USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Bridgeport > Reports and papers. Fairfield County Historical Society, Bridgeport, Conn. 1882-1896-97 > Part 19
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The exact date of Mr. Burritt's release from prison is not known, but the records of the Dutchess County Presbytery, which at that time included a portion of Westehester County as well, show that he was present at a meeting held Oct. 11. 1780, and officiated as clerk. The next mention made of him is that at a meeting of the same body held Oct. 8, 1783,
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" Presbytery was opened with a sermon by Mr. Burritt. from Psalm, 122:6. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem : they shall prosper that love thee.'" At this meeting the record says, " Mr. Burritt being reduced to low circumstances as to the comforts of this life and outward means of subsistence by reason of ye late war and otherwise, request ye advice of the Presbytery respecting ye means of relief, whereupon we agree to recommend him to the warmest charity of our Christian Brethren, and appoint ye clerk to draw up the commendation for the purpose." At the same meeting he and two others were appointed to spend one Sabbath each in missionary work in the lower parts of Westchester County.
Where Mr. Burritt was between 1780 and 1783, does not appear, but his family seems to have been a part of the time at least, at Ripton Parish, for he had a daughter born there in November, 1782. He is believed, however, to have been at Crompond a portion if not most of that period. The next reference to him is of the date of Dee. 1, 1783, when " the Presbytery met at Mr. Burritt's in the West Congregation in Fredricksburg," present town of Carmel, Putnam County, N. Y., having charge of the Mt. Gilead Church as well as the one at West Fredricksburg so called, and where he evidently resided. The site of the old log Church, (Mt. Gilead), where he preached, near Carmel, is still pointed out, and his memo- ry is still cherished there.
On the death, June 5, 1784, of Rev. Samuel Saekett, for a long time except a brief period during the Revolution, pastor of the Church at Crompond, Rev. Mr. Burritt preached his funeral sermon. He was located at West Fredricksburg, or Red Mills-the present Mahopac Falls-for some three years, and it was there that a great affliction befel him in the death of his wife, in April, 1786. She was yet comparatively young, not more than 41 or 42,-the Church records of Stratford show her baptism Feb. 23, 1745-but the burdens of her life had not been light nor her tasks easy. She had come to be the mother of twelve children, and their care and the terrible strain of war times had been too great for her overtaxed' powers. The youngest child and daughter was
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but an infant of a few weeks old when. the mother gave it her-last loving look, and fell asleep, another martyr to moth- erhood and duty, as was fitting a loyal daughter of her sire who bravely suffered confiscation and expatriation for con- science sake. The home was desolated by her death, and the children scattered, several of them going to live for a time with their kindred at Ripton Parish. On the 10th of May following, 1786, Mr. Burritt was present at a meeting of the Presbytery, but no further record is made of him until May 8, 1794, when his name was dropped from the rolls as being then of Vermont.
The following mention of him is copied from the Court Records of Fairfield County, book of Executions, date of Nov. 30, 1789:
To the Constables and Sheriff of the County of Fairfield:
" Whereas, Elisha Mills, of Huntington, recovered judg- ment against Blackleach Burritt, late of New Fairfield, in said County, and now an absent and absconding debtor and gone to parts unknown, before the County Court holden at Danbury within the County aforesaid on the 3d Tuesday of November, 1789, for the sum of £59.19s.6d. lawful money debt. and the sum of £2.10 costs, whereof execution remains to be done hereon, therefore by the authority of the State of Connecticut, you are commanded to levy on the goods. chattels and lands of the said Burritt as the law directs," &e., and if they were not sufficient to satisfy in full the debt and costs, then the said officers were " commanded to take the body of the said Burritt and him commit unto the keep- er of the gaol in Fairfield County aforesaid," and there to keep him "until he pay unto the said Mills the full sum afore- mentioned," with fees. &c. And so this Veteran Patriot Pas- tor, who had suffered imprisonment for devotion to the cause of his country, was in danger of being thrust into a common jail as a debtor !
