Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 26

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

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MRS. HANNAHI ROGERS' ANCESTORS, AFTERS AND AFFINITY

Two of the 1650 settlers who crossed to Saugatuck to set foot on Norwalk soil, their future home, brought with them an infant of not more than two summers. The child's father had selected for himself a home-lot close to the "parade ground" and next the "meeting house." This fact indicated planter-prominence. Besides this the home-site of Matthew Marvin, Sr. was historic, in so far as it marked the "Hollow" in which it is claimed the new comers passed their first night or nights. The little infant which was brought up in that undulating meadow, and whose mother (an old Marvin will makes her out a step- mother) must time and again have been harrassed by reason of the red man's trespassing while the husband and older son were "down in the fields" planting or hoeing, was named Rachel, who in time married Samuel Smith, who early came to the plantation, and the family of whom were the first English owners of the high and healthful Smith's Ridge. The goodly couple had two daughters, Rachel and Lydia, both of whom wedded well known Norwalk young men. Across a few meadows from Lydia Smith's childhood home lived Ephraim Lockwood, the first of his name in Norwalk, who had married Mercy, daughter of Matthias St. John. In his hill-summit home (Earle's 1896) was born to Ephraim and Mercy Lockwood, a son who was called James. The Lockwood's became large land own- ers and to this day the name is acreage-associated. The young James Lockwood married Oct. 23, 1707, the young Lydia Smith, and husband and wife were blest, on the sixth anniversary of their bridal (Oct. 23, 1713) by the birth of their second child (they lost their

'Mary Kent, oldest daughter of Rev. Elisha Kent, married Malcolm Morrison of Patterson, N. Y., whose children were Archibald Morrison of Eton Hall, Kent, England, Mrs. James Adams and Mrs. Rev. John S. Stone of Cambridge, Mass. Lucy, next daughter of Rev. Elisha Kent, married Charles Cul- len, a native of Ireland, but a resident in later life of Putnam County, N. Y. Their children were John and Charles Cullen who died unmarried, and Susan DeLancy Cullen who married James Van Renssalaer of Utica, N. Y., a grandson of Gen. Robert Van Renssalaer of the Revolution. Sybil Kent, the next daughter of Rev. Elisha Kent, married John

Kane. He was a Scotchman and lived upon a farm in Pawling, Dutchess County, N. Y. These were the parents of a large descent. Their son, Elisha Kent Kane, married Alida Van Renssalaer, which two were the parents of \' S. Judge John Kent Kane of Phila- delphia, who was the father of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane the Arctic explorer, and of Dr. John Kent Kane of the U. S. N., who married Mabel Bayard, daughter of U. S. Senator James Asheton Bayard of Wilming- ton, Del. Sarah Kent, the last (page 179) daughter of Rev. Elisha Kent, married Major Alexander Grant of the British Army, who was killed at the storming of Fort Montgomery. Oct. 7, 1771.

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first child the year before) Hannah. This daughter, Hannah, married a young physician who had completed his studies in Hartford and now followed his New London father to Norwalk. This physician was Dr. Uriah, son of James Rogers3d .. The Dr. and his wife chose for themselves a home site, central for the groom's profession and convenient in every way for a family residence (Mill Hill Mallory site). Here the distinguished two lived many years and had born to them, June 7. 1735, their oldest child, Hannah, who was to become the mother of Dr. James Kent, Chancellor.

The brother next to herself of Mrs. Dr. Uriah Rogers, Sr., James, was the Rev. James Lockwood who, Nov. 4, 1742, married Martha, daughter of Rev. Moses Dickinson, the Norwalk Congregational minister at that time. This Norwalk youth, not great in stat- ure, but extraordinarily great as a scholar, was called in 1758 to succeed as president of the College of New Jersey, none the less than Dr. Jonathan Edwards, and in 1766, to fol- low, as head of Yale College, the retiring President Clapp. Both these offers were de- clined.

