History of Fairfield County, Connecticut

After his death his effects were sold at auction, which drew a crowd. Many bought some of his arti- cles for their intrinsic value, others purchased to se- cure a remembrance of the odd old things that shall assist in commemorating his eccentricities for untold years. His neighbor, and jirobably a distant relative, David H. Sherwood, is the ailiuinistratcjr of ISurr Sherwood's estate. The whole of Mill Hill was formerly owned by one family of Sherwoods, but by marrying it has passed into different branches, and somewhat into the Bulke- ley name. Burr Sherwood and his brother Abel having de- ceased not many months apart, John, David H., and Artluir, three brothers, are the representatives of the Sherwoods in that section. Capt. Edwin Sherwood, of Southport, comes in another line. David H. Sherwood and P. T. Barnum ran the first mowing-machine (a Ketehum) in this county. There could not be found two men in the country wlio were so ready with wit or jokes on all occasions as the last- mentioned couple. Mr. David H. Sherwood has always been interested in the Fairfield County Fair. At the time he was associated with Barnum everything Irom California was so immense, iu grain, fruit, or stock, tliat when entering some of the latter for Bariuim, — which was no less than some donkeys, — Mr. Slierwo(]d entered them as " California Rabbits," — a joke relished greatly by the great showman. Tlie Sherwood family have married into all the families in town from the early date of its settlement. (")ue representative in Southport was the late Dr. Jus- tin Sherwood, who was a graduate of Yale with Dr. Denison, of Fairfield. Their systems of practice were antagonistic, yet both were successful and highly es- teemed, and they died within a few months of each other. THE HULL K.\MILY.t Joseph Hull, born 1594, of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, took his first degree in 1614, and was in 1021 insti- tuted rector of Northleigh, a jiarisli adjoining the vicarage of his brother William. He arrived at Bos- ton Jlay 6, 1635, and was the first minister of Wey- mouth, Jlass. He was freeman of Massachusetts and Plymouth, a delegate to the ( ieneral Courts of both colonies, and the pioneer and founder of Barnstal)lc, on Capo Cod. He removed to Maine in 1641, and was minister at the celebrated Isles of Shoals, at York, and at Oyster River. He died Nov. 19, M\i\'^. Mr. Hull remained within the pale of the Established Church, and by the Puritans was suspected of episco- pal, if not prelatical, tendencies. He was the life- t Coutiibutiil l.y A. B. Uul 334 HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, CONNECTICUT. long opponent of the Massachasetts Bay Company, and Governor Winthrop informs us that he was a contentious man and ran a diflerent course from the Boston party in botli civil and ecclesiastical affairs. His descendants are found chiefly in Khode Island and New York. Tlie parentage and birthplace of the Hulls are not known. Two well-defined family traditions have been traced back to early colonial days. One, trans- mitted by the descendants of George, of Fairfield, states that three brothers came from Old England, and that their immediate descendants located in Con- necticut, in Massachusetts, and in Rhode Island. It evidently refers to George, John, and Joseph. The other tradition, found in the Rhode Island family (descendants of Joseph), is to the effect that their an- cestor claimed descent from the family long seated at Larkebeare, in St. Leonard's jjarish, Exeter, Devon- shire. Still another tradition has it that their father was also a clergyman, but this may point no farther back than to the brothers William and Joseph, both episcopally ordained. The probabilities are that their fiither wa.s a substantial yeoman or thrifty burgher of Somerset, and that he claimed descent from the Larkebeare Hulls. Mr. George Hull, the second of these brothers, was born about 1590. He and his daughter Marie are named in the vicar's will. To George wa.s given a reversionary interest in an annuity issuing out of cer- tain premises in Broad-Wind.sor in county Dorset, and to Marie a legacy of ten pounds. He came over with the West-Country people in the great ship " Mary and .John," Capt. Squeb, which sailed from Plymouth, in Devon, March 30, 1629-30, and arrived May 30, IGSO, at Nantasket (a point afterwards named Hull, in honor of his brother .Joseph), and thirteen days before the arrival of Governor Winthrop at Salem. They located at Mattapan, and named their planta- tion Dorchester. These first comers, chiefly from Somerset, Devon, and Dorset, " were many of them persons of note and figure," and Mr. Hull was dignified then, and always after, with the title of " Mister" or " JIaster," " which but few in those days were." He took the freeman's oath May 14, 11)33, and it is con- jectured that he then for the first time attached him- self to the Dorchester Church, and it doea not appear that he thereafter took any active ])art in the ecclesi- astical politics of the times. The same