Norwalk

months younger than her husband. Isaac, the son of Henry and Lucretia Marquand, married Mabel, daughter of Peter Perry, who was nephew of Mrs. John Cannon, Sr., of Norwalk. Isaac Marquand was for a time associated with his uncle, Jacob Jennings, as a learner of the silver-art, in Main Street, Norwalk. His two sons were the banker Henry Marquand, of New York City Metropolitan Museum fame, and Frederick, the munificent donor to Yale College. Mrs. Isaac Marquand's brother, Walter Perry, who was also Mrs. John Cannon, Sr.'s grand-nephew, was the father of Oliver H. Perry, whose sons John H. and Winthrop H. Perry, are well-known members of the Fairfield County bar to-day. 44 N OR WALK, all this the caller at the house to-day will discover the chimney, from the crane of which hung the kettle of always read}- " steeping" water. A portion of what is, in 1896, known as the Selleck house, on West Avenue, is of ante-revolutionary date. It was originally Belden property, and belonged to the fourteen acre homestead of John and Rebecca (Bartlett) Belden. After the parents' day, it fell to the ownership of their children, four of whom, Mary Esther, Sarah, Amos and Henry, sold on March 18, 1796, their share in the estate (two-thirds) to their brothers Isaac and John, who divided the fourteen acres between themselves, Isaac taking the south half and John the north portion. Isaac married the daughter of one of Norwalk's principal men of those earlier and more simple days, Matthew Reed, and lived in what is now known as the DeKlyn house. John was unmarried and resided in what is to-day the Selleck house. After John Belden's use of the premises, his brother Henry occupied the same for a time, and he, at the instigation of his wife, erected the milk^house addition which is to-day observed on the north side. The back roof at that time ran almost to the ground, and under its west section, floored with stone, was kept the wood for winter, but the space was reserved in summer for a " cooling" place in a hot day. The Beldens' rights in the prop- erty were finally bought out by Frederick St. John, son of William St. John and brother of Mrs. Col. Buckingham Lockwood. He had married Harriet, daughter of John Cannon, but had no children. He there lived and died, when the house and lot became the pur- chase of the widow of Zalmon Selleck, the mother of the present owner of the property, Mrs. Wm. K. James.' Mr. Selleck died in the South, leaving a widow and two children, one of whom, Henry, also died away from home, and the fine old place fell, consequently, to the mother and daughter, who there resided in great comfort. The building was set on fire by Garth's wing of Tryon's army, but as the men were hastening to cross the stream- rocks (site of iron bridge on Cross Street 1896) to join Tryon's forces, the house was prob- ably left as soon as the torch had been applied, and was on that account, partially saved. After the conflagation a small building that stood on the Westport road was moved and made to become a part of the original Belden building. Another existing ante-revolutionary home is that of the lower Main Street Hoyt sisters and brothers. On May 15, ,764, Goold Hoyt, Sr., paid Capt. Josiah Thatcher, who then owned the old Whitney mill, £47-1^. for a lot of one-half acre and fifteen poles area and situated on "mill plain," now Main Street. Here Mr. Hoyt was to build the homey Mrs. lames was there born After her fatlipr'c nF r\,:„ o ■ r ■ , c QJ,, , , tl ner rather p of Ozias Seymour ot Litchfield, and a sister of Judge ise. ana belore her mother camp nPNngnan^i.. t„ I c o . J Ungen S. Seymour of that place, there tenanted, and dfi/ease, and before her mother came permanently to ' the lmU ' " h*d » »uccesR""> of P~f«- ' Mrs. Seymour died there. (Mr. Stanford married «■ siunal tenant*. Lawyer Alfred Apollos Hollv nf I „ „r. < r> „ . marrieu, Snmford and hi, wife rwi,.». ,P ° ' °' a slst« of R«'- Edward Bull, once rector of Christ Stanford and his wite Charlotte, daughter of Inr Wo rhnrcl, w*,^ * \ at Cfluroh, Westport.) After Mr. Seymour s occupancy of the house, Moses Craft and his wife Esther Mary (Cannon) Craft there lived, and after Mr. Craft Rev. Sylvester Eaton, the seventh Congregational pastor Chapman of Litchfield, resided there. Dr. John Adams McLean and his first wife, Catherine llawley of Bridgeport, followed Mr. Holly. Subsequently David C, Sanfnrd, a lawyer and his'wffe, a daughter of Nnrwalk. NO R\V ALK. hearthstone, the residence to-day of his descendants. The summer following its purchase Mr. Hnyt married in F'airfield, and the new lot and house formed the future abode of the wedded pair. Theft son F.bcne/er was nut yet three years old. and Munsnn. the youngest, was unborn, when, on Sunday morning. July I I, 1779, Garth marched his men in front of the Hoyt house. Mrs. Hnyt went into the street, if the tradition be correct, and made personal appeal. From the fact