Among the reminiscences of a generation gone is that of the quietly dignified walk, in the morning or evening cool of the day, of Colonel Buckingham St. John Lock- wood, to, around and from his East Avenue acreage estate. With cane in hand the vener- able man could often be seen leisurely wending his way to the old "stile" (Norwalk Mili- tary Institute corner 1896), whence, after stopping a few moments and then lowering two or three rails to admit of passage through the "bars," he proceeded along the "lane" to overlook his meadows and rear forest-patch. Anon emerging therefrom and returning to the stile, he might possibly sometimes continue his stroll still further down the avenue. On the occasion of some such characteristic driving or walking trip he chanced to see, work- ing as usual in his field, the industrious John L. Smith (father of Edmund of 1896), and, approaching him, thus addressed the farmer : "Do you know, Mr. Smith, that you are a Lockwood?" "I do, Colonel," was the reply ; but while neither party at that time seemed able to get at the root of any near or remote Lockwood relationship, the incident-recall has suggested another family " study."

John Lockwood, born Feb. 8, 1719-20, younger brother of Mrs. Uriah Rogers, Sr., and consequently a son of Col. James and Lydia (Smith) Lockwood and grandson of Ephraim, appears to have had nine children, viz : John 2d., Matthew, Jesse, Phineas, Seth (of Goshen, Conn.), Polly, Betty, Hannah and Sarah. His youngest daughter but one, Hannah, named quite possibly for Mrs. Dr. Rogers, married Sept. 14, 1780, James, son of Fountain Smith, the patriot.' James and Hannah (Lockwood) Smith became the parents

"The history of Fountain Smith, grandfather of John L. Smith, belongs to the Revolutionary period. He was born March 2, 1725, and was son of Robert and Judith (Fountain) Smith. Robert Smith came from Jamaica, Long Island, and made quite a desir- able Norwalk purchase. Hle belonged to the Smith

family of Long Island and his mother was honored by a Jamaica public vote. Fountain was the oldest son of Robert, and his home was a little south of the homestead of his grandson, John L., at present the residence of Edmund Smith, son of John L. The old Fountain Smith well is shown to-day. On Sunday

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on Nov. 5, 1787, of John L. Smith, whose grandfather John Lockwood was nephew of Eliphalet Lockwood, the great-great-grandfather of Col. Buckingham St. John Lockwood.

A SECOND) ROGERS-LOCKWOOD CONNECTION.

Col. James Lockwood (son of settler Ephraim Lockwood), the father of Mrs. Uriah Rogers, Sr. of Norwalk, had a brother Joseph, born April 1, 1680, who married Aug. 14, 1707. Mary, daughter of John Wood of Stamford. The Woods were in Stamford as early as 1640-I and the name appears in Norwalk at a no distant date from the town's settlement. Joseph Lockwood Ist., as was the case with the earlier and later Lockwoods, had eligible land property. To himself and wife Mary was born Nov. 23, 1710, Joseph 2d., who married Rebecca " Rodgers,"' born Dec. 2, 1716, of Huntington, Long Island. From a Norwalk carefully collated register of the Long Island Rodgers or Rogers it would seem that the Huntington family of that name proceeded directly from Thomas Rogers of the Mayflower. . This claim is stoutly and, seemingly, successfully supported in this place. To Joseph 2d. and Rebecca "Rodgers" Lockwood was born, March 27, 1738. David, their oldest son and child. This son had been a soldier in the Fifth Connecticut Regiment when he married, on Aug. 6, 1777, Martha Trowbridge. There is a record of his dismission, before his mar- riage, from active service, and a neat record of his procuring (in his place) and registration of (the very year of his wedding) an "able" man to "serve during the war." This is at- tested by Capt. Amos Waldbridge and has certification in the Norwalk land records. His

morning, July 11, 1779, said Fountain Smith had risen early, and although very deaf seemed aware that something unusual was transpiring. The morning was warm and he had removed or had not yet put on his coat. Suddenly Tryon's men, who were march- ing north from Fitch's Point came upon him, and took him coatless, a prisoner. Upon the enemies return, after firing the town, to their boats, he was carried to Long Island and sent to New York, where he soon ended his days, a victim of the cruelties of war. His widow, who was born in 1731, lived to be ninety-three years old and died, it is to be presumed, in the old house, occupied in 1896 by the aged Mrs. Albert Hyatt of Strawberry Hill. Here she lived, during widow- hood, with her son Hutton (grandfather of Henry Seymour of West Avenue 1896) remaining so true to the cause vindicated by her martyr husband as to de- cline, afterwards, to sit at table with anyone profes- sing royal sympathy. She died somewhat after mid- summer, 1824, and is buried in the ancient ground in East Norwalk. Her husband's remains were not brought to Norwalk.

