Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 25

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

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Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The first wife (Mary Smith) of the Stamford pastor (Rev. Daniel Smith), was a daughter of Rev. Cotton Mather Smith of Sharon, Conn. Rev. John Cotton and Rev. Richard Mather were two of primitive New England's strongest theologians. A daughter of Rev. John Cotton married a son (Increase, President of Harvard College) of Rev. Rich- ard Mather. From this union sprang New England's famous Rev. Cotton Mather, whose daughter Jerusha married Rev. Samuel Smith of Suffield. To Rev. Samuel and Jerusha Smith was born Rev. Cotton Mather Smith, who married a daughter of William Worthing- ton of Saybrook. These were the parents of the first Mrs. Rev. Daniel Smith of Stamford. This Mrs. Daniel Smith's brother was Hon. John Cotton Smith of Sharon, with whom her son, Rev. Thomas Mather Smith, born in Stamford March 7, 1796, studied. This son (Rev. Thomas Mather Smith) married Sept. 26, 1822, Mary G., oldest daughter of Rev. Dr. Leonard Woods of Andover, Mass., and had Rev. Dr. John Cotton Smith, the well- known rector of the Church of the Ascension in New York city.

The appearance in this work of matter which may seem a little Norwalk-foreign is perhaps pardonable when the fact is recalled that the author, whose collateral data he has for years been engaged in collecting, believes that by type-perpetuation some of it may be of service to the future genealogist.

URIAH ROGERS BRANCH.

Uriah Rogers1st., M. D., son of James 3d, and Elizabeth (Harris) Rogers, and half brother of Nehemiah (James Rogers 3d. married, first, Elizabeth Harris, and second, Free- love Holiboat) has date registration in Norwalk at about the time of his father's decease. His father, who seemed to appreciate the worth of an education, saw his son Uriah equipped and ready to emerge in a useful profession. This son, according to Blakeman, studied with Dr. Jonathan Bull of Hartford, and was licensed by the Connecticut Court in 1733. This was the year of his father's death in Norwalk. He was now twenty-two years of age

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(seven years older than Nehemiah) and having married not far from this time, he located on "Mill Hill," where resides, in 1896, the aged Mrs. James Mallory. Mrs. Uriah Rogers Ist. was from an old Norwalk family. She was the daughter of James and Lydia (Smith) Lockwood and the grand-daughter of Ephraim and Mercy (St. John) Lockwood. Her brother was the Rev. James Lockwood who declined the presidency of the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1758, and in 1766 refused the proffer of the same position at Yale. Both Dr. and Mrs. Rogers were of conspicuous Norwalk relation. Their children were :

Hannah ; born June 7, 1735.

Lydia ; born Dec. 15, 1737.

Uriah 2d .; born Dec. 17. 1739;

James ; born Sept. 5, 1742, removed to Redding.

John ; born Nov. 3, 1744. Esther; born Oct. 1, 1746.

David; born Aug. 21, 1748.

Abigail ; born Oct. 14, 1749. Hezekiah.

Hannah Rogers, oldest child of Dr. Uriah and Hannah Rogers, married Moss Kent, who was the son of Rev. Elisha Kent, the ninth child of John and Abigail (Dudley) Kent of Suffield, Mass. (John Kent was a son of Samuel Kent of Gloucester in the same state and his wife was a daughter of William Dudley of Saybrook, Conn.) Rev. Elisha Kent was born in Suffield, July 9, 1704. He graduated at Yale College in 1729, studied theolo- gy, and after the departure of the Rev. John Beach from the Congregational pastorate of Newtown, Conn., was thence called and ordained in Sept. 1732, Rev. Moses Dickinson of Norwalk being the ordination preacher. On April 3, 1732 he had married Abigail, daugh- ter of Rev. Joseph Moss of Derby, Conn. On Aug. 3, 1743 he purchased from William Smith, an old-time lawyer of New York and an "Oblong" property partner of James Brown of Norwalk, a tract of land in the town of South East, Putnam County, N. Y., whence he removed from Newtown. His first wife, by whom he had all his children, died in South East, Jan. 1751, at the age of thirty-three. He afterward married the widow of Joshua Raymond of Norwalk, nee Elizabeth Fitch, the only sister of Gov. Thomas Fitch and his two brothers Samuel and James. He was the Presbyterian pastor in South East until his death, July 17, 1776. His children were Moss, Mary, Lucy, Sybil and Sarah. MossIst., his only son, born March 25, 1733, married, as has been noted, Hannah, daughter of Dr. Uriah Ist. and Hannah (Lockwood) Rogers of Norwalk, the latter of whom was the first cousin of Peter Lockwood, great grandfather of W. B. E., Col. F St. John and Miss Julia Abigail Lockwood, 1896. The children of Hon. Moss and Hannah (Rogers) Kent were Chancel- lor James Kent, Hon. Moss Kent2d., and Mrs. William P. Platt.

