Norwalk

Uriah Rogers, jr., son of Uriah, Sr. and Hannah Rogers, was born, married, lived and died in Norwalk. His wife was Elizabeth, born Dec. 20, 1743,' daughter of Eliakim and Hannah (Street) Raymond. The house was what has since been known as the Betsey Church place, on lower France Street, and is now the property of Edward Merrill. In making excavation for a new foundation Mr. Merrill found, some years since, one of Mrs. Rogers' set of tea-spoons, marked "E. R." The Dr.'s life was short, and he survived his father only a little over three years, dying Dec. 23, 1776, at the age of thirty-eight. His wife continued his widow (sixty years) until her decease Oct. 27, 1836, at the ripe age of ninety-one. David""-, son of Uriah Rogers, Sr., was the Sr. New York city physician of that name, and the member of the family who had a house on Greenfield Hill. His drives to Norwalk2 are a mention of the past. Dr. David Rogers ,st- married Martha, daughter of 'So reads a family record, but, as appears by her tombstone inscription, she was born in 1745. •Among the most gratifying of mentions-anti- quate are those of the Norwalk and Fairfield social fraternizations. These commenced, indeed, with the beginnings of Norwalk history. Thomas Fitch, Sr., had a daughter Mary who married into the Sherwood family, and Governor Thomas Fitch had a daughter Elizabeth who married a Rowland, and a son lleze- kiah who wedded a Burr— strong Fairfield names— and these were people who, unquestionably, enjoyed each other's company. The roads at that day were rough, the dwellings distantly separate and the way winding, but the Norwalk fathers and mothers did not believe in " dead exile " living. There was help- ful intercourse between the two sister settlements. Norwalk was an attraction to Dr. and Mrs. Timothy Dwight of Greenfield Hill, even if the old grand- father Isaacs house had sadly gone up in British start- ed flames. On one of the Sr. John Cannons Fairfield X OR WALK. Charles Tennent of Maryland. This was the family to which belonged the Rev. William Tennent of the wonderful "trance " connection, and also his son who was pastor of the Nor- walk Congregational Church from 1765 to 1772. Dr. David Rogers, Sr. had a large family. His sixth child, Susan, married Rev. John Austin of Bridgeport. This Greenfield Hill woman, grand-daughter of Dr. Uriah, Sr. and Hannah Rogers of Norwalk, was the mother of Rev. David Austin, pastor some few- years since of the Second Congregational Church in South Norwalk, and grandmother of the present Judge Alfred Ely Austin of West Avenue, Norwalk. See note page 189. Dr. Uriah Rogers, Sr. was one of Norwalk's early but excellently equipped physi- cians and most eminent citizens. To follow down his widely scattered descent would be a work quite outside the province of this volume, and yet it is possible to propose a far less compensating project. The Dr. died in his home (opposite the present town structure on Town House Hill) some three summers before Norwalk was burned. His remains were borne, simply across the street, where, in a plainly marked grave, they to this day are interred. His residence seems to have remained intact until it was destroyed by the enemy on July TI, 1779. Out of it, that morning, it is claimed, were hastily taken the cane of Gov. Thomas Fitch and the Rogers crest, neither of which keep-sakes are, however, necessary to the perpetuity of the fame of the two distinguished households, from w hich so many families, all over this wide land, sprang. visits — it is a family tradition — he spent a Sunday in the old town and attended worship in the old church. A voice in the choir engaged his attention and Esther Perry changed her name and residence. A pleasing outing to the brook-dale (Cannon St. 1896) St. John's e nbraced the Fairfield Hubbell's where they were sure to find good housekeeping. Dr. Ebenezer H. Belden of Gramercy Park, neighbor to the Lawrence's and Lott's, summered a little this side of Greenfield, and because of the large Norwalk family must have been interested in his foreparents' town; while of Mrs. John Glover and her Hoyt female friend (who to the last insisted that Hoyt should be H-a-i-g-h-t pro- nounced) it is told how they would delightfully end their Norwalk calls by a cup of tea partaken of at the now ancient Selleck house near Berkeley Place corner, West Aveuue. These Fairfield ladies, who were wel- comed in Norwalk, were ladies of position and con- nection. Mrs. Glover's daughter Martha married Rev. James Davenport Fitch of Stamford and had two children, one of whom married J. Howard Mont- gomery, son of the late Dr. Henry Eglington Mont- gomery of New York city and a brother of Mrs. W. G. Langdon of Norwalk. Dr. Henry E. Montgom- ery was cousin of Rev. William White Montgomery, whose Norwalk visits were continued until his life's close. John and Mary Crathorne Montgomery of Philadelphia were the gr-parents of both of the cleri- cal Montgomery cousins. John and Mary's son, Rev. Dr. James Montgomery, married, second, Mary H. White, a grand-daughter of Bishop William White, and had, Rev. William White Montgomery, who took pleasure in visiting the Norwalk intimate of his great grandfather Bishop White. This Norwalk intimate of Bishop White was William Cooper Mead, D.D., who just before the bishop's death, in Philadelphia, held and directed his hand the last time that his sig- nature was document-affixed (testifying to Dr. 