Norwalk

The Deerfield-Belden story is tragic. Daniel Belden, son of William, and brother of John and Samuel Belden ,su, the earliest of the name in Norwalk, was working in a field near his house in the autumn of 1696. It was a week day but the church was open for a special service, and Mr. Belden had prolonged his work until the hour for public wor- ship was almost at hand. Hurrying to his house to make preparation for the service he saw his wife and two children killed on the spot by the Indians, while himself and two or three other children were made prisoners and taken to Canada. One boy, Samuel, was left in the field. The Indians dealt him a hatchet blow and supposed that he was dead. The child lived and established the Belden family of Ashfield, Mass. A daughter hid her- self in a bed of tobacco leaves and so was saved. The family, for the time being, was broken up. The son William returned with his father and married Margaret, daughter of William Arms. William and Margaret came, naturally, to Norwalk where resided the mar- ried uncle John and their bachelor uncle Samuel The husband and wife founded the Wilton branch of the Belden family and resided in the Pimpewaugh Valley. The mother gave birth to a number of children, among them Ruth, named in all probability for the child's cousin (the departed daughter of its uncle John) whose little grave (see page 88) is the earliest marked grave in the oldest cemetery in Norwalk. This Ruth married John Seymour3'1-, and was the ancestress of a long Norwalk Sevmour-Belden line. The story of the Seymour occupation of Home-Lot XI., which home-lot proprietors barely introduce the Norwalk important Seymour lineage, very properly concludes with the Belden martyr- mention. NOR WALK. II OM /■-/. I) T ,\V -Srri-i.KMi vi ai.. JAMKS KDIiERSJ'l-, (IK NK.U I.OMIIIN, AFTICR-(1CCU1*,\NT IN I'.VHT.' Mils. M-JIKMIAII IKHiEKfl .« KI.IK A IIETH l-ITCII. HAftM* ■ portrait formerly III the p H—e—inn of the Will. .11 l.nml,eri*. lion- hclorijciiiK nj I he CanntJw Cruikhlii«rik».| James11'' and Freelcivc (Holiboat)1 Rogers came, about 1726. from New Lon- don tn Nonvalk, tlic descent from whom is bulh iiinneri ms .1111! noticeable. K i.^-r> m Reefer is an honored name, writes an annalist, in Italy, Sicily. France, England, Scot- land, Ireland. Wales and America, adding, there have been great men and small men, fish- ermen and popes, day-laborers and noblemen, grind men and bad men in llie family. The hearthstone in Norwalk lias been a iv>>rthv one and its children h.n..- done il credit. 'Tin- parehase. jti i7jd 7. of James Rogers ja. ap- peared to have embraced i portion ol da- uriyinal Nonrail Seymour (Home-Lat \ h aereage. -I'<i*sihle this name should In- written Iliirlliiilt. Mr*. Kreelove Rubers was horn in 169.1 and was nine- teen rears vuunger than lier luishaiul. She was mar- ried iit tin* age .,f nineteen and hore In ln-r ]>ar(H*-r «ev«f»l children. She died Jan. 26, 173N. having >ur- 'ived lier hushand nearly six years. Iler step sun. I>r. Uri.il, Roger-, Ind -Indicd medicine in Hartford and being licensed hv the (iencral C'mirt in 1733 eiiini' atmni tin- lime hi* father died tn Norwulk, and her onlv step daughter. Mare, married Jan. J, 17-'$. fllttft- than Chester id (iruton, Ltinn. Iter will KM prn- batnl Fel,. IK, 17111-40, the eisiernlors being Sainne] Cluekstun nnd her son Xi In -iniali. Iler estate in eluded a silver tankard, rait* M silk, a M hire suit." gold rings, go)d head-, -ikerw.ire. a velvet and " yaine hood," and "Law and Latin I The ' Male record i' preserved In Kairticld. NORWALK. James Rogers^-, who was married on June 29, 17 1 3, by Eliphalet Adams of the First Congregational Church, New London, to "Frcclove Holiboat," was born in New- London, Feb. 2, 1675. He married, first, about 1701, Elizabeth Harris of New London, by which union there were five children, viz. : Edward, J AMES JKDEPIAII, Uriah, and Mary. By his second marriage there were nine children, viz.: NEHEMIAH, Stephen, Moses, Aaron, Esther, Lemuel, Elizabeth, Claron, and Samuel. The oldst child, Edward, was born May 14, 1702. James1"1- was born Aug. 20, 1704, Jedediah 1709, Uriah in 171 1, Mary of not satisfactory ascertained date. Whether Nehemiah, who was born May 18, 1718, was the oldest child by the second marriage is not fully determined. James Rogers''1- was a son of James=,i- and Man- (Jordan) Rogers of New London. This family comprised eight children, viz.: James*1, Mary, Elizabeth who died young (be- tween forty and fifty years before her brother James came to Norwalk), Sarah, Samuel, Jonathan, Richard and William. James Rogers211-, born in Milford, Conn., Feb. 15, 1652, was the fifth child of James '"■ and Elizabeth (Rowland; Rogers of Stratford. This family (James lsl) numbered eight members, viz.: Samuel, Joseph, John, Bathsheba, James ad-, Jonathan, Elizabeth and Sarah. From the estate distribution of James Rogers 3d-, made about one month later (March 15, 1739-40) than the probating of his wife's will, it is inferred that several of the children had then died. His second son, James4th\ is first named by his executors. This son married in New London, March 21, 1723, Mary, daughter of Peter Harris. He had nine children, named largely, after his own brothers and sisters. His second son, Peter, born Dec. 3, 1725, had a son Petcrad-, born July I, 1754, who married July 6, 1782, Nancy, daughter of Benjamin Green. He had Roswell, born May 5, 1783, and Col. Henry Rogers, born Sept. 24. 