Commemorative Biographical Record of Fairfield County, Connecticut

the youngest. He was born October 12, 1837, was reared in Danbury, and since early manhood has followed the machinist's trade, in which he is regarded as an expert. He is also the inventor of many improvements in fnr-hatting machinery. For many years he had charge of the machinery in the fur-cutting factory of W. A. & A.' M. White. Socially, he is identified with Union Lodge No. — , F. cS: A. M., at Danbury. On May 15, i860, he was married to Maria, daugh- ter of William and Elizabeth Eaton, who were both natives of England. William Eaton's fa- ther was a member of an old Leicestershire fam- ily. For a time he held a commission in the British Army. After his retirement from the army he married Katherine Stevens, whose fa- ther and brothers were clock-makers and gold- smiths, and the owners of much property in Wilt- shire. \\'illiam Eaton was born in 1800. In 1850 he came with his family to this country and settled at Danbury, Conn., where he resided un- til his death in 1877. Ezekiel, the eldest son, still a resident of Danbury, served during the Civil war as a member of the Wooster Guards, the "first company of the State of Connecticut to pledge itself to the untarnished honor of the commonwealth and nation." Socially, he is con- nected with the Masonic order of Knights Tem- plar of Danbury, of which he has held the office of most eminent grand commander, and also with the Order of the Mystic Shrine of Bridge- port. During the Civil war, Joseph Eaton, the second son, enlisted for three \ears in Company D, 7th Connecticut \'olunteers. He was pro- moted to sergeant. He was at one time a resi- dent of Bethel, but removed from there to Sing Sing, N. Y., where he took an active part in the political and social life of the place. He has held many prominent offices in the G. A. R. His present home is at Newburyport, Mass. The youngest son, George, is now living at Hav- erhill. Mass., where he is superintendent of W. B. Thorn & Co. 's hat factory. HON. HENRY PENFIELD BURR, a man of prominence and distinction, now retired and living at Westport, Fairfield county, an octo- genarian, is the representative of one of the old and distinguished families of Fairfield county. Born in the town of Fairfield, Fairfield coun- ty, April 3, 1819, Captain Burr is the son of James Burr, who, too, was a native of Fairfield town and county, and the grandson of Major Hezekiah Burr, also a native of the same town and county, and of English extraction. Major Burr was a farmer throughout his life- time, and lived and died in the town of his na- tivity, honored and respected by all whose priv- ilege it was to have had his acquaintance and been associated with him. He was a patriot, and served his country in the Continental army during the war of the Revolution, acquiring his title for meritorious conduct. He married Miss Mary Annabel, and the union was blessed with children as follows: Ephraim died in infancy; James is referred to farther on; Silliman was a farmer in Fairfield county; John was a farmer in Fairfield county; and Ephraim {2) was a sea-faring man, and died in Salem, Mass. ; all are deceased. Major Burr died April 24, 1840, his wife on January 8, 1848. In their religious- views both were Presbyterians, and in politics the Major was a Den)ocrat. James Burr (father of our subject) was reared in Fairfield, and became a sea-faring man, follow- ing that vocation through life. He was married to Sallie Pentield, a native of Fairfield, daugh- ter of James Penfield, who, too, was a patriot of he war of the Revolution, the family being an old and prominent one of Fairfield county, of English origin. After marriage the young couple lo- cated in Fairfield, and there reared a family of six children: Catherine died unmarried; Lewis was a carriage manufacturer in Westport, and is now deceased; Mary died unmarried; Henry P. is referred to farther on; Julia is the widow of Henry Smith, who died in California; and James lives retired in California. The father of this family died November 6, 1826, and the mother passed away on March 19, 1870. Capt. Henry Pentield Burr until sixteen years of age passed his boyhood in the town of Fair- field. At that age he began learning the carriage manufacturing business, which he afterward fol- lowed for some years in Westport. In 1849, during the gold excitement on the Pacific coast, he went to California via Cape Horn. He spent nine years in that State, including the time in making three trips thereto from the East. He made the second and third trips via the Isth- mus of Panama. After his California experience he returned to Westport, and there remained until the breaking out of the Civil war. His- love of country filling him with that patriotism his ancestors displayed in the war of the Revo- lution, he recruited a company made up of men principally from Westport, of which he was com- missioned captain, and the company, E, became part of the 17th C. V. I., which formed a part of the Army of the Potomac. At the battle of Chancellorsville, Va. , he was taken prisoner by the enemy, and was confined in Libby prison at 'I ' ; -ll!i;j'|.