As years grew apace the youth formed an attachment for a neighboring maiden, Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Fitch, whose home' was but a short distance from his own, and an union, as per following diagram ensued.
IPortions of the homes of Gov. Thomas and his brother James Fitch, are believed to be in existence to-day, but not a vestige of their brother Samuel's house is known to remain. Samuel lived nearly op- posite the residence of his forefather Thomas Fitch, the settler. A section of the home-site of said Samuel
seems to have been occupied by his grandson John- athan, who married into the Cannon family, and built the structure to-day owned by Oscar W. Raymond of East Norwalk. Mrs. Oscar W. Raymond is a grand- daughter of Jonathan Fitch. Her Fitch grandfather died in comparative youth.
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ASCENDANTS AND DESCENDANTS OF NEHEMIAH AND ELIZABETH ROGERS.
ROGERS.
FITCH.1
Gen. I .- JAMESIst. AND ELIZABETH ( ROWLAND) ROGERS.
" II .- JAMES 2d. AND MARY (JORDAN) ROGERS.
III .- JAMES 3d. AND FREELOVE (HOLIBOAT) ROG- ERS.
" IV .- NEHEMIAH ROGERS.
Gen. I .- THOMAS FITCH, the settler.
II .- THOMAS AND RUTH FITCH.
III .- THOMAS AND SARAH FITCH.
IV .- SAMUEL AND SUSANNA FITCH.
V .- ELIZABETH FITCH.
Nehemiah Rogers married Elizabeth, (see portrait page 161) daughter of Hon. Samuel and Susanna Fitch and niece of Gov. Thomas Fitch.
Norwalk having been the crib of ancestors many of the children of whom have never, perhaps, trodden its soil nor read its history, hides, consequently, to such, a site- story of no little interest.
Southeast of the southern foot of the Earle's Hill of 1896 is a field butted, as the proprietors would have expressed it, by the sloping upland, which field formed, about two- and one-half centuries ago, the homestead of the only Norwalk settler who was a Connec- ticut charterer. This settler, Matthew Campfield, Sr., removed, after a brief Norwalk life, to the middle States and his home-lot became the property of "King's Commissioner" Thomas3d., father of Gov. Thomas Fitch and grandfather of Elizabeth, the subject of this mention who, judging from her well authenticated taste-characteristics, knew and loved the ancient home's geography. On Feb. 1, 1714, Thomas 3d. added to the original Camp- field territory, now his own, six acres of the south adjoining Richard Olmstead tract, which half dozen acres he presented, Jan. 6, 1728, three years before his death, to Elizabeth's parent, his son Samuel, who there brought up this fond child, one of the future colonial so- ciety mothers and remarkable ancestresses of America. Samuel, the father of Elizabeth, was a deputy to the Colonial Assembly and appointed May 27, 1743, an auditor of the treasurer's account with the colony (Col. Records page 515), while on the books of "ye prime Ancient Society of Norwalk " is thus recorded concerning him, "Dec. 14, 1747. voted that Samuel Fitch, Esq., shall sit in ye pew next ye pulpit stairs with the rest of ye authority."
Near the lower corner, next below Hon. Samuel Fitch's house (residence to-day of Mrs. Theodocia F. Bradley), had lived, since 1726, Capt. James Rogers," who that same year
IFor Fitch maternity see Fitch lineage.
2James Rogersist. was born in 1615, and sailed from the mother country, in 1635, in " the good ship Increase." He was a young immigrant who appeared, first, at Stratford, Conn , where he married Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Rowland. Rowland is an old western Connecticut family name, and as Samuel Rowland, Sr., left his farm to his grandson, Samuel Rogers, born Dec. 12, 1640, (son of Jamesist. and Elizabeth) it is possible that Elizabeth was his only daughter. James Rogers Ist. seems to have lived in
Stratford for several years. Four of his children, Samuel, Joseph, John and Bathsheba are there birth- registered. He then removed to Milford, where James 2d. and Jonathan were born. Afterward he made New London his home in which place his two younger children, Elizabeth and Sarah, came into the world. In about 1664 he bought, with Major Pymelion of Hartford, two thousand Groton acres. In a letter dated Hartford, June 5, 1666, John Winthrop sub- scribes himself as his (James Rogers ist.) "loving friend." Mr. Rogers died Feb. 16, 1687, at the age
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NORWALK.
brought hither from New London a portion of his large family, one of the sons of which, Nehemiah, was, in the ordering of events, to win for a wife the young Elizabeth Fitch, whose sister Ann, born 1734, had married the "handsomest man in Norwalk," Col. Stephen St. John, of Thomas Hooker, Richard Law and Nathan Gold blood. After the bridal of Ne- hemiah and Elizabeth Fitch the two established for themselves a home close neighbor to the groom's parents (site of present East Norwalk station for west bound trains). Seven children, Fitch, Moses, Susannah, Henry, Nehemiah, Esther and Elizabeth, were born to them, when the father was summoned hence leaving to his widow the care of their offspring, aged at the date of their father's death in 1760, respectively, twelve, ten, eight, seven, five, four years and an infant. The children's grandfather Fitch being still hale, became, doubt- less, their mother's counsellor.
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