Norwalk

'Benjamin, son of Elihu and grandson of David DeForest, 2d- removed early, with bis parents, from Wilton. The family seems to have gone, first, to Ridgebury, a portion of the town of Ridgefield. Here it remained awhile when Elihu DeForest pur- chased a large tract which now lays on the line be- tween Ridgefield and Danbury, about a mile from the Danbury Fair Grounds, in the present " Mirv Brook " district of Danbury. It is a fine country and the es- tate to-day (Norris Knoll) is held by a nephew of Benj. DeForest, viz,, Benj. DeForest Norris. The old proprietors, Elihu, born Nov., 1739, and Rachel DeForest, born Aug. 31, 1744, sleep in the burial acre a short distance awav, and the house and grounds in and upon which their grandchildren, Margaret, Marv B. and Caroline (daughters of Benj. DeForest), at- tended by the family maids and family livery, spent and sported many happy summer hours, are still well kept up. Of this spot, his own home, Benj. DeFor- est as a lad was fond, and from it when a little older he left to become associared with his older brother, D. Lambert, who had left the same place and found- ed himself in the village of Southeast, over the New York line, and a few miles from his father's home. The children of Elihu and Rachel DeForest, were David Lambert, born March r6, 1762; Joseph, born June 9, 1764; Laurany, born July 9, 1767; Benj.,1"- born July 16, 1771 ; Elizabeth, born March 13, 1774; Bill Clark, born July 14, 1782, who died Dec, 1812. David Lambert, oldest son of Elihu DeForest and named for his maternal grandfather (David Lambert, Sr., of Wilton), married a Barnum and resided at "DeForest Corners " (named for himself) in South- east. I le had three sons, Archibald, Alfred and Ben- jamin. Alfred went to New York, where he married, and became largely and successfully associated with his uncle, Benj. DeForest. This uncle, Benj., had, I when young, lived with his brother, D. Lambert, in Southeast and helped him, as a clerk, in his business. Alfred, nephew of Benjamin and son of David L. De- Forest, bad no children, but his namesake second cousin, Alfred DeForest Gale, of Troy, was a rare and beautiful natured and tempered youth, whose race, indeed, was early run, but whose memory is to- day treasured by his old Norwalk tutor. After Benj. DeForest left Southeast he went, for a time, to Sing Sing, but finally settled in New York City, where he prospered. He married, in 1804, Mary (see note page 272), daughter of Thomas Burlock, (son of Job, of Norwalk). Thomas Burlock had now established a business in Grand Street, New York, and was at one time rated at a "hundred thousand." He lived in First Street, near Bond, from which street his funeral was attended. Mary Burlock, daughter of Thomas and niece of Mrs. Nathan Bouton (her father's sis- ter), was engaging, and became the wife of Benjamin DeForest. These had three children, all daughters, Margaret, born Nov. 21, 1816 (Mrs. Geo. B. DeFor- est*); Mary B., born Sept. 7, 1S19 (Mrs. Colonel Le- Grand B. Cannon), and Caroline, born May 27, 1823 (Mrs. E. Thompson Gale, of Troy, N. Y .). Mrs. Geo. B. DeForest and her two sisters, Mary B. and Caroline, were, as has been noted, delighted and de- lightful warm weather guests at their father's and grandfather's northern Fairfield County home, in which romantic spot, Margaret, 2d- daughter of Mrs. Geo. B. DeForest, lay for some time a sufferer from blindness. This good woman did not marry, but a *George Beach DeForest was the son of Lockwood DeFor- est. who married a Beach. Lockwood DeForest, born March 5, I775, was a son of Nehemiah ami -Mary (Lockwood) DeForesi. .Mr>. Nehemiah DeForest wa- the daughter of Peter and Abi- gail (Hawley) Lockwood, of Norwalk. She married Nehemi- ah, son of Samuel and Abigail (Teat) DeForest. George B. DeFurest WR$ a cousin of the second Mrs., deaeon Geo. St. John, of Norwaik. 28o NORWALK India shippers, he commenced a remunerative business career in the metropolis. His suc- cess was marked, and the house of Benj. DeForest was a commercial power. Mr. DeFor- est married, when past young-manhood, Mary, daughter of Thomas and Mary (Layton) Burlock, as elsewhere mentioned. His city home was, at first, in Beekman Street, but later in Bond Street. The Norwalk Lockwood intimacy, which began in Eliphalet Lockwood's day, was perpetuated by Mr. Lockwood's grandchildren, Mary Esther (Mrs. John P. Tread- well), Elizabeth (Mrs. Henry Morgan) and Miss Julia Lockwood. Mrs. DeForest's brother, Henry, married an opulent lady of one of the Southeastern islands. The wife died with- out issue, and after the husband's decease her fortune fell, through Henry Burlock, to his brother-in-law, Benj. DeForest. This young, fascinating, black-eyed, fortunate grand- son of Job and Esther Burlock, of Norwalk (Henry Burlock), was a nephew of Samuel Burlock, who married, in 1796, Helena