year he was a nuMuber of the town council which established the municipal government. In 1033 and 1(534 he was one of the raters of tlie town, and he and Capt. John Bursley (who married his niece, Joanna Hull) were the tax commissioners. In 1635 and 1636 he was elected one of the selectmen " for the ordering of the plantation." Jlr. Hull was deiuity from Dorchester to the first (ieneral Court helil at Boston, May 14, l(i34, the most notable body of representative men assembled among the founders of New England, which curbed the power of the theocracy by assuming to themselves the right of law-making; and "no country on earth," says Judge Savage, " can afford the history of any event more interesting to its own inhabitants." In 1635 his brother Joseph, rector of Northleigli, arrived with many people out of Somerset and Dorset, and with twenty-one families, including his own, sat down at Wessagusset, now Weymouth, but which until the fall of the year remained within the terri- torial jurisdiction of the town of Dorchester. Thus for a short time the three brothers, George, John, and Joseph, were fellow-townsmen. During the year 1636, George Hull and family, and his son-in-law, Mr. Pinney (who had married his daughter Marie), with many others, — in all, about one-half of the first comers and grantees, — removed to the Connecticut Valley and founded the town of \\'indsor. In the same year he surveyed Wethers- field, in Connecticut, and the records of Plymouth colony disclose the fact that he received a grant of land at Green's Harbor Path in 1637, perhaps in com- pensation for professional services as a surveyor. He was rei)resentative from the town of Windsor to the_^r«/ General Court assembled at Hartford, May 1, 1637, which declared war against the Pequot In- dians, and by the spirited measures adopted is mem- orable in the history of the times. He continued to represent Windsor every year until 164(5, when he removed to Fairfield, where he made jiurchase of several tracts of land. After his removal to Fairfield he was elected deputy to the General Court most of the time to the year 1(556. He was the personal friend and jmlitical adherent of Governor Roger Ludlow. He emigrated with him from Englan<l in 1()30, removed with him to Connec- ticut in 1636, and, jointly with him, obtained from the court in 1638 a grant of the mono]»iily of the beaver-trade on the Connecticut River. When Gov- ernor Ludlow went to Fairfield, Mr. Hull soon fol- lowed, and was selected by the court his assistant or lieutenant in the military operations of the year 1649; and in l(!ol, and again in 1(553 and 1(554, he was ap- jiointed by the General Court as associate magistrate for the towns of the "Sea Siile," being in this ca- pacity the assistant of Mr. Ludlow, the magistrate. Mr. Ludlow embarked for Virginia in 1654, and Mr. Hull, though frequently thereafter elected by the people as their deputy, is not again ai)pointed an as- sistant magistrate by the court. He w)is twice married. His first wife — mother of all his childri;n_;7-died before his removal to Fairfield. She was puituMy Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Rus- sell, who died at Weymouth, in 1(540, leaving a small estate to his "only fhild, Elizabeth Hull." Af\er June, 1654, he niarrit^^arah, widow of David Phip- pen, or J"itzpen, of Boston, by whom there wits no issue. He died in 1659, aged about seventy years. He was j)ublic-spirited, active, and intelligent, and as a legis- FAIRFIELD. 3o5 latdi' ;niil nui,nisti-;ite was instruiiiciital in ostablisliiug two of tho tree and ciiliglitoiK'd nmiiuouwealtlis of New Enghuid. Cotton Matlici' distiiigui>lir(l liiiu with a place in liis groat book, and alsu plaees his brotlicr Joseph in liis " Fii-st Chissis" or list of " First Good Men." Mr. Trnmhiill, historian of Connectieut, groujis him with those whose names are worthy of per- petuation, an<l ]\Ir. Stiles, historian of Windsor, tells us that he was a citizen of wortli and distinrtinn. One of the pioneers of Fairfield not mentioned per- sonally was (Jeurge Hull, who was horn in l.-ilKl. Cornelius Hull, of Fairfield, C(mn., born i[i ](i2(i, married Rebeeea, daughter of Rev. John and Sarah Jones, of Fairtield. Sir. Jones was episeopally or- dained in Kngland, ami eame in the ship "Defense" from ]j07idon in 1()3.') ; was ordained pastor of the Cone(n'<l Chureh .\pril (i, Ki.ST ; removed with many of his parish to Fairfield in September, 1(1+4. Upon the oeeasion of his marriage, in 1().>3, Mr. Hull, liy deed of gift dated November UHh, granted to his son Cornelius a homestead farm in Fairfield, and Novem- ber l'4tli he purchased a homestead lot of three acres in the village. Cornelius followed his father's profes- sion,— that <jf a surveyor. He was representative to the (xeneral Court for nuiny years, — 16.5(5-0(1, 1(;(>2-G,3, and l()(i7. In IDT-'J he was lieutenant of the Life- Guards, and i:i l('i7('i lieutenant of the Fairfield com- pany, and was out in King Philip's war, in which service he received a grant of laud in lt>77. He left a will dated Sejit. Ki, Kiil.').