The records show that the officer reported on Dec. 1. that Bnrritt could not be found-he was probably elsewhere too actively engaged in his Master's service to pay any attention to these proceedings-" or money or other valuable consider-
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ation," but that he had levied upon a tract of land in Hunting- ton, Ripton Society, called the " Mohegan Rocks," (probably the rocks are all there yet, though the last of the Mohegans disappeared sometime since) containing nineteen and one- half acres, which was appraised at $2 per acre, and that was turned over to the said Mills towards the satisfaction of his claim. It is interesting in this connection to state that the town records of Stratford show that Blackleach Burritt pur- chased that same piece of real estate, then called " the South End of Mohegan Hills," of his father. Peleg Burritt, Jr., Jan. 5, 1765, paying therefor £142.10s. Evidently he had paid a high price for it, or there had been great depreciation, or Mills was a grasping monopolist. Perhaps something of each, but Mr. Burritt evidently had considered the land as ample security for the debt incurred.
An important fact disclosed by the foregoing, is that after leaving West Fredricksburg, Mr. Burritt was for a time at New Fairfield. Perhaps his second marriage, which was with Deborah Wells, of the Long Island, Southold family, she being a direct descendant of William Wells, one of the fore- most men of that settlement, Recorder, Deputy to the Gen- eral Court, and Sheriff of Suffolk County, N. Y., from 1665 to 1669-was while at New Fairfield, although she had kindred at Wells, in Hamilton County, N. Y., not far from which, in Greenfield, Saratoga County, he next appears, having been the pioneer Pastor of a Church there as early as 1790, the records showing that at a meeting held Sept. 12 of that year, he was authorized to represent the Greenfield Church at a convention "at Bennington, in the State of Vermont, the present week." An old letter at hand also shows his residence there during the early part of that year. The year following, 1791, Mr. Burritt is found at Duanesburgh, then of Albany County, N. Y., where he is said to have formed a Church com- posed mainly of Connecticut families, who tarried there for a while, among whom were a brother, Stiles Welles, and a sister, Mrs. Ruth Welles Hatch, of his first wife, and that was probably what attracted him thither. In a letter dated at Duanesburgh, Dec. 28, 1791, he writes : "Stiles Welles has
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lately returned from Huntington." During the same period he was also ministering to a Church in the adjoining town of Florida. Montgomery County, N. Y. But this pioneer preach- er could not long remain in any one place. The true spirit of the Pilgrims was in him, and impelled him on. The old records of the Church at Winhall, Bennington County, Vt, state that on Friday, Jan. 6, 1792, only about a week later than the date of the above quoted letter, he was there present and officiating. Again on the 11th of March following, the records show him to have been there. and so on from time to time during that year. The records then show that an Eecles- iastieal Council was "convened at Winhall, on the 1st day of January, A. D., 1793. for the purpose of the Instalment of the Rev'd Blackleach Burritt to the Pastoral care of the Church and Congregation there," Rev. Robert Campbell, formerly of New Milford, Conn., officiating as moderator. It cannot be said to have been an inviting field for a preacher of his ability, but in passing that way he had been strongly urged to come ; the offer of a farm to be given him affording a home for his large family doubtless may have influenced his decis- ion, but he is quoted as saying with his characteristic self forgetfulness, " That if he did not go there perhaps nobody else would !" And so a log house was built for him and a log Church, and he became the first pastor of the Church in Winhall. The records show considerable additions to that Church under his ministrations, but it was a brief pastorate, and death soon eame in between him and his family, and his people, and they were sorely bereft. The last mention of him in the records is of the date of " Lord's Day, January ye 5, 1794," when he officiated at a baptism. His health had ev- idently been broken, for in the letter referred to he says, " I have for a length of time been more feebled and disordered than usual." The privations and sufferings to which he was subjected as a prisoner and otherwise, during the Revolution. and subsequently as a pioneer preacher, had been a severe strain upon even his strong constitution, and he was stricken down by a prevailing malady which devastated New England during the summer and autumn of 1794. There was no cessa-
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tion in those early days of struggle ; no vacation for tired and overworked pastors : no palace cars to carry them away to famous watering places ; no beds of inglorious ease : but like good soldiers these Watchmen of Zion must die at their posts ; and so
"Tranqnil amidst alarms," The summons found him " in the field,
" A Veteran slumbering on his arms, Beneath his red cross shield."