Chancellor James Kent, born in South East, Putnam County, N. Y., July 31, 1736, a great-grandson of James who was son of Ephraim and Mercy (St. John) Lockwood (the first

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Norwalk Lockwood foreparents), and a grandnephew of Nehemiah and Elizabeth (Fitch) Rogers, was one of the world's renowned jurists. He was sent when a lad of about five years to his grandparents in Norwalk, and here attended school, leaving in 1772 to study Latin with a relative in New York state. He there remained three years and was then placed in a Danbury school, entering Yale College in 1777. He had been in college only two years when Tryon invaded the town (one week before the invasion of Norwalk) and the college was closed. During his enforced vacation he resolved to take up the study of law and after finishing at Yale was admitted to the bar in 1785. His career was illustrious and his fame is the proud property of the nation. In about 1823 he gave up public life and resided in New York, where, at No. 20 Union Square, he died Dec. 12, 1847. He was buried in Fishkill, N. Y. His wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Capt. John Bailey, died June 19, 1851. The Chancellor's father was interred in an old Wall Street, New York, burying ground. His mother died in Westport at the close of December, 1771. The lad was at his grandfather's in Norwalk on the evening of his mother's decease. He was sent for and reached his parent's bedside a half hour before she passed away. Her remains were taken to South East where her tomb stone is thus lettered :

" Here lies ye body of Mrs. Hannah Kent, wife to Moss Kent, Esqr., and daughter of Dr. Uriah Rogers and Mrs. Hannah Rogers. She died happily on ye 30th of Decem- ber, 1771, in ye 36 year of her age."

Uriah Rogers, Jr., son of Uriah, Sr. and Hannah Rogers, was born, married, lived and died in Norwalk. His wife was Elizabeth, born Dec. 20, 1743,' daughter of Eliakim and Hannah (Street) Raymond. The house was what has since been known as the Betsey Church place, on lower France Street, and is now the property of Edward Merrill. In making excavation for a new foundation Mr. Merrill found, some years since, one of Mrs. Rogers' set of tea-spoons, marked "E. R." The Dr.'s life was short, and he survived his father only a little over three years, dying Dec. 23, 1776, at the age of thirty-eight. His wife continued his widow (sixty years) until her decease Oct. 27, 1836, at the ripe age of ninety-one.

DavidIst., son of Uriah Rogers, Sr., was the Sr. New York city physician of that name, and the member of the family who had a house on Greenfield Hill. His drives to Norwalk2 are a mention of the past. Dr. David RogersIst. married Martha, daughter of

1So reads a family record, but, as appears by her tombstone inscription, she was born in 1745.

2Among the most gratifying of mentions-anti- quate are those of the Norwalk and Fairfield social fraternizations. These commenced, indeed, with the beginnings of Norwalk history. Thomas Fitch, Sr., had a daughter Mary who married into the Sherwood family, and Governor Thomas Fitch had a daughter Elizabeth who married a Rowland, and a son Heze- kiah who wedded a Burr-strong Fairfield names-

and these were people who, unquestionably, enjoyed each other's company. The roads at that day were rough, the dwellings distantly separate and the way winding, but the Norwalk fathers and mothers did not believe in " dead exile" living. There was help- ful intercourse between the two sister settlements. Norwalk was an attraction to Dr. and Mrs. Timothy Dwight of Greenfield Hill, even if the old grand- father Isaacs house had sadly gone up in British start- ed flames. On one of the Sr. John Cannons Fairfield

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Charles Tennent of Maryland. This was the family to which belonged the Rev. William Tennent of the wonderful "trance" connection, and also his son who was pastor of the Nor- walk Congregational Church from 1765 to 1772.