Layton, of Long Island, and had Samuel DeFor- est Layton, born 1812, the father of " Sister Marina," of the New York City and Norwalk St. Mary's Hospital for children. chapel, built at Southeast by herself, to-day atte&ts to her benevolence. Her father's country-seat, as also that of her uncle, Col. LeGrand B. Cannon, was at Burlington, Vt. Joseph, brother of Benjamin DeForest, "st. lived in Brooklyn and had a daughter, Sarah, whose only child married a Van Buren. Of the two sisters of Benj. DeForest, ,st- Laurany married Timothv Keeler and Elizabeth married Captain Stephen Norris, of Ridgefield and Danburv vicinity. Mrs. Timothy Keeler (Laurany, sister of Benjamin DeForest), had a daughter, Sarah, who married Jarvis Brush, the father of Prof. George Jawis Brush, of Yale Univer- sity (Sheffield School). Benjamin DeForest had a great-uncle, Nehemi- ah, born Jan. 24, 1743, a brother of Benjamin's grand- father, David DeForest. Nehemiah DeForest mar- ried. Dec. 20, 1769, Marv, daughter of Peter Lock- wood, of Norwalk. These had a daughter, Mary, who marripd a New York and Fairfield Skinner. Mr. and Mrs. Skinner had a daughter, Jane, who married President Timothv Dwight, now at the head of Yale College. Eliza, older sister of Mrs. Tim- othy Dwight, was engaged to the late Rev. Augustus F. Hewitt, and the two would probably have been mar- ried had not Mr. Hewitt (son of Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Hewitt, of Bridgeport,) entered the Roman Catholic Communion and became a Paulist Father. Norwalk is fructifying genealogy-soil and a com- pensating family-field to till. Its reminiscence-wealth \* also abounding. Standing at the birth-spot, on its northern hills, of Benj. DeForest, one can open a portfolio which a drive therefrom, for a few hours, will memoranda fill. Near by will be passed the fields cultivated by the ancestors of the Empire State Mr*. Dean Richmond; off on one hand will stretch the Saybrook Buckingham lands; down in the valley dwelt the elder President Timothy Dwight's alliance- kin, while to the north, before Fairfield County is quit, will stretch romantically beyond the cottage- site of Benj. DeForest's second tenantcy, ere the boy left that handsome slope to begin life in the Daniel Drew neighborhood, long years before that great operator made his offer to the Norwalk young begin- ner, Alanson P. St. John, of future North River fame. Along this route towers "Bear Hill" and winds "Miry Brook," in the vicinity of which localities Benj. DeForest, in early and later life, took great comfort, and his daughters, Margaret, Marv and Caro- line, were wont to enjoy many a holiday, while not far away from the spot one can listen from the dwell- er thereat, and learn of the Long Island Lay ton's thrift, and how " Aunt Layton, " who prudently saw that the farm produce was properly market-con- signed, would industriously keep on with her knitting while business-riding over Long Island to and from the metropolis. The Lay tons (household into which Thomas Burlock, brother-in-law of Nathan Bouton, married) were intimate with the weli-known Close family, of North Salem, Westchester County, and visited at their residence (since the How place) near the famous Salem pivots-supported boulder, the Ob- long-recall of which visits are to-day pondered with pleasure. The story is also here told, by one who lives, in 1896, about two miles from the former "New York province line," an aged and highly agreeable Fairfield County veteran, of Mrs. Nathan Warren's intimacy, seventy or so years ago, with her Fairfield County-DeForest blood, and of a Connecticut trip made by herself and daughter, Harriet, the motherly and daughterly devotion between whom so, at thai time, impressed the now nearly ninety winters-wh .vliited iim ii \krkx UOttrt'.iJtl' '//.i/'AV., NORWALK. 281 Silas Hickox, uncle of Elihu DeForest and of Mrs. Job Burlock, and great-uncle of Thomas Burlock and Mrs. Nathan Bouton, was the son of Deacon Benjamin and Sarah (Lockwood) Hickox, Wilton. Benj. Hickox was the first Deacon of the Wilton Church. His wife, Sarah Lockwood, belonged to the Lockwood family of Stamford and Xorwalk. This mother, after losing, on Nov. 17, 1745. her Hickox husband, married. March 9, 1756, Samuel Kellogg (son of Daniel Kellogg-), of Norwalk. She now ended her day. in ease, her Kellogg husband being the proprietor of the substantial property to-day the Xor- walk home of Mrs. William K. James. Her Kellogg step-son, Epenctus, was the grand- father of Eseck Kellogg, of West Xorwalk, and of Edward Kellogg, whose daughter, Harriet E., married Dr. Carrol Dunham, of New York City, whose sons. Carrol and Ed- ward, married, respectively, Margaret and Mary, daughters of David and Margaret Worcester Dows, of "Charlton Hall," Irvington-on-Hudson. Mr. Dows was the head of the New York City produce house of David Dows & Co.