Norwalk

trips between the two places named, their city berth being adjacent to Catharine, James and Peck Slips and the annual "corporation wharfage" at each berth averaging about ten dollars for each vessel. The receipts for pierage, still preserved, are in olden form, being signed, from T 795 to 1803. by John Bingham. Charles Smith and Moses and Daniel Coe. Some few years subsequently, 10*12-15, Long Island Sound commerce was almost annihilated by the British Commodore Hardy and the "Liverpool packet." Sad work was made with Connecticut schooners and sloops. Our North shore sailors, however, notably Capt. Dan'l. Merritt (ancestor of the 1896 Norwalk Merritts), sometimes eluded the enemy and made their way through the East River into the city. From 1815 to the beginning of local steam navigation, in 1824, there were several Norwalk coasting proprietors. Uriah Selleck,1 one of whose vessels (see page 51) was lost in the memorable autumn gale of 1821, was one of these. Eben. D. Hoyt was a shipmaster at that time. Tn the summer Warren, son of Joseph, was well known in this com- munity. He married Lydia, daughter of Hezekiah Raymond, and a sister of Mrs. Capt. Daniel K. Nash. Their residence was on Flax Hill. Mr. and Mrs. Warren were blessed with nine children, the oldest son being the heroic Dr. Hezekiah B. Warren. This physician of character "too valuable to die so young" (see page 111) was a grandson of Hezekiah Raymond, whose wile Lydia, was a daughter of Rev. James and Mary Lockwood, said Mrs. Mary Lockwood having been a daughter of Rev. Moses Dickinson, third pas- tor of the First Congregational Church, Norwalk. The Warren incumbency of the Norwalk sail ves- sel route was at a time of interesting metropolitan his- tory. John Jacob Astor had just established himself in Water Street and made the second of his nearly three hundred property purchases. Alexander Hamilton had recently become the proprietor of the twenty- acre "Grange," a splendid tract in the upper part of the island. Aaron Burr, who in 1804 mortally wound- ed Hamilton, had bought his- handsome Richmond Hill, now Varick Street. The Rosevelts' lucrative plate glass plant had been established and their elr- gant home (Broadway and Fourteenth Street) opened ; and High Constable Hayes, who dared to name his son after Aaron Burr, which son held for a half-cen- tury the office of cashier of the North River Bank, was then an influential citizen. 'Uriah Selleck's dwelling was on the N. W. cor- ner of the present Main Street and Union Avenue. His store and dock were (see note page 51) near the Leonard coal wharf of to-day and opposite the Jos- eph Keeler, afterward Anson Quintard, home. Jos- eph Keeler was a son of Capt. Samuel Keeler, whose "home-lot land" was the southern boundary of Ralph Isaacs' 1750 purchase, covered in 1894 by the Norwalk Opera House, Post-Office, Railway station, Masonic building, Club house, Isaacs Street and Ilanford's Floral Hall. Mis. Joseph Keeler was Hannah, daugh- ter of Isaac Hoyt, of South Norwalk, and a sister of Charles Hoyt, formerly of North Avenue. At the decease, in 1822, of Uriah Selleck, his dock and sture property fell to the widow of his son Zaimon, Mrs. Eliza Selleck, mother of Mrs. Wm. K- James, whose husband afterward bought the property. The next store above Uriah Selleck's was that of Joseph Keeler, the premises to the extreme north of whom on Har- bour Avenue, now Water Street, was owned by Eben- ezer 1>, Hoyt. Uriah Selleck's grand-daughter, Maria Philips Selleck, the now venerable (Mrs. William K. James) has, from childhood, been the intimate friend of the Peter Lockwood descendants through his grandson Buckingham St. John Lockwood. The daughters of the latter, Elizabeth, Mary Esther and Julia Abigail, and also such well recalled Norwalk daughters as Elizabeth, Ann and Sophia Isaacs, and Mary Esther, Susan Virginia, Sarah Louisa and Julia Belden St. John, and Margaret and Amelia Belden, and Mary and Harriet Hoyt, and Mary and Margaret Newkirk, and Elizabeth Jarvis, Harriet Betts, Augusta Greg- ory, Elizabeth St. John and Charlotte Camp were acquaintances and companions in days agone, Mrs. James is of the same Hon. Richard Law blood as are the descendants, Lock woods and others, of Captain Joseph St. John.3d- Her father Zaimon, born March 31, 1795, was son of Uriah, baptized Oct. 31, 1762-3, who was son of Nathaniel, born Oct. 29, 1725, who was son of David, born Dec. 23, 1700, who was