Dr. David Rogers, Sr. had a large family. His sixth child, Susan, married Rev. John Austin of Bridgeport. This Greenfield Hill woman, grand-daughter of Dr. Uriah, Sr. and Hannah Rogers of Norwalk, was the mother of Rev. David Austin, pastor some few years since of the Second Congregational Church in South Norwalk, and grandmother of the present Judge Alfred Ely Austin of West Avenue, Norwalk. See note page 189.

Dr. Uriah Rogers, Sr. was one of Norwalk's early but excellently equipped physi- cians and most eminent citizens. To follow down his widely scattered descent would be a work quite outside the province of this volume, and yet it is possible to propose a far less compensating project. The Dr. died in his home (opposite the present town structure on Town House Hill) some three summers before Norwalk was burned. His remains were borne, simply across the street, where, in a plainly marked grave, they to this day are interred. His residence seems to have remained intact until it was destroyed by the enemy on July 11, 1779. Out of it, that morning, it is claimed, were hastily taken the cane of Gov. Thomas Fitch and the Rogers crest, neither of which keep-sakes are, however, necessary to the perpetuity of the fame of the two distinguished households, from which so many families, all over this wide land, sprang.

visits-it is a family tradition-he spent a Sunday in the old town and attended worship in the old church. A voice in the choir engaged his attention and Esther Perry changed her name and residence. A pleasing outing to the brook-dale (Cannon St. 1896) St. John's e nbraced the Fairfield Hubbell's where they were sure to find good housekeeping. Dr. Ebenezer H. Belden of Gramercy Park, neighbor to the Lawrence's and Lott's, summered a little this side of Greenfield, and because of the large Norwalk family must have been interested in his foreparents' town; while of Mrs. John Glover and her Hoyt female friend (who to the last insisted that Hoyt should be H-a-i-g-h-t pro- nounced) it is told how they would delightfully end their Norwalk calls by a cup of tea partaken of at the now ancient Selleck house near Berkeley Place corner, West Avenue. These Fairfield ladies, who were wel- comed in Norwalk, were ladies of position and con- nection. Mrs. Glover's daughter Martha married Rev. James Davenport Fitch of Stamford and had two children, one of whom married J. Howard Mont- gomery, son of the late Dr. Henry Eglington Mont- gomery of New York city and a brother of Mrs. W. G. Langdon of Norwalk. Dr. Henry E. Montgom- ery was cousin of Rev. William White Montgomery, whose Norwalk visits were continued until his life's close. John and Mary Crathorne Montgomery of

Philadelphia were the gr-parents of both of the cleri- cal Montgomery cousins. John and Mary's son, Rev. Dr. James Montgomery, married, second, Mary H. White, a grand-daughter of Bishop William White, and had, Rev. William White Montgomery, who took pleasure in visiting the Norwalk intimate of his great grandfather Bishop White. This Norwalk intimate of Bishop White was William Cooper Mead, D.D., who just before the bishop's death, in Philadelphia, held and directed his hand the last time that his sig- nature was document-affixed (testifying to Dr. McClos- key as bishop of Michigan.) Dr. James Montgom- ery's brother John C., who was the postmaster of Philadelphia, was the father of Rev. Dr. Henry E. Montgomery, rector of the Church of the Incarna- tion, New York city.

Another Fairfield visitor to Norwalk was Mrs. Jonathan Bulkley. Mr. Bulkley, a history - name, owned the admirable level immediately east of the present court house in Fairfield and now the site of the Glover house and grounds. Mrs. Bulkley was a daughter of James and Hannah Hoyt of Norwalk and a sister of Isaac Hoyt (grandfather of Gen. W. T. Sherman), and of Gould Hoyt who married Elizabeth Dimon of Fairfield and who built and occupied the Norwalk 1896 Main Street Edwin Hoyt family home. The late Mrs. Edwin Hoyt of Norwalk plainly reiter-

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A JAMES ROGERS4th. NORWALK DESCENT.