1784, who was the father of Mrs. Samuel Daskam, Sr. (1896) of Norwalk. James Rogers-!'1- instructed his administrators to make provision for the education of his four younger children, some of whom were possibly deceased at the date, a few years later, of the distribution of the estate. Nehemiah and Dr. Uriah were the two sons of James Rogers"1- who figured, princi- pally, in ancient Norwalk history. The first was a lad of eight or nine summers when he came with his parents to this town, in which it was to be his fortune to found an eminent family. As years grew apace the youth formed an attachment for a neighboring maiden, Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Fitch, whose home' was but a short distance from his own, and an union, as per following diagram ensued. 'Portions of the homes of Gov. Thomas and his hrcther James Fitch, are believed to be in existence to-day, but not a vestige of their brother Samuel's house is known to remain. Samuel lived nearly op- posite the residence of his forefather Thomas Fitch, the settler. A section of the home-site of said Samuel seems to have been occupied by his grandson John- athan,who married into the Cannon familv, and built the structure to day owned by Oscar W. Raymond of East Norwalk. Mrs. Oscar W. Raymond is a grand- daughter of Jonathan Fitch. Her Fitch grandfather died in comparative youth. NORW ALK. ascendants and descendants of nehemuh and elizabeth rogers. Rogers. Fitch.1 Gen. I. — Thomas Fitch, the settler. " II. — Thomas and Ruth Fitch. " III. — Thomas and Sarah Fitch. " IV. — Samuel and Susanna Fitch. " V. — Elizabeth Fitch. Gen. I. — James ,st- and Elizabeth (Rowland) Rogers. " II. — James2(]- and Mary (Jordan) Rogers. " III. — James 3d- and Freelove (Holiboat) Rog- ers. " IV.— Nehemiah Rogers. Nehemiah Rogers married Elizabeth, (see portrait page 161) daughter of Hon. Samuel and Susanna Fitch and niece of Gov. Thomas Fitch. Norwalk having been the crib of ancestors man)- of the children of whom have never, perhaps, trodden its soil nor read its history, hides, consequently, to such, a site- story of no little interest. Southeast of the southern foot of the Earle's Hill of 1896 is a field butted, as the proptietors would have expressed it, by the sloping upland, which field formed, about two- and- one-half centuries ago, the homestead of the only Norwalk settler who was a Connec- ticut charterer. Tins settler, Matthew Campfield, Sr., removed, after a brief Norwalk life, to the middle States and his home-lot became the property of "King's Commissioner" Thomas3<S father of Gov. Thomas Fitch and grandfather of Elizabeth, the subject of this mention who, judging from her well authenticated taste-characteristics, knew and loved the ancient home's geography. On Feb. I, 1714, Thomas5'1- added to the original Camp- field territory, now his own, six acres of the south adjoining Richard Olmstead tract, which half dozen acres he presented, Jan. 6, 1728, three years before his death, to Elizabeth's parent, his son Samuel, who there brought up this fond child, one of the future colonial so- ciety mothers and remarkable ancestresses of America. Samuel, the father of Elizabeth, was a deputy to the Colonial Assembly and appointed May 27, 1743, an auditor of the treasurer's account with the colony (Col. Records page 515), while on the books of "ye prime Ancient Society of Norwalk " is thus recorded concerning him, "Dec. 14, 1747, voted that Samuel Fitch, Esq., shall sit in ye pew next ye pulpit stairs with the rest of ye authority." Near the lower corner, next below Hon. Samuel Fitch's house (residence to-day of Mrs. Theodocia F. Bradley), had lived, since 1726, Capt. James Rogers/ who that same year 'For Fitch maternity sec Fitch lineage. 2James Rogers lst- was horn in 1615, and sailed from the mother country, in 1635, in "the good ship Increase." He was a young immigrant who appeared, first, at Stratford, Conn , where he married Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Rowland. Rowland is an old western Connecticut family name, and as Samuel Rowland, Sr., left his farm to his grandson, Samuel Rogers, horn Dec. 12, 1640, (son of James and Elizabeth) it is possible that Elizabeth was his only daughter, James Rogers seems to have lived in