that the Hoyt's had not, the night previously, escaped to lieldcn's Hill, is argued that they had some ground whereon to base a hope for Knglish clemency. Mrs. Hoyt was a daughter of Ebenczer Dimon of Fairfield, and as Gen. Tryon is known to have been a visitor at the Hurr's, opposire the Dimon's, it is quite possible that she had met him on occasions of her after- marriage visits to her native home. At all events, the Hoyt house was spared, as was also, accepting the same authority, the Jennings (later McC'lure) house a little distance to the north, although in relation to this statement it should be added that the wind, on the morning of the town's burning, wsa blowing from the north or northwest, and as a barn belonging to a loyalist stood just south of the Jen- nings house, the latter was suffered to remain, Mr. Jennings and Mr. Hoyt paid the same price per acre for their lots. The great-grand children of the Utter occupy to-day their forefather's premises. There stand, to-day, in Nor walk, other structures of Revolutionary associations to be alluded to in their legitimate places, and in connection with the mention of the fafn- ilies to which they belonged. rue F/wr/f r tru/rxsr t/oi sE. tun ,i..un .,• o. ii.iiit.in s,,. NOR \V ALK THE LUDLOW- PURCHASE COAST DIVISIONS. The oldest coast-parts, places and points of the Ludlow purchase1 were the Head of the Harbor, Mill Brook Mouth, Mill Brook Bank, Creek Bank, Marsh Meadow Bank, Oyster Shell Point, Coaste Banke, Fort Poynt, The Ballast, Fitch's and Gregory's Points, Sension Beach, Calf Pasture, Half-Mile Island, Canfield's Island, Stephen's Island, Great Marsh, Bluff Point, Saugatuck Plain, Rocky Neck, Stony Brook Mouth, and, to coin a des- ignation, Fatherford.3 These all, barring the last, are ancient Norwalk names. What the founders termed the Head of the Harbor, is now the wharf properties of E. K. and F. St. John Lockwood. Mill Brook Mouth was the emptying point into the river of the Bark-Mill Brook, elsewhere in this work designated as "mill-brook h" ; Mill Brook Bank is the pot- ter)' site. Creek Bank is the rear of the present Hubbell, Noble, Peck, Moody, Osborn, Thomas, Wood, Lockwood and Daskam places, and Marsh Meadow Bank that of the Gregory, Cram, Lynes and Hendrick properties. The long known Oyster Shell Point was approached from the "towne street" by a lane, and as it la)' close to the channel of the creek, a sort of wharf was there built, at which the harbor's smaller craft could land at low water. Permission to construct this wharf was given May 6, 1761, to Thos. Fitch, Jabez Raymond, Stephen St. John, Isaac Hayes, Jr., Hay ties Hanford, Wm. Stanford, Jonathan Ketchum, John Cannon, Joseph Ketehum. John Raymond, James Fitch, Nathan Mallory, John Belden, Josiah Thatcher and Ralph Isaacs. The earliest Norwalk oysters were procured at this point. The Coast Bank lay immediately below Oyster Shell Point. Fort Point age-ranks Norwalk peninsula designations. It was the first "poynt" known to the founders, and the site before their day of an Indian fort, constructed by the red man for, possibly, a defence against the arrows of hostile natives, but more probably as a garrison in the event of onsets by the Manhattan Dutch. Its first English owner was John Gregory. Sr., who also controlled the two acres of salt meadow land immediately north of it. On April 3, 1689, Mr. Gregory gave the south portion of the land where "the Indian fort formerly stood" to his son Thomas Gregory. From Fort Point eastward along the beach, as far as John Gregory's hill, lay a high- way, and the following action, taken at a town meeting held Feb. 24, 1701, attests to the value set by the pioneers upon the same. "Agreed and voted, and it is by this act de- clared, that all the land from the Ballance (Ballast) place southward or southwest below John Gregory's dwelling house, all the common land from said Ballance (Ballast) place all along to the Fort Poynt to the extent west or northwest end of said Poynt shall be for a highway, let the breadth of sayd common land be what it will more or less." A wharf The high rock, "ye falles," and " the mouth of Norwalk now spanned by the stone bridge at the business centre of the city of Norwalk, lay be- tween the two purchases of Ludlow and Partrick. 'A name not unsuitable for the point on the Sau- gatuck, at which the pioneers, in 1650-51, crossed to the west side of the same river, and thence pro- ceeded to the east bank of the N nvwalk river. XORWALK. 47 was built in 1737 from the beach at Fort Point as far out as the river's channel, by Samuel Comstock, John Marvin, Samuel Fitch and Joseph St. John. "The Ballast" was a spot at which stones were sunken ; it lay in the creek south- west of John Gregory's home. One explanation of it is that vessels there received ballast. Notice of it occurs in very early Norwalk records. There was also "The Ballast" at Pine Island on the west side of the river.