James Rogers' estate was distributed March 15, 1740. Three representative citizens were chosen as distributors, viz: Thomas Benedict, Jr., Samuel Cluckstone and Samuel Ketchum. James4th., who does not appear in Norwalk, is the son first named; Mary, wife of John Chester is next named; then Esther, wife of John Seabury; Uriah ; Jedediah ; Ne- hemiah ; Stephen ; Moses; Aaron and Lemuel. Some twenty days before this distribution (Feb. 26, 1740) Michael Cluckstone was appointed guardian to Stephen, Aaron and Lemuel and required to furnish bonds to the amount of £1,000. The homestead was set-off to Nehemiah and Moses, and the first seems to have tenanted it. It stood near to where stands, in 1896, the East Norwalk station for New York trains. Nehemiah was now about twenty-two years old and was not yet married. The widow (Mrs. James Rogers 3d.) who had recently died, probably occupied the premises during life. There were three child- ren, Elizabeth, Claron and Samuel un-named in the distribution. Possibly these, with the exception of Samuel, were deceased. Of Samuel, who does not seem to elsewhere belong, we have notice as late as in war times, in the Fairfield probate records.

James Rogers4th., (son of James3d., who with his second wife, Freelove, is interred in the 1896 East Norwalk cemetery) did not reside in Norwalk. He was born Aug. 20, 1704, and he married Mary, daughter of Peter Harris of New London County. To James 4th. and Mary were born nine children, one of whom, Peter'st., born Dec. 3, 1725, married in the eastern part of the Connecticut colony. Peter"t. was a sea captain and died on one of his voyages, his sailors burying him on an island.' He left a son, Peter2d.,

ated the old Hoyt mention that Mrs. Goold Hoyt's pleading (see page 45) saved this same homestead from the flames in 1779. Gen. Garth evidently had charge of the Tryon detachment which on that Sun- day morning passed through what was then the upper portion of Main Street. It was the " Yeager" wing of the invaders that seemed to fall to Garth's com- mand and the men were at times with difficulty held in check. Three days previous to Mrs. Goold Hoyt's Norwalk intercession her Fairfield sister-in-law, Mrs. Jonathan Bulkley, had the official " protection" for her premises from Garth himself, but the general's order had no effect whatever. His men ( probably the same who heeded, three days afterward, Mrs. Goold Hoyt's Norwalk request) tore, in flat disobedience to Garth's mandate, Mrs. Bulkley's buckles from her shoes and ring from her finger and then fired her house. It must be remembered that at the devasta- tion of New Haven, Fairfield and Norwalk, Garth was second in command. His superior, Tryon, had, it would appear, more immediate direction of the "reg- ulars." a more orderly element, in all probability, than Garth's "Hessians." A bit of conjecture underlies the fact that Mrs. Bulkley should have had, on Thursday, a safety assurance (albeit disregarded)

from Gen. Garth, and that her brother's wife (Mrs. Goold Hoyt) should have made a successful Norwalk appeal on the next Sunday. It is a matter of record that, much to the indignation of a portion of the family of James and Hannah Hoyt, one of its mem- bers should have three years before, piloted the Brit- ish (Gen. Howe's) fleet from Boston to New York. This identical member of the family interceded for his Fairfield sister, and was, possibly, the " power be- hind the throne" that secured the preservation of the to-day standing Norwalk Main Street Hoyt home.

The Fairfield-Norwalk drives of Dr. David Rog- ers, Sr. are one of the latter town's old memories. The Dr.'s birth place was on the Norwalk "Town Hill." This site, now covered by the residence of the late Mrs. James Mallory, witnessed to the nativity on Aug. 21, 1748, of a future metropolis physician, the family of whom delighted in Greenfield's altitude and attractiveness. It was natural for the Dr. to return to the family birth-place and the trip registrations of the family carriage hitherward are a part of our old an- nals.

