Norwalk

Mercy, an older, probably the oldest, child of Peter and Mercy James, married, May 20, 1781, Aaron Keeler, whose daughter Laura married Carmi, son of Michael Lockwood^-, and father of Edward Keeler Eockwood of 1896 (see page 117). Ket.i.ogg-Jotttng. Samuel Kelloggm. (see sub-note page 272 and note page 372), survived his last (Hickox) marriage nineteen months and four days, and was laid to rest in the "Town House Hill" Cemetery, where to-day stands his legibly-inscribed tombstone. It is possi- ble that his last wife, who was a Selleck and Hickox progenitress of remark, was laid near him, but there is no evidence of the same. His father is looked upon as having been a French protestant and his descend- ants have been man v. John Kellogg 'H., son of Daniel Kellogg2tJ-, mar- ried, Jan. r, 1729-30, Ann, daughter of Samuel Coley of Fairfield, and had: Ezra, Mary (Mrs. Robert Smith Jr. ) ; Ann (Mrs. Elnathan Knappof Danbury) ; John; Seth. Mrs. Robert Smith Jr. appears to have been the daughter-in-law of Robert lst- and Judith (Fountain) Smith (see pages 186 and 263). After the decease of John Kellogg1-1* the widow married James Haves and lived in Danbury. Martin Kellogg1-1-, born March 23, 1711, son of Samuel's., had four sons— Eliphalet, Martin, Jr., Samuel and Nathan. He died July 7, 1730, and his wife, who was his junior by six years, overlived him twenty - seven wars. I lis son, Martin, purchased a farm in New Fairfield, Mar. 13, 1773, and then left Norwalk. His wife was Mercy, daughter of James and Me rev (Knapp) Benedict of Danbury , which Jas. Benedict was the gr.-grandson of Thos. Benedict141- of Norwalk. Martin and Mercy Kellogg had a son Mar- tin, born Sept. 3, 1763, who was a Norwalk boy of some ten years when his parents quit this town and removed to their one hundred and ten "apple trees " acres in New Fairfield. The lad Martin reached ma- jority, and on Sept. 15, 1785, married Rachel Steven?, 378 XORWALK. HOME-LOT XXX TV. THOMAS BENEDICT, Jr. When, two-and-a-quarter centuries ago, Thomas Benedict, Jr.,' the second of his name in Norwalk, stood in his cottage, a little south of Oyster Shell Point, and from one of its river-view windows looked across the water, he perhaps hardly dreamed that it was to fall to his own blood soon to possess a no mean portion of the westward upland and lowland country upon which his eyes rested. The hill based by " Ponasses Path " (back to-day of the Armory), and extending as far as the " Great Swamp" on the Stamford road, was anon to bear his family name and be called " Benedict's Hill ", while upon the present Maple Street was to be built, by his grandson, a structure which would perpetuate the family story down into the yon half of the nineteenth century. which conducted, after a half-dozen miles, to a chasm road, from both sides of which, if old mentions are true, wild cats jumped " clean " across the way, and in the broken plain at the northern foot of which already lived Daniel's two brothers, Samuel and James. Daniel2*1-, son of Daniel'st-, married Rebecca, daughter of Thomas Taylor, one of the Norwalk set- tlers of Danbury. Matthew, second son of Danielad- and Rebecca, wedded a young woman from the "Still River" country, sixteen miles to the northeast of Danbury (Mabel, daughter of John Noble of New Milford). These two had a son (Capt. Noble Bene- dict, born Jan. 25, 1735), who raised, in the Revolu- tionary war, a company in Danbury, among the first to enlist in which was a Carmel farm youth, Enoch Crosby, the future " spy" (see page 96). The next younger brother of Thomas Benedict. Jr,, was Jolin,st-, who married, Nov. n, 1670. Phcebe, daughter of John'st. and Sarah Gregory (see p. 82). This son, John, born Mar. 3, 1676, was the grand- father of John Benedict, who married, Apr. 4, 1792, Jane, daughter of Samuel Raymond, and had: Bet- sey (who married Rev. Zenophon, son of patriot Capt. Hezeltiah Betts of Norwalk), and Amanda, who married, Dec. 16, 1847, as his second wife, the late George W. Benedict of South Norwalk, father of the deceased Homer of California, and of the brave Theo- dore of the Civil War, and of Dr. George W., post- master in 1895, of South Norwalk. George W. Bene- dict, father of Homer, Theodore and George W.*i was himself a descendant ( gr.-gr.