Norwalk

the father of Jesse Smith, who died at about the age of eighty some years since in West Norwalk. The children of Mr. Jesse Smith are to-day somewhat scattered. One of the daughters, Mrs. William Bes- sey, resides in ISO'.I with her sister, .Mrs. John H. Romanic of Ludlow street, Stamford. Two other daughters, Mrs. Frank H. and Mrs. Dudley Hoyt, reside in Stamford. The brothers and sisters of Jesse Smith were Frederick, Orville, Bethol -Mercy (Mrs. Cornelius Schenck), and Harriet (Mrs. Alfred M. Piatt). 'George Selleck wasNorwalk's first confectioner. He amassed a neat sum by his business and built the brick house (now Bishop place) on Wall Street. It was at his house that Key. William Cooper Mead, D. D., and wife and daughter Jane Maria were enter- tained on theoccasion of the yisit of the future rector of St. Paul's Church before his acceptance of the call to the same. -'George Thomas Merrill married, January 11, 1898, Phebe, daughter of John RoflT of New York City, and had George Kennith, born February 16, 1X99, and baptized August 20, 1899. N <> R w \ L K TH ACRES. I'HK IIKIUINM viKWII.k I II M M > U II. nil M | | ( | 7J4.I1 Genius, scholarship and piety conspicuously 1 haractert/cil tbia \orwalk l.imiK name ill the eighteenth century s second rptarter. " Th.i. Ik r. i r tin Ihnl till nantc tinknp., \ "irttte that ctimlw U-muhI the *tarrv ~|>hvrv<. " An 1 II. MIX UmadkuMt* Imlhia's Th.nher trtliutr. The town ol Nortvalk was nearly seventy-live years <il age when a member ut tin 1 Jim. miii Church was dismissed from his ecclesiastical relations 111 thai Massachusetts set I lenient and made his Ih»v tu the fast growine plantation known In the Dame ol N'orwalk. Ihis man pro veil a conlriluiltiin tu the Nuiwalk progenitors' ipiahn stock lie tame, indeed, alter the first founders had passed hence. Iiul I lie influence ol such cur pi.rati.is as are named in the town's original deeds was still felt. New generations were stepping upon llie stauc Init the old leaven yet worked, and the liod) was permeated with n- heneficetit translorma- (ton effects. The true elory ol [he children ol Jnsiali Thachcr s day was that their liilhers bid lice,, right and rielilcous men, and then Massachusetts adopted . 11 i/en hrothcr was no exception. The story ol Captain Josiah Thacher s ancestry is « [olltrWl Hrbi» plate represent, tile locality lixcd up,.,, he l..wn had now -■'••«" m.rlli« aril lr «* ■ •riemal Ciolnia j<»iali Thachcr one IlillKlrcl anil seventy plant place (East Ni.rwalk. IVHll am) vacant I"'"" ' "» r!..., ,..t X..rwo)k resilience. The lit** in that np|ier direction were bring ..ne I.; ctK NORWALK. After a voyage of two months less two days there stepped from the ship James, on these western shores, on June 4, 1635, a brother(Anthony)of Rev. Peter Thacher1 of old Sarum, who had for several years been a vicar of the established church of the mother land. occupied. The line of trees to the picture's left, oppo- site, as it is supposed, the first Thacher home-site, were of after growth, and indicate the approach to the property (now Hunter home on East Avenue) later transferred by Captain Thacher to the society of the First Church (Congregational) for parsonage use. Rev. Moses Dickinson, who came to Norwalk somewhat after Captain Thacher 's arrival, was con- versant with the area. Dr. Burnet came after Pastor Dickinson's incumbency. Under the leafless branches sorrowfully gathered the people in the early spring of IS 19 on the occasion of the funeral of the Rev. Ros- well R. Swan, while Sylvester Eaton evidently there took solid comfort in his great ease-suggesting chair which was long kept in Xorwalk as an Eaton relic. Mr. Eaton was an exceptionally large man, and as a daughter of Captain Hezekiah Betts (Eliza Susan), who was also very stout, was wont to accompany and introduce him on the occasion of his parochial calls the two, whether walking or riding, constituted a striking Xorwalk personal picture. After Mr. Eaton's vacancy, in 1.S27, of the pas- torate, the once old Thacher surrounding and owner- ship gradually fell into other than parsonage service. Martin Kalbfleisch, a Norwalk chemist and late Brook- lyn, L. I., high official, made the premises for several years a home, since which time Jacob A. VanZandt, who married a Xorwalk St. John, has tenanted the property. It is now owned in part bv George W. Hunter, and its northern portion by a Norwalk law- yer, E. M. Lockwood, who with his wife, a daughter of the late staunchly solid John Patterson, of sturdy Scutch stock, and a New York City merchant and New Canaan Summer resident, occupy it, having there reared, in ISDN -if, an imposing home-seat oi Colonial pattern-excellence. No portion of Norwalk has probably been more appear an ce-anected by mod- ern topographical alterations than this same Thacher adjoining. Immediately south (Bennett home, 1899), stood the "Mansion" of James Brown, the partner of the famous W illiam Smith of New York in the great Oblong land purchases of early times. These men owned a vast tract in what was and is to-dav known as Salem, one