'The line of Peter Rogers ist., through his son Peter 2d., has been clearly traced and is in possession of Mrs. Samuel Daskam of Norwalk.

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born in New London July Ist, 1754, who married July 6, 1782, Nancy, daughter of Ben- jamin Green. Peter 2d. and Nancy had Henry (Col. Henry) born Sept. 4, 1784, who married Aug. 31, 1817. Euince Wilcox, and had : Charles W. Rogers and Arietta M. Rogers (Mrs. Samuel Daskam) both of Norwalk.

Col. Henry Rogers is remembered in Norwalk as a typical gentleman, residing at ease, on East Avenue, and who much enjoyed the fine fishing and sailing facilities of Nor- walk harbor. His widow outlived him for many years, her waning days having been soothed by a daughter's tenderness. By one of those coincidences, occurring occasionally, the Colonel, all unbeknown until the discovery of the fact by an Isthmus of Panama lad, (long after the Colonel's burial) was interred and now rests only a few feet from his New London great-great-grandfather in Norwalk's first cemetery. His grand-daughter, Mrs. James Lawrence Stevens of 1896 is of direct lineage, in the seventh generation, of James Rogers 3d., and in the ninth generation of James Rogers " ". of New London.

ROGERS MISCELLANY.

AN URIAH ROGERS "DEVELOPMENT."

Gen. I .- Uriah and Hannah (Lockwood) Rogers.

" II .- Moss and Hannah (Rogers) Kent.

" III .- William P and Hannah (Kent) Platt.

William Pitt Platt, son of Judge Zephaniah Platt (the original proprietor of Platts- burgh, N. Y.) married Oct. 11; 1790, Hannah Kent, grand-daughter of Dr. Uriah Rogers, Sr. of Norwalk, and a sister of Chancellor James Kent. This Norwalk Rogers grandchild (Mrs. William P. Platt) was one of the most attractive women of Plattsburgh, N. Y., where she died Dec. 12, 1842, at the age of seventy-four years. Her husband, born April 30, 1771, was three years her junior, but died seven years before his wife. They had six child- ren.

Judge Zephaniah Platt, father of the above Mr. and Mrs. William P. Platt, was the uncle of Col. Richard Platt, in whose arms General Richard Montgomery died, in Quebec. on the last day of 1775. A grand-niece of Col. Richard Platt, Mrs. Mary Garner Rider, to-day occupies the door-yard next to that in which Mrs. William P. Platt's great aunt, Elizabeth Fitch (Mrs. Nehemiah Rogers) of Norwalk, was brought up. Mr. William P. Platt's cousin Elizabeth (sister of Col. Richard Platt) married David S., born 1770, son of Nicholas C. and Anna (Schuyler) Bogart. Nicholas C. Bogart (son of Cornelis and Cor- nelia Bogart) was a heavy merchant of New York and lived and died on the corner of Liberty St. and Broadway. He was gr .- grd .- father of Mrs. M. G. Rider now of East Ave.

A NORWALK "OLD YEAR" ROGERS INCIDENT.

It was the evening of the last Sunday of 1771. The day had in all likelihood been spent, as was the olden custom, quietly and considerably in the sanctuary. From the home

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of Dr. Uriah Rogers, Sr. (Mallory Mill Hill estate of 1896) to the "Meeting House" (Mrs. William G. Thomas, East Avenue home 1896) was hardly a quarter-mile walk, and the Dr., wife, children and little James Kent had, very probably, attended morning and afternoon, where minister Dickinson discoursed, that closing Lord's day of the year, upon the flight of time and the flux of life. The child, little James Kent, like young James King' (see note page 171) of fifty years later, was here regarded. He was a grandson of Dr. Rogers, with whom he passed several years (1768- 1772) while attending school, and probably not one of his numerous Norwalk kin dreamed that the youth's fame was, one day, to fill the world. Night had settled over "Mill Hill" and Sunday was already hard pursued by incoming Monday, when a mounted messenger from the east flit past The Green and alighted before Dr. Rogers' door. His errand was a sad one, for he informed the family that their daughter Hannah (Mrs. Moss Kent) and the lad's (James) mother, was dying at the Compo water- side, some three or four miles away. Taking the boy James into the saddle with him the messenger spurred his steed over the Westport hills and across the Westport bridge, and down "Compo Road" until he reached the harbor-facing home (since the Lawrence Sea- scape Villa.) At the door-step one stood waiting to receive the child to her arms. It was