James and Hannah (Lockwood) Smith, son and daughter-in-law of Fountain, lived in the home near Oyster Shell Point and immediately west of the resi- dence in 1896 of the widow of Burr Hendrick. This was the home-premise before the Revolutionary war

of Col. Thomas Fitch. His father, Gov. Fitch, bought the property while his soldier son was heading several continental companies in the celebrated expe- dition of 1758 to the north, and it was while Col. Fitch was thus engaged that, in derision of the ap- pearance of his command, an English official wrote, near East Albany, the wordy -jargon "Yankee Doodle," etc. When the town was burned the Colo- nel seems to have given up this home site and to have removed to the reconstructed home of his widowed mother on the East side of the Earle's Hill of 1896. James Smith was married to Hannah Lockwood, a little more than a year after Tryon's visit and settled, subsequently, on the old Col. Fitch property. He had one son other than John L. viz. James, Jr.

"This is the orthography of the name as copied from a family bible which was long kept by a second cousin (Dorinda Collins) of Sir Garnet Woolsley of the British army. The Norwalk Collins occupied the venerable building, standing to-day, on the north- east corner of Main Street and the Winnipauk road. Since their day the same property had the Scotch Pierrie for a tenant. Samuel Collins, the head of the family, and a cousin of Lord Woolsley, was the father- in-law of William Lockwood. This branch of the family has carefully preserved the Joseph Lockwood Bible record.

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many descendants may consequently claim him as a genuine "revolutionary ancestor." Of these descendants mention may be made of his daughter Ruth, born Jan. 9, 1780, who mar- ried John Boalt.'

John Boalt was five years older than his Lockwood bride, who was named after her aunt Ruth, born Dec. 30, 1741. He was an ambitious man and in 1815 left Norwalk for residenceship in the western part of the state of New York, taking with him, with the other members of the family, his son Charles L., who was born in this town Nov. 27. 1802. Mr. Boalt remained in western New York some two years and then decided to plant himself in the new town of Norwalk, in the state of Ohio, and thence removed in 1817. His Norwalk, Conn. born son, Charles L., became one of the best and best known citizens of the whole western country. He died Aug. 10, 1870, having built a division of the Cleveland and Toledo Railroad and been president of the Sandusky, Mansfield and Newark Railroad of Ohio. He was a man of weight, worth and wealth, and his wife belonged to one of the dis- tinguished families of Connecticut, being a daughter of Gov. Roger Griswold, son of Gov. Matthew Griswold. His daughter, the wife of Jay O. Moss of the Sandusky, Ohio, Moss Banking House, survives him. The career of no Rogers-Lockwood descendant confers greater honor upon native Norwalk than that of Charles L. Boalt, a man of preeminent probity and principle.

Another Joseph Lockwood-Rogers descendant, was Ebenezer, who married Mary, baptized Aug. 20, 1758, daughter of Lieut. and Martha (Couch) Godfrey of Fairfield. The memory of Ebenezer and Mary Lockwood's son, Edwin (Uncle Edwin) born Sept. 8, 1799, is still fragrant in Norwalk. "Count not your summer begun until Whitsunday comes," was one of his practical counsels, and to be amiable, affable and agreeable a part of his genial nature ; while his brother Benjamin, born Sept. 18, 1777, and called, possibly, for his uncle Benjamin, of the army in Albany in 1776, was the father of LeGrand Lockwood whose name one intuitively idea-associates with grand financiering. Morris Ketchum was un- intimidated, indeed, when others deemed the originally demanded N. Y. & N. H. R. R. three millions stock subscription to be a hazardous adventure, but could himself or his contempor-