The broken family was again scattered, never to be re-unit- ed. Some had already married, and others were elsewhere, yet of the fourteen children, twelve by the first marriage and two by the second,-a most interesting group-all survived, and all but two lived to have families. As evidencing their wide divergence, only two, those by the second marriage, died in the same place, although six of them and the widow, came soon afterwards to reside for a time in one place-Sher- burne, Chenango County, N. Y., where Rev. Mr. Burritt had preached the first sermon to the Pioneers in 1792 ; and hence the interest of the writer in this story of his life.
In the absence of the family record, irrecoverably lost dur- ing some of the many removals, it has been a difficult task to gather up the somewhat imperfect data of his descendants here presented.
THE CHILDREN.
Eunice, named for her mother, appears to have been the eldest child, born af Ripton Parish, in 1766 She married a Mr. Hopkins, had children, and lived for a time prior to 1820, near Batavia, N. Y.
Melissa, the second child, was born Feb. 26, 1768, probably at Huntington, just two days after Mr. Burritt was licensed to preach. She married at Johnstown, N. Y., Oct. 2, 1791, James Raymond, a native of Kent, Conn., a descendant of Captain Richard Raymond from Essex, England, Freeman at Beverly, Mass., 1634, and afterwards of Norwalk and Say- brook, Conn. James Raymond was one of the original pro- prietors of Sherburne. N. Y., where he settled in 1792-3, his wife, Melissa Burritt Raymond, being one of the members of
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the first Congregational Church organized in that place July 6, 1794. She was a strong, independent character, and her son, Philander Raymond, was distinguished as one of the founders of the city of Toledo, Ohio, was the promoter, builder and superintendent of the celebrated Brady's Bend Iron Works. on the Alleghany river, Pennsylvania, and inter- ested in other large enterprises. Melissa Burritt Raymond died at Brady's Bend, Pa , July 3, 1849, in her eighty-second year. Mrs. Rev. J. R. Preston, of Creighton, Nebraska, and E. F. Ensign, Esq., of Madison, O., are her grand-children.
Martha, (called Patsy) Burritt, was born Oct. 1770, and married about 1790, Elisha Gray, then of Florida, Montgom- ery County, N. Y. She removed with her husband, to Sher- burne, N. Y., in 1793, and was a charter member of the Church there. By various removals they came to make their home at Madison, O, where she died May 20, 1851, in her eighty first year. She had two daughters, and a son Alanson, who removed to Kentucky, and there lind seven sons and five daughters. The eldest son, John Tarvin Gray, born 1821, married his accomplished cousin, Cynthia Raymond, grand- daughter of Melissa Burritt Raymond, and became a noted civil engineer and bridge builder, and still resides at Coving- ton, Ky. Another son, Philander Raymond Gray, was a loyal Kentuckian in the war for the Union, was afterwards Sheriff of Venango County, Pa, Collector of Internal Revenue for that district, and for several years Superintendent of the great Eelipse and Standard Oil Co. works, near Franklin, Pa He is the father by one mother, of an interesting family of eight sons and three daughters, one of the sons bearing the name of Burritt Gray. His present residence is at Elizabeth, N. J.
Sarah Burritt, the fourth daughter, was born at Pound Ridge, Westchester County, Jan. 29, 1772, and married her consin, Gurdon Wells, born Feb. 28, 1758, son of Hezekiah, son of Deacon Thomas, at Huntington, March 1. 1792, and removing to Lincklaen, Chenango County, N. Y., their daugh- ter Matilda, born Aug. 9, 1800, who still survives,* a Widow Smith, at Three Rivers, Mich., was the first white child born
" -- She died March 17, 1802, in her ninety-second year.