of their Indian bought tracts covering eleven thousand acres. Brown had been married a few years when Captain Thacher planted himself within a short distance of his house, and the Captain probably knew the barrister and future Ob- long operator well. Smith, the business partner of Brown, was the eminent New York Judge of the Supreme Court and father of the eloquent and opulent Judge " William Smith the Historian." The partnership of Brown and Smith is an exceptionally interesting Norwalk mention (sec page 113). Smith was born in 1696, and Brown, it is surmised, not much earlier. Both died the same year (17(59). Brown's son, James, who was some four or so years old when Captain Josiah Thacher founded his home within a stone's throw of the Browns, grew to become the important James Browii-lld of the Oblong, whose sister Mary married Samuel, the oldest son of Ralph Isaacs, Sr., of Nor- walk (page 329). Smith's son William, baptized July 7, 1728, attained to legal and professional emi- nence. He married Janet Livingston, was the brother of Joshua H. Smith, who landed Major John Andre on shore near West Point on the Hudson, and brought about Arnold and Andre's interview at his house near Stony Point, and went eventually to the Provinces. This son of the partner of Norwalk's lawyer, James Brown, left New York City "at the peace." He was found in the Provinces where dwelt "Hester (Esther) Burlock with one child." This Mrs. Burlock (see pages 272 and 279) was the DeForest widow of Job Burlock of Wilton, and her child (Sam- uel, born in Wilton in 1770} was the father of Samuel DeForest Burlock referred to on page 280. Job Burlock is said to have been shot dead on his Wilton door step, and his widow marrying, sec- ond, Captain Barker of His Majesty's army in the Provinces, had two beautiful Barker daughters. Mrs. Job Burlock (afterward Mrs. Captain Barker) was the mother, also, of Thomas Burlock, whose city establishment near "the Hook" the Norwalk boats passed on their New York trips, and who was the brother of Mrs. Nathan Bouton, whose daughters became Mrs. Nathan Warren and Mrs.LeGrand Can- non. (Sec page 272.) Samuel Burlock (page 280), who went at the age of thirteen with his widowed mother from Wil- ton to New Brunswick, married into the Long Island Layton family. This family lived at what is now known as Little Neck, Great Neck and Wheatland. They were, evidently, thrifty people, and have had well known descendants. Among the later of these is the family of David Layton. It is believed that the present residence, on East Avenue, of the Bennett family, contains timber that formed a portion of the old Jaines Brown man- sion frame (page 113), and also that its neighboring ancient Thacher well is still, quite possibly, in exist- ence. 1A line of well known American professionalmen sprang from this Thacher founder. His son Thomas, born on May day, 1620, came, a youth of fifteen, to this country, and here studied for the ministry, hav- ing been ordained January 2, 1644-. The young man NORWALK. Rev. Anthony Thacher, a curate in the old world and one of the Plymouth Colony founders in the new, married, second, Elizabeth Jones, and had John, born March 17, 1638-9, in Salem, Mass. John, son of Rev. Anthony and Elizabeth Thacher, became a man of Colonial renown. He held a noted military position (Colonel), was for a score of years selectman of Yarmouth, and for fifteen years a representative to the General Court of Massachusetts; was Governor's Assistant and a member of the Council of War and of the Provincial Council. This distinguished progenitor married Rebecca, niece of Governor Edward Winslow, and was the father of Josiah Thacher1*', whose son, Josiah2"4 (Captain), settled in Norwalk. Captain Josiah Thacher2"", born at Yarmouth, Mass., July 7, 1701, son of Josiah1" and Mary (Hedge) Thacher, appeared in Norwalk in 1724. From Alexander Ressiquie1 he bought, married Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. Ralph Partridge, first minister of Duxbury, Mass. Rev. Thomas and Elizabeth Thacher had a son Peter, born 1651, who was the first minister of Milton, Mass. This Peter married, 1677, Theodora, born 1659, daughter of Rev. John and Susannah Oxenbridge of Boston. Rev. John Oxenbridge was a son of Dr. Daniel Oxenbridge, whose wife Katheriue Harby was a granddaughter of Lady Katherine Nevill, who was a granddaughter of Baron George Nevill, who was a grandson of Isabel Beauchamp, who was a great granddaughter of King Edward III. Rev. Peter and Theodora Tliacher had a son Oxenbridge, born 1680, whose learned son Oxenbridge Thacher, Jr., born 1725, was a member of the Massachusetts General Court. He had a son, Rev. Dr. Peter Thacher, D. D., born March 21, 1752, who was the Brattle Street Boston minis- ter whom Whitfield prayer-denominated " the young Elijah.'' This eminent man's brother, Thomas, born 1756, was a minister in Dedham, Mass., and a dis- tinguished sermonizer and lecturer. These all and others of like prominence were descendants of Rev. Peter Thacher of England and of kin to Captain Josiah Thacher of Norwalk.