-gr. -grandson ) of John'st. and Phoebe (Gregory) Benedict He, as was the case with his brother William Henry, was a strong character. The brothers were manufacturers, whose establishment sent out workman like work, and the intelligence and enterprise of its managers contrib- uted, not alone to the local community's weal, but was an element in the antecedent success which has helped to make possible the closing century's crown- ing material progress. who bore to him, Sept. 12, 1786, a son Ira, who lived to marry, Jan. 29, 1812, Flora Rogers of the New Fairfield (Rogers) family (see page 108). Martin Kellogg, father of the present Jarvis Kel- logg of Center Avenue, was a son of Jarvis2ti- and Mercie (Selleck) Kellogg. His sister, the venerable Mrs. Stephen Stanley, now survives a husband who attained to a noble and much respected age. A grandson of Charles, brother of Martin, and son of Jarvis Kellogg2*1-, married the oldest child, Anne Adele Walton, of Rev. Alexander and Adele Walton (Livermore) Hamilton, now of Norwalk. This fair descendant (Mrs. Gilvia Burr Kellogg) of Secre- tary Alexander and Elizabeth (Schuyler) Hamilton (see page 331), faded early away, but bequeathed a fragrant memory-legacy. 'The fourth brother of Thomas Benedict, Jr., Daniel151-, was young when his father came from Long Island to Norwalk. Directly across the street from the Benedicts ( Fort Point Street 1896, some few hund- red feet west of East Avenue) lived Marv Marvin, also a mere child, daughter of Matthew Marvin, Jr. Daniel'st- and Mary grew up together, and early I in life married each other. The husband was a pat- riot, and a> the Indians were thorns in the sides of the New England settlers, he resolved to help put down the savage foe. We consequently find him in the Indian engagement of Dec. 19, 1675, known in history as the " Direful Swamp fight ", and so pleased was the town of Norwalk with his demeanor on that occasion, that a grant of land, near what is now West Avenue, was voted him in recognition of his services. While he was yet in full strength, the town of Dan- bury had been projected, and himself and wife sold their Norwalk property, packed up evervthing, and started upon their tedious trip thither. Keeping, it is possible, along the river's valley, and passing" Split Rock", they drove through •< Pinipewaugh " and over the hill-path northeast of "Nod ".and then diverg- ing, ptMftfblv t" the left, continued across a level NORWALK 379 Upon that "over river" plain, the site in 1896 of Armory Square, and of the Van Buren, Chichester, Hyatt, Osborn, and other adjoining Street and Avenue residences, was reared the home of Thomas Benedict^-, from whose four children — Thomas, Deborah Ne- hemiah and Hannah — have emanated a number of the best known men and women of their time. ThomasSth-, the eldest of the quartette, a Norwalk merchant, officer, civil engin- eer and land proprietor, was the ancestor of the Coles, Earles, Keelers and Woodwards, as well as of several of the Benedicts now upon the stage. He had succeeded his father in the ownership of the antique second-story projecting house alluded to, from whence he liberated, after Independence was declared, and the autumn before the town was burned, Lucy, Cecil, Nancy and Dorcas, four of his slaves, mercifully, it is inferred, caring for the same until their arrival at twenty-one years of age. The story of his occupancy of the old house at the time of the town's burning is told on page 367. The description-completion of the forefathers home-lots — see diagram page 39 brings these founder-record pages of " NORWALK " to a logical period. Striking to this town's progenitors must have been the contrast betwixt the hearth- stones of Fatherland1 and those of the New World of their choice, but still their ruggedly 'The copy of the will of Thomas Fitch of Eng- land, father of Thomas Fitch '-"t. of Norwalk, is here subjoined. In the interests of genealogy and in veri- fication of what has been previously hinted in relation to the "worldly estate" of Thos. Fitch, Sr. of Nor- walk the document will repav perusal. The instru- ment, dated Dec. n, 1632, was proven " 12 Feb. 1632." " To the poor of Booking three pounds. To my Eldest son Thomas that Chief Messuage wherein I now dwell i n Hocking, and the Messuage adjoining, now in the occupation of the said Thomas, and all the lands tenements &c which I purchased of William Collin in Rocking, and the lands and tenements in Booking which I lately purchased of Edward Peppen, gent, and his wife and John Amplill and his wife, and the barn in Booking by Panfield Lane, which I lately purchased of Thomas Trotter upon condition that he pay my sister Stracy twenty shillings yearly during her natural life." "To my son and his heirs the Messuage in Book- ing, late of Richard Usher deceased, and which I lately purchased of Paul Usher and Peter Kirby and Ursula Bond, widow, and the little garden or orchard in Booking, now in the occupation of Richard Skin- ner or his assigns, and the tenement in the occupa- tion of Thomas Lave in Booking by Panfield Lane and the great orchard adjoining which I purchased of Mr. Thomas Trotter, to enter upon the same at his age of one and twenty years." " To my son John two hundred pounds at one and twenty."