'McClos- key as bishop of Michigan.) Dr. James Montgom- ery's brother John C, who was the postmaster of Philadelphia, was the father of Rev. Dr. Henry E. Montgomery, rector of the Church of the Incarna- tion, New York city. Another Fairfield visitor to Norwalk was Mrs. Jonathan Bulkley. Mr. Bulkley, a history - name, owned the admirable level immediately east of the present court house in Fairfield and now the site of the Glover house and grounds. Mrs. Bulkley was a daughter of James and Hannah Hoyt of Norwalk and a sister of Isaac Hoyt (grandfather of Gen. W. T. Sherman), and of Gould Hoyt who married Elizabeth Dimon of Fairfield and who built and occupied the Norwalk 1896 Main Street Edwin Hoyt family home. The late Mrs. Edwin Hoyt of Norwalk plainly reiter- NORWALK. A JAMES ROGER.S4H1. NORWALK DESCENT. James Rogers' estate was distributed March 15, 1740. Three representative citizens were chosen as distributors, viz : Thomas Benedict, Jr., Samuel Cluckstone and Samuel Ketchum. James4'1"-, who does not appear in Nonvalk, is the son first named ; Mary, wife of John Chester is next named; then Esther, wife of John Seabury ; Uriah; Jedediah ; Ne- hemiah ; Stephen; Moses; Aaron and Lemuel. Some twenty days before this distribution (Feb. 26, 1740) Michael Cluckstone was appointed guardian to Stephen, Aaron and Lemuel and required to furnish bonds to the amount of ,£"1,000. The homestead was set-off to Nehemiah and Moses, and the first seems to have tenanted it. It stood near to where stands, in 1896, the East Norwalk station for New York trains. Nehemiah was now about twenty-two years old and was not yet married. The widow (Mrs. James Rogers3'1) who had recently died, probably occupied the premises during life. There were three child- ren, Elizabeth, Claron and Samuel un-named in the distribution. Possibly these, with the exception of Samuel, were deceased. Of Samuel, who does not seem to elsewhere belong, we have notice as late as in war times, in the Fairfield probate records. James Rogers4"1-, (son of James3d\ who with his second wife, Freelove, is interred in the 1896 East Norwalk cemetery) did not reside in Norwalk. He was born Aug. 20, 1704, and he married Mary, daughter of Peter Harris of New London County. To James4"'- and Mary were born nine children, one of whom, Peter'5'-, born Dec. 3, 1725, married in the eastern part of the Connecticut colony. Peter ,st- was a sea captain and died on one of his voyages, his sailors burying him on an island.' He left a son, Peter2d-, ated the old Hoyt mention that Mrs. Goold Hoyt's pleading (see page 45) saved this same homestead (rum the flames in 1779. Gen. Garth evidently had charge .if the Tryon detachment which on that Sun- day morning passed through what was then the upper portion of Main Street. It was the " Yeager" wing of the invaders that seemed to fall to Garth's com- mand and the men were at times with difficulty held in check. Three days previous to Mrs. Goold Hoyt's Norwalk intercession her Fairfield sister-in-law, Mrs. Jonathan Bulkley, had the official "protection" for j her premises from Garth himself, but the general's order had no effect whatever. His men (probably the same who heeded, three days afterward, Mrs. Goold lloyt's Norwalk request) tore, in fiat disobedience to Garth's mandate, Mr-. Bulkleys buckles from her shoes and ring from her finger and then fired her house. It must be remembered that at the devasta- tion of New Haven, Fairfield and Norwalk, Garth was second in command. His superior, Trvon, had, it would appear, more immediate direction of the " reg- ular-." a more orderly element, in all probability, than Garth's "Hessians." A bit of conjecture underlies the fact that Mrs. Bulkley should have had, on Thursday, a safety assurance (albeit disregarded) i from Gen. Garth, and that her brother's wife (Mrs. Goold Hoyt) should have made a successful Norwalk appeal on the next Sunday. It is a matter of record that, much to the indignation of a portion of the family of James and Hannah Hoyt, one of its mem- bers should have three years before, piloted tiie Brit- ish (Gen. Howe's) fleet from Boston to New York. This identical member of .the family interceded for his Fairfield sister, and was, possibly, the "power be- hind the throne" that secured the preservation of the to-day standing Norwalk Main Street Hoyt home.