Richard Bold, Bolt, Boalt, Boult, Sr., was a sol- dier of Cromwell, who, as was true of his young com- | beth, Hannah and Mary, seem to have, on the same panion in arms, John Reed, Sr., came to America and settled not a great distance from an old boundary line (on the Sound) between the colonies of Connect- icut and New York. Whether or no these two fel- low Cromwelians were personally acquainted it is perhaps impossible now to decide, but their first New World landed properties lay only a few miles apart and their earliest Norwalk estates almost if not quite adjoined each other. Richard Bolt, Sr. had a son John, born, seemingly, not far from 1670, near Horse- neck (Port Chester, N. Y.) On Nov. 23, 1694, there appears to have been a triple marriage in the Clem- ence family of Stamford. The three daughters of

Rev. William and Elizabeth Clemence, viz: Eliza-

date, married respectively, John Boultist., Caleb Knapp and John Butler. John and Elizabeth (Clem- ence) Boult came to Norwalk, although they prob- ably lived, for a short time after marriage, in New York. Their oldest son, Richard 2d., was, according to a Norwalk Record, born in " New York Island." The family grew to large proportions in Norwalk and its ancient "Canaan " and "Oblong" limits. A por- tion of the "Canaan " Boult property embraced the to-day valuable "Church Hill" neighborhood, while flowers set out, in all probability by the Boults, bloomed, a pathetic sight, in 1896, in the long ago silent and deserted Boult door yard in the " Oblong."

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ary Lockwood return, their methods, contrasted with the magnificent scale on which the same corporation's business is in 1896 conducted, would seem, even to themselves, as prim- itive perhaps as may to some seem the methods of the road's' superintendent of their time, James H. Hoyt, who was likely, during the first years of his incumbency, to have been over- heard at the Stamford depot, instructing some afternoon " up" conductor to leave an order, upon his New Haven arrival, for an "extra" to be attached to a down train, and either dropped at Stamford or drawn through to New York City, ready for an anticipated traffic "emergency". This story of the faithful Hoyt and of conductor's other than those of page 239 reference-Allen, Bacon, Hurlbutt, Street, Sanborn, Thomas, is interesting history.

LOCKWOOD-ROGERS-CANNON MENTION.

Joseph Lockwood 2d., born April 1, 1750, son of Joseph1st. and Rebecca (Rogers) Lockwood, married Isabel Hyatt, born Feb. 25, 1755, and had Fanny, born June 29, 1784. Hyatt is a Norwalk family name. Fanny, daughter of Joseph 2d. and Isabel Lock- wood, married John 3d., born May 16, 1778, son of John 2d. and Sarah (St. John) Cannon. The groom's father was a son of "Commodore" John and Esther (Perry) Cannon, and his mother was Sarah, daughter of Col. Stephen and Ann (Fitch) St. John. As Ann Fitch was a daughter of Hon. Samuel Fitch and sister of Elizabeth (Mrs. Nehemiah Rogers) John Cannon 3d. was consequently of Fitch blood. He was the brother-in-law of Isaac Scudder Isaacs (father of Judge Benj. and his brothers Chas., William and John Isaacs) and also of Matthew Marvin, whose home-site in the Pimpewaugh Valley is a " thing of beauty" at this date. Among his own brothers and sisters were George, who married Betsey, daugh- ter of Phineas Hanford of Chestnut Hill, and whose son, Dr. George Cannon,' was the father of Martha Elizabeth. who married (first wife and the mother of his children) the late William G. Spencer, D.D., of Washington, Conn., and formerly rector of Trinity Church, South Norwalk, and Antoinette, who, down to advanced life, was the highly respected wife. and for many years widow, of Hon. Thaddeus Betts, Senator in 1840, of the United States.

The Reverend David Rogers Austin, for several years the zealous pastor of the Second Congregational Church, South Norwalk, was the son of John Punder- son and Susan ( Rogers) Austin. His Greenfield Hill grandmother, Mrs. Dr. David Rogers, Sr., (son of Dr. Uriah, Sr., and Hannah Lockwood Rogers of Norwalk) was Martha, daughter of Charles Tennent of Maryland, and distinguished for her true piety and thorough culture. The home at Greenfield was one of reputation. Her father, Charles Tennent, was one of four sons who were educated, says Boudinot, under the sole instruction of their scholar father, Rev. William Tennent, a Presbyterian divine. She was first cousin of the Rev. William Tennent of Freehold, N. J., whose remarkable vision is a matter of record.