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in that township. Gurdon Wells died there Dec. 27, 1827, and she died Oct. 31, 1831, in her sixtieth year. She was a very decided character, and eminent in Christian piety. It is said that a man who had heard of her, came thirty miles once to see her, hoping that she would be able to expound the way of life more perfectly unto him. But then, that was a time when people believed something and thought it of some con- sequence what they did believe.
Ely Burritt, the eldest son, born at Pound Ridge, March 12, 1773, graduated at Williams College in the class of 1800, was licensed to practice medicine at Troy, N. Y., March 29, 1802, and became eminent as a physician. Dr. Wayland, who studied medicine with him, says: "Dr. Burritt was a man of remarkable logical powers, of enthusiastic love of his pro- fession, and of great and deserved confidence in his own judgment. He stood at the head of his profession in Troy, and in the neighboring region, and was a person of high mor- al character." He married Mehitabel Stratton, daughter of Deacon Stratton, of Williamstown, Mass., April 12, 1798. There were four sons and three daughters born to them, of whom only one son and a daughter had descendants. This son, Alexander Hamilton Burritt, born in Troy, April 17, 1805. commeneed the practice of medicine in 1827, after tho Alo- path system, which he continued until 1838, when he em- braced Homeopathy, placing himself for a time under the in- struetion of his distinguished kinsman, the late Dr. John F. Gray, of New York, who was a grandson of Rev. Blackleach Burritt. He then practiced the new system; first, in Craw- ford County. Pa. He afterwards removed to Cleveland, O, where he aided in the organization of the Western Homo- pathie College in 1850, and was Vice President and Professor of Obstetrics until 1854, when he resigned on account of his health, and removing to New Orleans, was successfully en- gaged in practice there until his death, Oet. 1876. His son, Amatus Robbins Burriti, born in 1833, graduated from the Western Homeopathic College in 1853, engaged in practice at Huntsville, Ala. In 1866 he married Miss Mary K. Robin- son, by whom he had a son, Dr. William H. Burritt, born 1869,
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now in practice at Huntsville, where his father died Aug. 22. 1876. Dr. A. R. Burritt was for a time in the Confederate service, while his only brother, (there is a surviving sister. Mrs. Julia A. Gary, of Evansville, Ind .) Ely Burritt, now of Fall River, Mass., was in the Union Army, and being taken prisoner, Dr. A. R, was instrumental in securing his release. This branch of the. Burritt family, is remarkable in that it is represented by four generations of physicians, all of high reputation, being the son, grandson, great-grandson and great- great-grandson of Rev. Blackleach Burritt. Dr. Ely Burritt died at Troy, Sep. 1. 1823, in his fifty-first year. His widow afterwards married Professor John Adams, the noted Principal of Exeter Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. Julia Ann Burritt, daughter of Dr. Ely, and said to have been a remarkably beautiful girl .: married[ Dr. Amatus"Robbins, and died Dec. 12, 1839, in her nineteenth year. fleaving a son who is a phy- sieian in New Haven. A tradition of Dr. Ely Burritt is, that on the capture; of his father, being then a boy of six years, he threw corn cobs at the British soldiers as expressive of his patriotic indignation !
Gideon Burritt, son of Rev. Blackleach, 'born in Pound Ridge, Sep. 15, 1774, married Sarah Bowne, flived at Winhall and Manchester. Vt., where he died in 1858. Had ten chil- dren, of whom three still survive at Manchester, viz. : Dea- con Edwin Burritt, who married Mary Chellis, and has de- seendants, Jared Burritt, and Hon. Johnson Burritt. A son, Ely, married Esther Strait, whose mother was Rachel Purdy, and removed to Columbia, Bradford County . Pennsylvania. Mrs. Sarah Burritt Mosher, of Albany N. Y., widow of the late Dr. C. D. Mosher, of Albany, is a daughter of Ely.