['''i (■ ')->■. 1 'VI : • '/■: ii ; lii !,i'.i:r!f) COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD. 37 Richmond, Va. After an imprisonment of a short time he was released; then participated in the battle of Gettysburg, Penn., after which he went south and there remained until his resigna- tion, March 28, 1864, at St. Augustine, Florida. After an honorable military career, in which he made a good record as a soldier, he returned to Westport and became engaged in the grocery business. During the third of a century that has since elapsed Captain Burr has made a useful citi- zen, and not been without that recognition that his services and worth have merited. In politics he is a Republican. He has served as town clerk; was postmaster of Westport twelve years, and represented his county in the State Legislature two terms, serving with that fidelity to duty and ability that is characteristic of the man. His bus- iness life, too, has been an honorable one, and •one marked with good judgment and manage- ment. Public -spirited and enterprising, he has been interested in such movements as have tended to build up and advance the town and county. He has been successful. Captain Burr is identi- fied with the G. A. R. On November 15, 1843, Captain Burr was married to Miss Sarah E. Taylor, a native of Westport, Conn., and seven children were born to the union, namely: Algernon T. is now a resi- dent of Greenwich, Conn., but is engaged in busi- ness in New York; Henry E. and Louis D. both died in young manhood; Frank A. is now in the office of the Pennsylvania Steel Company in New York; and three other children, who died in infan- cy. In 1870 the mother of these children died, and in 1879 the Captain was married to Mrs Ma- ria L. (Hoyt) Olmstead. Mrs. Burr is the daughter of Uriah and Betsey (Akin) Hoyt, the latter of whom was the daughter of Thomas Aikin, a sol- dier of the war of the Revolution. In religious faith Captain Burr is a Congregationalist, while his wife is a Baptist. TO-ICHOLS OF NICHOLS. The name Nich- J,^ ols (an abbreviation of Nicholas) is of purely patrician origin, having been invented by the Alexandro-Egyptian dynasty as a cognomen for princes, along with Berenice for princesses, and means " Mastery over the People." \Pati-oiiym- ica Britaiuiica, Yale College Library.] By degrees, the brevet acquired the permanence of a surname, eventuating in the historic Nicholas family of Europe, which has given the world two Popes, besides long lines of nobility. In the reign of Edward the Confessor, Count Nicolas de Albini and the other Counts Nicolas of Normandy removed to England, purchasing estates at Lincoln. For a while, the Counts Nicolas called the venerable Lincoln, the city of their adoption, " Nicole," giving out that the latter way was the easier of pronunciation ; but this Gallic vestige of papal supremacy did not suit, and Lincoln remained obstinately Lincoln. Since the reign of Elizabeth, forty coats of arms have been granted the descendants of Count Nicolas de Albini, including those of various peers of the realm. Of these. Sir H. Nicholas wrote the "Historic Peerage of Eng- land". The family, time out of mind, has been marked by a penchant for genealogical research, the late John Gough Nichols, editor of the Herald and Goualogist, along with his father and grandfather, having devoted his life to antiquarian studies, the memorial of their united labors being a Nichols genealogy of Titanic size, deposited in the College of Arms in London. The genealogist of the Nichols family in the United States is William J. Nichols, son of the late Bradley Nichols, Esq., of Bridgeport. Sergeant Francis Nicolls, of London, one of the Royal Horse Guards of Charles I, came to New England, becoming, in 1639, an original Colonial proprietor of the township of Stratford. Connecticut. His Colonial grant of landed estate in the township of Stratford, Connecticut, in 1639, inclusive of the site of the town of Nichols, comprised ten thousand acres. He sprang from a family of fighters — lawyers and military men — and was the first military man in the Colony. His uncle, Francis Nicolls, of London and AmpthiU Great Court, married a daughter of Lord Bruce. Sir Richard Nicolls, the first English Governor of New York, was a colonel at the head of the British forces in the New Netherlands, and bequeathed a legacy to Sergeant Francis Nicolls, of Stratford, Conn. Among the descendants of Sergeant Francis Nicolls are the -Right Rev. William Ford Nichols, the Bishop of California, who married Miss Ada Quintard, daughter of Edward Ouintard, of New York, and niece of Bishop Quintard; George Foster Peabody, of Brook- lyn; Mrs. Walter Camp, of New Haven; George W. Nichols, of Brooklyn Heights; the Rev. C. W. de Lyon Nichols, of New York; Charles L. Thomas, of Chicago; ex-Governor Nichols, of Louisiana; and Mrs. Oscar F. Livingston {ncc Nichols), of New York. Mrs. Livingston's grandfather, the Hon. Charles Nichols, was Minister to Holland.