When this road was projected there was doubt

in some quarters whether a line, even of but one track only, could be made to pay. Morris Ketchum was not of this school of thought evidently, and the Robert Schuyler irregularity itself did not seem to shake his confidence.

Dr. Geo. Cannon married, at Le Roy, N. Y ., July 27, 1837, Martha Taylor, and had : Martha Elizabeth, born June 30, 1838 (Mrs. Rev. W. G. Spencer) : Geo. W., born May 9, 1840; Isabella Satterlee, born Apr. 6, 1842 (Mrs. Robert S. Williams) ; Charles H., born July 6, 1845; LeGrand, born Apr. 16, 1847; Ida, born Jan. 10, 1850 (Mrs. Geo. W. Parker); Harriet, born Nov. 21, 1853; William Taylor, born Apr. 23, 1856.

The children of Rev. W. G. and Martha E. Spen- cer were Fermor J., b. Oct. 13, 1857 ; Amy C. b. Oct. IT, 1859(Mrs. William Cape) ; Lizzie C., b. Nov. 14. 1863.

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James L Cannon, the Westport druggist, represents, in 1896, his father and mother, John 3d. and Fanny (Lockwood) Cannon. See John Cannon Topic, page 412.

Stephen, born Aug. 16, 1754, was next to the youngest son of Joseph and Rebecca (Rogers) Lockwood. He married, April 14, 1782, Sarah, born March 7, 1757, daughter of Dr. Thaddeus and Elizabeth (Maltby) Betts. From this union sprang Ralph Lockwood, who, taking for his bride Esther Antoinette, daughter of Capt. Moses and Esther Gregory, went to the West. The visits of himself and wife to the old forefather's hearth are among the living memories of to-day, and the remembrance of the western Lockwood's gathering at old Mrs. Jabez Gregory's (mother of Capt. Moses) near the spring' is gratifying even now.

Elizabeth, born March 24. 1791, daughter of Stephen and Sarah (Betts) Lockwood, married David Gibbs, a record which opens up fairly a " mine " of Norwalk, Conn. and Nor- walk, Ohio, history. She belonged to a family of eight children. Her father was brought up in old " Pudding Lane" (Main Street 1896), and Center Avenue is cut through the very site of the Joseph Lockwood barn-yard, while her mother was bred just where now stands the First Congregational Church on " Norwalk Green". Her grandmother Betts, (second wife of Dr. Thaddeus Betts) who was of the old Maltby family. died Feb. 8, 1789. Her grandfather, Dr. Thaddeus Betts, lived to be eighty-two, and died when she was sixteen years old (March 22, 1807).

In the year 1815 her husband, accompanied by her brother Henry, who had just passed his twentieth birthday, left Norwalk to examine, with reference to settlement, differ- ent places in what was then known as the " West." They finally reached Norwalk, Ohio, the first settler at which place had been one of the New Canaan (Silvermine) Comstocks. They were so pleased with their prospecting trip and its discovery, that they returned to Connecticut and made immediate preparation for removal to Ohio, and on Jan. 24 follow- ing, their team was driven out of this town bound for its namesake plantation, Norwalk, Ohio, where they arrived on the last day of April, and where David Gibbs beaame prominent and lived (there or in the neighborhood) for twenty-four years. He was born in this town May 22. 1788, and died in Norwalk, Ohio, March 16, 1840. His wife Elizabeth survived him for about one-third of a century, when this Norwalk, Conn. born child, and Norwalk. Ohio, citizen, passed hence, Oct. 4. 1873. at the ripe age of eighty-two.

"The description of this home, alluded to in note on page $4. would be incomplete destitute of the fol- lowing :

THE JABEZ GREGORY DAIRY.

