Norwalk

born, James Stuart1"1-, came to gladden the home in the spring of 1662-3. The young James, in due time, became a father, and having settled about a half-mile north of his parents, (Thomas East Avenue home of 1896) his wife Experience presented him with a son who, named for his paternal grandfather, was Robert Stuart-"d. Robert2,,d- had several children: Betty, born 1740; Sarah, bap. June 3, 1743; Experience, bap. May I, 175 1; Isaiah, bap. Aug. 29, 1748, and Isaac, born 1749. The last named child, Isaac, married, Dec. 25, 1 7 7 1 , Olive, born Oct. 20, 1749, daughter of (so it seems) Thaddeus and Abigail Morehouse. Soon after his marriage Isaac Stuart left his peaceful home on the Wilton height, and joining Capt. Comstock's company, "went to war" He had a brother James also, and his sister Sarah, marrying Peter Hubbell, was the mother of the late venerable Matthias Hubbell of Main Street, Nor walk. Isaac Stuart's children were Betty, born July 9, 1772; Martha, born Dec. 24, 1777; Moses, born March 26, 1780, and Sarah, born Aug. 25, 17S1. Moses, the only son of Isaac and Olive Stuart, left at his decease. Jan. 4, 1S52, an imperishable name and record. He was a Yale man, Class of 1799, and for a short time a Yale tutor. He was settled for a few years over the Centre Church, New Haven, and then was elected Professor of Sacred Literature in the Andover, Mass., Theo- logical Seminary. He married a Miss Hannah Clark of Danbury, and had several child- ren. It was a long step from the quiet portal at the rear of " Drum Hill " to the eminent pulpit on the Elm City Green, but the promising young Moses accomplished it, and his exceptional attainments and character have conferred glory upon his family name and his ancient birth-town. His father died March 23, 1820, and his mother reached a grand age, having deceased June 24, 1840. HOM F.-LO T XX 1 1 JOHN STEELE.1 MATTHIAS ST. JOIIN.i As the head of a great house, the name of Matthias Sension or St. John, is laurel- crowned. When this father arrived in Norwalk and chose his cottage-site, the place was a wilderness. He selected for his home the highest point on the "Towne Street", and, looking through the "clearings" caught, from his south-facing door, glimpses of the dis- ■For Hon. John Steele's connection with this biinH'-iot set-- foot noU', page 40. -'Agreeable to the statement-drift of the " Lineage Preface" found on page Si. the suhjoined is here sub- mitted. Sr. John Pedigkki-;, St. John wa- ,1 name of note in England, Oliver St. John of Penmarkc was step-grandfather of Henry V II- Lady Anna, daughter of Sir John St. John, was great-grandmother of Gov. Calvert of Maryland, the father-in-law of John Parke Custis, who was Presi- dent Washington's step son, and the grandfather of Mary Randolph Guslis (Mrs. Gen. Robert E. Lee). The claim was formerly made that the Colonial Connecticut .St. John's were of descent from one of the English Kings. Cicely, a daughter of Edward IV. married Viscount .Sir John, the son of whom took the name of Sir John de St. John, which hitter's great- grandson Sir Oliver, was the father of Elizabeth St. John (born 1605, who married, in 1629, a son of John Whitney, Lord Mayor of Boston, England), who came to this country in May, 1636, and settled, with NORWALK. 325 tantly shimmering Sound. The site of the original St. John hearthstone is to-day covered by the north door-yard and adjoining short east and west roadway of the East Avenue Chichester property. On this spot, the purchase in 1661, from Hon. John Steele, the remarkable progenitor spent his Norwalk life-time, and with his aging eyes beheld the gradual growth of the Ludlow plant. Roger Ludlow, the Norwalk purchaser and Matthias St. John, the Norwalk pioneer, with other " persons of figure " appear to have been founders of Dorchester, Mass. Lud- low, dissatisfied with the elevation, in 1636, of John Haynes to the Governorship of Mas- sachusetts, determined to quit the colony and emigrate to Connecticut. With a number of his Dorchester neighbors, including, quite possibly, Matthias St. John, Sr., the party, "nearly one-half the population of Dorchester", and a large proportion of its intelligence and wealth, made its way to Windsor, Connecticut. Ludlow came afterward to Fairfield and St. John to Norwalk. Mr. St. John's estate was tabulated as early as 1655, and in 1661 he bought the home-lot of " Mr. Steele of Farmington ". Granting that the St. John's had fully Norwalk arrived in 1655, the youngest member of the family, James, would have then been six years of age. The children, none of whom were born in Norwalk, were : Matthias, Jr. Mark. Samuel. Mercie. James. The oldest son of Matthias St. John, Sr., (Matthias Jr.) must at least have " been of age" in 1655, as his estate was then a matter of record. In 1672 himself and wife Eliza- beth are listed as having seven children,' but their progeny's full complement was, probably, eight, viz.: Ebenezer, James2d\ Samuel*1-, Nathan, Matthias3*1-, John, Rachel and Mary. her husband, in Lynn, Mass. Her father was a man of mark in Cromwell's time, a fact adduced in possi- ble explanation of the conjecture found in Hurd's, r83[, History of Fairfield County, Conn., to the effect that the Norwalk St. John's are descendants of a rel- ative by that name of Protector Oliver and Lady Eliza- beth Cromwell. Again, the belief has obtained that Matthias, the Norwalk St. John forefather, was of kin to Lord Bolingbroke; whilst, finally, a partial gene- alogy of the family, published in 1R90, records that the Norwalk St. John ancestors were French Hugue- nuts who, driven from their native country on account of their religion, found a refuge in America. Staunch advocates of these St. John foreign con- jectures were found in the families of Jos. St. John3d-, Moses St. John, and in the person of Henry St. John of New Haven, who is remembered in Norwalk to- day. Henry St. John married into a branch of the Samuel Gray family of Brookfield, Conn. Samuel Gray removed from Brookfield to Norwalk, residing for some time in the old building which once occu- pied the northwest corner of the present North Ave- nue and France Street. lie was thrice married. By his first wife he had one child who died young. His second wife was a Ritner, by whom he had one daugh- ter, Miss Sarah Gray. His third wife was Mary Lyon, who died at the house of the late Lucretia (Jarvis) St. John in Main Street. There was no is- sue by this marriage. Samuel Gray's niece, daugh- ter of his cousin Harvey E. Gray, of Brookfield. mar- ried Mr. Henry St. John of New Haven. The Lord Bolingbroke crest embellished the Hudson River palace steamer " St. John," which ves- sel was named for, and for a time commanded by, a great-grandson of Moses St. John of Norwalk, Capt. Alanson Piatt St. John. ■The old home in which the children of Matthias St. John*1, were brought up, stood in a portion of what now forms the East Norwalk Earle homestead. It was hard by Ephraim Lockwood's house on " Meet- ing House Hill", but somewhat nearer the "lane leading to Oyster Shell Point ". Soon after the death of Matthias St. John*1, his son Ebenezer sold one-half of the lot to Benjamin St. John, which Benjamin al NORWALK. Mark, second son of Matthias St. John'"- was the stirring settler who was owner of home-lot ill. as per page 93 and note on page 40. Samuel, born in 1639, brother of Mark St. John, married in Sept. 1663, Elizabeth, daughter of Walter, the Norwalk Hoyt settler. On his pre-bridal errands Samuel had only to cross a few of the Indian-cleared fields before was reached the home of his future partner, near the present railroad-transformed Fort Point. His life was comparatively brief, as he died at the age of forty-five (Jan. 14, 1684), leaving three children: Sarah, Thomas and Elizabeth. James1"-, youngest son of Matthias St. John, Sr., was married just as 1673 expired (Dec. 31). His partner was Rebecca, daughter of John Pickett'-' of Stratford.1 Matthias St. John's last boy, James'"-, seemed to be in precarious health. He enjoyed only two years of wedded life and died without issue, leaving his property largely to his widow and his nephews Joseph, Thomas and James St. John, and James Lockwood, the son of his sister Mercie (Mrs. Ephraim Lockwood, the Norwalk Lockwood settler). This sister (Mercie) of the early St. John boys, was the progenitress (see home-lot xx, page 289) of the extensive Lockwood household of Norwalk. A DIVERSE ST. JOHN DESCENT. Joseph'"-, Norwalk's oldest St. John "only son" (see page 93) was the son of Mark and grandson of Matthias St. John, Sr. He married at the age of thirty-two (Mar. 15, 1696) Sarah, (born 1666) daughter of Thomas1"- and Mary Retts, and had: Sarah, born June 13, 1697. Man-, born Aug. 22, 1701. (Mrs. John Eversley'5'-)3 Joseph 2d-, born Nov. 5, 1705. ("Captain".) Elizabeth, born Feb. 6, 1707. (Mrs. Isaac Scudder.)* ready owned the land adjoining it on every side save the north. 'John Pickett the settler appeared first in Salem, Mass., in 1648 and two years later in Stratford. He died April n, 16S4 and his wife, Margaret Oct. 6, 16%. His sons John, James i»t. ( see note page 22,1) and Thomas were baptized in Salem in 164S His daughter Sarah, who married Robert Lane of Strat- ford, was baptized the same year as were her three brothers. His daughter Rebecca, who married |ames St. John of Norwalk, and her younger brother Daniel, were baptized later. He was a Stratford Constable in 1650, Selectman in 1667, and a Colonial Assembly Representative 1673-1675. 2The children of the young Englishman Johnist. and Mary (St. John) Eversley were John Eversley«l., Daniel, born 1740, Sarah and Mary. John Eversleyzd. married Abigail Hyatt and had: Jnhn3"i., born Aug. .•3, 1766; Molly (Mrs. Samuel Caijlv. Jr.), horn Ma". 27, 1769 and Hetty (Mrs. Salmon Jennings), born Jan- 3. 1773. John Evcrsley3rd. married Marv, born