Diantha Burritt, daughter of Rev. Blackleach, born at Pound Ridge, Jan. 9, 1776, married John Gray, Jr., at Winhall, Vt., May 26. 1793. Judge John Gray was an early and prominent eitizen of Sherburne, N. Y., and afterwards removed to Sheri- dan, Chautauqua County, where she died Oct. 14, 1846. There were six sons and two daughters born to her. Three of the sons became physicians, one of them, the late Dr. John F. Gray, pre-eminent as the first to embrace the doctrines of
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Hahnemann, in the city of New York, and distinguished for his large and successful practice. Another of the sons, Rev. Blackleach Burritt Gray, was a Presbyterian Minister, and one of his sons, General John Burritt Gray, now of New York, won distinction by his services as Adjutant General of the State of Missouri, during the War of the Rebellion. A daughter, Diantha, became eminent as a teacher, and with her late husband, the Rev. H. A. Sackett, was influential in the founding of Ehnira Female College, at Elnira, N. Y. This lady of rare gifts and high Christian character, whose home is at Cranford, N. J., is one of the surviving grand-children of Rev. Blackleach Burritt, whose memory she has done much to perpetuate.
Rufus Burritt, supposed to have been born in 1777, studied medicine with his brother, Dr. Ely, at Troy, and was admitted to practice in 1806. It is said that going away for a time to look about the country, he returned to find his intended mar- ried to some one else ; hence he never married, and led a roving life, teaching some-and he is said to have been an excellent teacher-as he had opportunity both in Pennsylva- nia and Kentucky, in which latter State he died, in Campbell County, about 1850. A gifted but very eccentric man.
Blackleach Burritt, Jr., born at Pound Ridge, N. Y., Oet. 27, 1779, while his father was in the old Sugar House Prison, after the death of his mother went to Huntington, Conn., to live with his kindred, and on Nov. 1, 1802, married Sally Hubbell, daughter of John Hubbell, Jr. They removed to Pennsylvania in 1810. and he died at Wilksbarre, Oct. 1, 1830. They had two daughters and six sous, as follows :
Hepsa, born 1804 ; married Ziba Burns ; residence, Union- dale, Susquehanna County, Pa.
Grandison, born 1806; lived in Wisconsin.
Samuel, born 1808 ; lived at Uniondale, Pa.
Rufus, born 1814 : lived at Uniondale, l'a.
Ely, born 1817 ; lived at Carbondale, Pa.
Sarah Caroline, born Aug. 18, 1819; married - Otis MI. Dimmick, Uniondale, Pa.
Charles, born 1823; died 1825.
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Samuel Burritt, third child of Blackleach, Jr., born at Huntington, Conn., March 31, 1808: married Amanda Nich- ols, Sep. 19, 1836 ; lived at Uniondale, where he died June 20. 1863. His children were :
Loren, (Col.), born June 26, 1837 ; died Nov. 11, 1889; married Delphine D. Raynsford.
Ira Nichols, born Dee. 28, 1838; Washington, D. C.
Philo, born April 11, 1840; lives at Uniondale.
Payson, born July 16, 1847; Kansas.
Newell, born Dec. 19, 1851.
Anna B., born July 25, 1853.
Lilian, born Feb. 16, 1858.
Colonel Loren Burritt, son of Samuel, and great grandson of Rev. Blackleach, enlisted in the Union Army as a private in Company K, Fifty-sixth Regiment Pennsylvania Volun- teers, Jan. 1862. Was promoted successively to Orderly Ser- geant, Second Lieutenant, First Lientenant, and on the 2nd of July, 1863, at the Battle of Gettysburg, was assigned to duty on the Staff of General Cutler. In Nov. 1863 was com- missioned Major of the Eighth Regiment, U. S. Colored Troops ; was severely wounded at Olustee, Fla., Feb. 20, 1864 ; was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel while in the Hospital at Beaufort, S. C. ; succeeded to the command of his Regiment, in front of Petersburg ; was afterward detailed at Newport News and Norfolk, Va. : was President of a Board of Inquiry to investigate the commandant of the Eastern Department of Virginia. In the Summer and Fall of 1865, was in Texas, and received his discharge in December of that year. Engaged in practice of the law for a time at Philadelphia, but suffer- ing from his wounds broke his health, and after being au in- valid for several years he died at Athens, Bradford County Pa., Nov. 11, 1889. A man of high character and attain- ments and a worthy descendant of his patriotic sire. He was greatly interested in his ancestry, and the genealogical statistics which he collected has added much of interest to this sketeh. His widow resides at Owego, N. Y.