"This Norwalk school lad was James Gore King, Jr., son of James G. Ist. and Sarah (Gracie) King and consequently a grandson of Hon. Rufus and Mary (Alsop) King, and a great-grandson of Nehemiah and Elizabeth (Fitch) Rogers, which branch of the King family descended from Richard King, a Maine mer- chant of celebrity. The Ridgefield Kings, a member of which old household, J. Howard King, is (in 1896) greatly embellishing the King premises in that at- tractive town, stand in more immediate association with Gen. Joshua King, and once proprietor, in part. of the ancient " Mill " at " Norwalk Bridge."

Young James G. King 2d., the transient Norwalk school-boy of the earlier nineteenth century, and who is here remembered with admiration, married his cousin, a daughter of Gov. John Alsop King. His sister married William Denning Duer, whose father, William Alexander Duer, was second cousin of the Philip Livingston alluded to in foot note, page 19, whose memorial is in the Norwalk Berkeley Street Chapel, and who was the son of Peter Van Brugh and Mary (Alexander) Livingston, and grandson of Philip and Katharine (Van Brugh) Livingston, who was the son of Robert Livingston, the American founder of the family. Philip Livingston of Nor- walk memory, spent his summers at the family's Greenburgh (Dobb's Ferry) seat and passed the win- ter season at his town residence in Park place (after- ward the home of Goold Hoyt 2d. of Norwalk.) His son, Peter Van Brugh Livingston, married Mrs. Maria (called in the family Harriet) Hloustoun, and lived in Bleecker Street. He had, finally, the dispos- ition of a goodly share of his father's estate, a portion

of which, falling under the hammer, was redeemed through the intervention of his cousin, Miss Eliza- beth Ludlow. One of these restored family heir looms is a robe of brocaded silk which belonged to Mrs. Philip Livingston ( mother of Peter who married Mrs. Houstoun) and which has been preserved by converting it into covers for three small reception room divans. Another choice souvenir is the elegant fabric of white lace worn by a niece of Mrs. Philip Livingston (Mrs. John A. Willink) as bridesmaid at the wedding of John A., brother of President Charles and Hon. James G. King; while a still further Liv- ingston relic is an oil painting, the work of Mrs. Dr. McKnight, daughter of William Edgar, which was a bridal present at the Peter V. B. Livingston-Houstoun solemnities. These and other mementoes (referred to on page 174) are carefully Norwalk kept.

The story of the King bridesmaids robes and of the several handsome "empire" suits which belong to the Norwalk collection is quite unique. When Gen. Howe evacuated Boston and, piloted by a Nor- walk Hoyt seaman, took up his encampment on lower Long Island, his officers often found that time dragged. During their long stay near the present city of Brooklyn, parties were occasionally given to relieve the tedium. The several sisters of Mrs. Philip Livingston (see note page 17) were very social and were often invited guests. In return for their courte- sies His Majesty's " command " presented their horses to the ladies as a leave-taking compliment at the close of the war. After their return to England they were still unforgetful of their pleasant American associa- tions and sent the referred-to robes to the family.

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his aunt Lucy,' his father's sister, and the mother of Mrs. James Van Renssalaer, and sister of Mrs. John Kane whose son Elisha Kent Kane married Alida Van Renssalaer, which Elisha and Alida were the grandparents of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the Arctic explorer. Mrs. Lucy Cullen bore the just arrived Rogers grandson into the presence of his departing mother, who soon after her renown-destined offspring entered, closed her eyes in this world, forever. Her remains, as has been noted, were borne to South East. No Nor- walk maiden has a prouder memory than Hannah Kent, and the cradle on " Mill Hill" and the grave in South East, was and is well filled.

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Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 25

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