son of Nathaniel, born April 7, 1678, who was son of John and Sarah (Law) Selleck. John Selleck marrie/J Sarah, daughter of Hon. Richard Law, October 25, 1669. He was born in Boston, Feb. 21, 1643, and bap- tized two days afterward, Mrs. James has been a benefactor of St. Paul's Parish, Norwalk, and has generously erected the Ludlow monument in the East Norwalk of 1896 to the memory of Roger Ludlow, the founder of Norwalk. NORWALK. of 1814 he built on Uriah Selleck's dock the sloop Teaser. Afterward the firm name was "E. D. Hoyt & Son" (Edwin), the line consisting of the Union, Captain Jedediah Brown ; the Mechanic, Captains Samuel Daskam and Alden Brothwell ; the Citizen, Captains Sam- uel Pennoyer and Sherman T. Morehouse, and Sabina, (Capt. Francis Hoyt was an officer in this line) made tri-weekly trips, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, to New York. Noah Selleck having bought out the Hoyts, sailed from the Hoyt dock close to the "bridge." His line embraced the sloops, Mary Ann Selleck, Domestic and Surplus as an extra. Captains Joseph Byxbee, Isaac Demmon and Isaac Selleck commanded the boats. At this time Captain Willis J. Merritt built and ran the sloop Mary Willis upon the Nor- walk route. Noah Selleck afterward associated with him his brother Isaac. The two were succeeded by the latter 's son Capt. Isaac Selleck, Jr. Charles T. Leonard now be- came temporary proprietor, and finally Capt. Isaac Demmon controlled the line. This was the end (barring a sort of desultory occupancy of the route by the sloop John I. Perry be- longing to A. J. Meeker & Brother) of Norwalk packet history, which end was tragic. The last vessel of the last regular line, the Domestic, was burned to the water's edge off Shippan Point, and her last commander, Capt. Isaac Demmon, died in the arms of Captain Isaac Selleck, Jr., on West Avenue, Norwalk. The passage by sail to the metropolis, sometimes accomplished in twenty-four hours and often requiring a considerably longer time for its performance, was an event in gone days. At first the greater part of the "hull" was "berthed off" as the passenger list ran at times to over fifty, but as the Captains Selleck and Merritt era neared, more space was appropriated to freight. Market day was a busy one at the " bridge," and there was a stir when the " wagoners" arrived. James Wilkes drove from New Fairfield, Nathan Benedict from Ridgebury, John Knowles from New Milford, Benedict Dunning from Brookfield, Hull from Danbury, Myram Dikeman from Redding, Samuel Seymour from North Wilton, Russel Mead from Ridgefield, and Nathaniel Close from North Salem. The produce was stored below deck, excepting the crates of live fowl and barrels of vegetables and fruit which stood in the front of the " quarter deck." The cabin, divided into two parts by slid- ing doors, was appropriated to the captain and passengers. There were no " state rooms" but "curtained berths" (on the Orion "five lengths") lined both sides of both cabins. In a Hudson River cabin Alexander Hamilton, in 1787, penned the opening chapter of The Federalist, "undoubtedly the most profound treatise on government that has ever been written." No Norwalk sloop cabin, it is true, was ever thus distinguished, nevertheless it may well be believed that the time there spent by our merchant and professional men of the same era was not entirely misimprovecl. Our business men of more recent years, such as George Bishop, Charles Isaacs and Thomas Warner, patronized the route, the latter of whom when intending to make the trip was wont after bank hours to go to the dock and interrogate the captain as to "the prospect." If the reply came "fine weather and fair wind," the cashier was sure to be aboard at the hour of sailing, and almost as certain to N O R W A L K . 307 find himself at James Slip in the morning. Upon the down passage the boat was con- sidered well under way when "Sheffield Island" was cleared, between which and " Sand's Point" lay the long Sound stretch, the route leading from thence through the Lower Sound, East River, "the Gate," the east and west channels (Blackwelt Island), and round the "Hook" to the finish. Capt. Jacob Nash, born in Ridgefield in 1772, but a resident afterward of Norwalk, was a master mariner, and so was his son Capt. Daniel K. Nash. The latter and his neighbor Capt. William H. Ferris are to-day well-remembered Norwalk sea and sailing masters, and their business was large.