Mrs. S. C. Dimmick, of Uniondale, Pa., is a daughter of Black- leach, Jr., and a grand daughter of Rev. Blackleach Burritt.
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Prudence Burritt, next to the youngest daughter of Rer. Blackleach Burritt, born at Huntington, Nov. 2, 1782, mar- ried in Oct. 1802, James Welles, son of Josiah, son of Heze- kiah ; lived at Edmeston, Otsego County. N. Y .. then at Portage, Livingston County, N. Y., where. he died Aug. 26, 1848, and she died March 13, 1852. A son,, Delos C. Welles, of Monticello, Minn., and two daughters. Mrs. Semantha Wil- cox, and Mrs. L. C. Britain, of Sodus, N. K., still survive.
Samuel Burritt, the youngest son, born about 1784, was a protege of Miss Susannah DeLancey, who seems to have cared for him after the death of his mother, in 1786. He studied law, for a time acted as agent for a part of the DeLaneey estate, and died in the city of New York in 1820, leaving two children who died unmarried.
Susannah Burritt, was born at Red Mills, modern Mahopac Falls, Putnan County, N. Y., March 5, 1786, just six weeks before her mother's death. Believing her illness to be fatal, it is said that Mrs. Burritt sent for Miss Susannah DeLaneey, the unmarried daughter of Lieutenant-Governor DeLaneey, who lived at nearby Crompond, who despite powerful family influence remained true to the cause of the Colonies, and was a warm friend of the Burritt family. On her dying bed she gave her infant daughter to Miss DeLaneey's keeping, and she was faithful to the trust. Bringing her up carefully as her own child, she willed her a considerable estate,-a farm of 129 acres in Yorktown, Westchester County. N. Y .. and all her personal estate, including a Negro Slave, " Hannah." Sus- annah Burritt, named after her benefactress, married Elijah Fowler, in 1804, who died in 1812, leaving two sons, one of whom, Samuel Burritt Fowler, now resides at Putnam Valley, Putnam County, N. Y. She married second, Charles Adams, Dee. 1821, and had a daughter Charlotte, born in 1823, who married George W. Seeley, and resides at Lansing, Mich. Mrs. Susannah Burritt Adams, died at Bristol, Ind., Sept. 19, 1881, in her ninety-sixth year, the oldlest as well as the young- est of her mother's twelve children.
Deborah Burritt, the first child by the second marriage,
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must have been born as early as 1791, as her father makes mention of her in that year. She was taken to Sherburne soon after her father's death, there married Milo Hatch, and died Oct. 11, 1851. Had four sons, of whom three sur- vive : Wells Buriitt Hatch, of Syracuse, N. Y., Watson A., of Loyd. Wis., and Albert R. Hatch, of Greeley, Col.
In regard to the youngest child and son of Rev. Black- leach Burritt, the following is copied from the old Church records, of Winhall, Vt. : "March the 3d, A. D., 1793, was bap- tized Selah Wells, the son of the Rev. Mr. Blackleach, and Deborah Burritt." The following inscription from the me- morial stone at his grave in Sherburne, N. Y., shows how he was cut down while yet in the bloom of youth :
"Selah Wells Burritt, youngest son of Rev. Blackleach Burritt, and only son of Deborah Burritt, died Nov. 19th, in the 18th year of his age."
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