The "Grandmother" Jabez Gregory's "Spring" milk house, afterward removed to East Avenue, was. if not a modern, yet a model creamery, and in her day well worth a body's while to visit. It stood at the water-side end of the yard (covered to-day by the rears of the John Bennett and adjoining Main Street

stores) and was neatness-nicety itself. One could feast one's eyes upon its sight, white and sweet, inside and out, as lime could make and keep it. The milk, from kine fed in pastures, flavored by the early and pearly dew, was poured from the milk-maid's pail into bright pans which stood upon broad shelves kept spotlessly clean, and when the golden cream was "set" it was rewarding and a revelation for anyone to pass under the Gregory boughs to behold the same. Even in the Gregory day, the virtues of dairy air, light and ventilation seemed well understood.

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LOCKWOOD-ROGERS-MARVIN.

Sarah, born Sept. 15, 1745, daughter of Joseph and Rebecca (Rogers) Lockwood, married, Nov. 26, 1761, Ozias, born Jan. 29, 1737, son of Matthew and Elizabeth (Clark) Marvin. From this union have descended useful and honored Norwalk citizens. Ozias Marvin was a public man and could boast of descent (see page 151) in the fifth generation, (Matthew Ist., Matthew 2d., Samuel 3d., Matthew 4th., Ozias sth.) from Matthew Marvin the set- tler. Ozias and Sarah Marvin had a numerous family, and the Lockwood-Rogers-Marvin blood is a stream that courses many veins at the present day. The children of Ozias and Sarah Marvin were :

Ozias 2d .; born Feb. 10, 1763.'

Hannah; born Oct. 1764, married David Comstock, died May, 1844.

Elizabeth ; born Nov. 1766, married William Bennett.

Sarah ; born June 21, 1768, married Samuel Burwell. Esther ; born June 12, 1770, married Isaac Church.

Joseph Lockwood ;2 born Dec. 31, 1772.

James ; born Dec. 11, 1774 ; died Nov. 11, 1776. Clark; born Oct. 13, 1776. Asa ; born Oct. 26, 1778. Mary ; born June 9, 1781, married Daniel Tebbetts.

Silas; born March 1, 1784.

Charles ; born Feb. 9, 1786; died Feb. 1, 1838.

LOCKWOOD-ROGERS-SEYMOUR.

It may not be inappropriate to reserve for the conclusion of the description of the

Shortly after Mrs. Jabez Gregory's decease in 1839, the ownership of the property changed hands and the building and grounds were otherwise use-ap- propriated. The ancient building was added to in the rear, almost to the river's edge, and the south adjoin- ing grounds became a sort of yard and " garden " ad- junct to a " refreshment place " which was kept in the lower story of the remodeled Gregory home.

1Ozias 2d., the oldest son of Ozias Ist. and Sarah Marvin, married three times. His first wife was Mary Bennett, his second Mrs. Eunice Parmelee, and his third Mrs. Althea Herrick. His children were by his first wife. He, in early life, removed to central New York where he was long held in esteem and where he lived to attain to nearly ninety years of age. He died April 10, 1848.

2Joseph L. Marvin's descendants are referred to on page 152. His son, Hon. David Meeker Marvin, born Oct. 20, 1802, a Connecticut senator, was an in- fluential citizen of Westport whose children are among

that town's best known people in 1896. Mr. Marvin married Jan. 8, 1824, Mary, daughter of John Taylor, whose business establishment stood under the spread- ing boughs which in 1896 shade and grace the west front corner of his grandson, William H. Marvin's, extensive home-grounds on the old Connecticut turn- pike. The Taylor family is one of the most ancient households of Norwalk, and its Saugatuck branch grew to such strength, numerically and acreage wise, that a former designation of that part of old Nor- walk (now Westport) through which, on the west bank of the river, the Connecticut turnpike was cut, was "Taylor Town." The children of Hon. David M. and Mary Marvin were Walter T., who resided in New York; William H., who occupies his Taylor grandfather's home-site, and who has carefully pro- tected the old John Taylor well, near the street; John J .; David, who died at two years of age; and Fred- erick D. The Marvins of Mott Haven, now of New York city, belong to this family.

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Norwalk, history from 1896, Part 26

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