Norwalk

The Fairfield-Norwalk drives of Dr. David Rog- ers, Sr. are one of the latter town's old memories. The Dr.'s birth place was on the Norwalk "Town Hill." This site, now- covered by the residence of the late Mrs. James Mallory, witnessed to the nativity oil Aug. 21, 174K, of a future metropolis physician, the family of whom delighted in Greenfield's altitude and attractiveness. It was natural for the Dr. to return to the family birth-place and the trip registrations of the family carriage hitherward are a part of our old an- nals. 'The line of Peter Rogers 'st-, through his son Peter 2<i., has been clearly traced and is in possession of Mrs. Samuel Daskam of Norwalk. NOR \V A L K bom in New London July 1st, 1754, who married July 6, 1782, Nancy, daughter of Ben- jamin Green. Peter*1 and Nancy had Henry (Col. Henry) born Sept. 4, 17S4, who married Aug. 31, 1817. Kuince Wilcox, and had : Charles W. Rogers and Arietta M. Rogers (Mrs. Samuel Daskam) both of Norwalk. Col. Henry Rogers is remembered in Norwalk as a typical gentleman, residing at ease, on East Avenue, and who much enjoyed the fine fishing and sailing facilities of Nor- walk harbor. His widow outlived him for many years, her waning days having been soothed by a daughter's tenderness. By one of those coincidences, occurring occasionally, the Colonel, all unbeknown until the discovery of the fact by an Isthmus of Panama lad, (long after the Colonel's burial) was interred and now rests only a few feet from his New London great-great-grandfather in Norwalk's first cemetery. His grand-daughter, .Mrs. James Lawrence Stevens of 1896 is of direct lineage, in the seventh generation, of James Rogers^-, and in the ninth generation of James Rogers'1' of New London. ROGERS MISCELLANY. AN URIAH ROGERS " DEVELOPMENT," Gen. I. — Uriah and Hannah (Lockwood) Rogers. II. — Moss and Hannah (Rogers) Kent. " III. — William P and Hannah (Kent) Piatt. William Pitt Piatt, son of Judge Zephaniah Piatt 1 the original proprietor of Platts- burgh, N. Y.) married Oct. 11, 1790, Hannah Kent, grand-daughter of Dr. Uriah Rogers, Sr. of Norwalk, and a sister of Chancellor James Kent. This Norwalk Rogers grandchild (Mrs. William P. Piatt) was one of the most attractive women of Plattsburgh, N'. Y., where she died Dec. 12, 1842, at the age of seventy-four years. Her husband, born April 30, 1771 , was three years her junior, but died seven years before his wife. They had six child- ren. Judge Zephaniah Piatt, father of the above Mr. and Mrs. William P. Piatt, was the uncle of Col. Richard Piatt, in whose arms General Richard Montgomery died, in Quebec, on the last day of 1775. A grand-niece of Col. Richard Piatt, Mrs. Mat}' Garner Rider, to-day occupies the door-yard next to that in which Mrs. W illiam P. Piatt's great aunt, Elizabeth Pitch (Mrs. Nehcmiah Rogers) of Norwalk, was brought up. Mr. William P. Piatt's cousin Elizabeth (sister of Col. Richard Piatt) married David S„ born 1770, son of Nicholas C. and Anna (Schuyler) Bogart. Nicholas C. Bogart (son of Comelis and Cor- nelia Bogart) was a heavy merchant of New York and lived and died on the corner of Libert)- St. and Broadway. He was gr.-grd.-father of Mrs. M. G. Rider now of East Ave. A NORWALK "OLD YEAR" ROGERS INCIDENT. It was the evening of the last Sunday of 1 771, The day had in all likelihood been spent, as was the olden custom, quietly and considerably in the sanctuary. From the home '83 NORWALK. of Dr. Uriah Rogers, Sr. (Mallory Mill Hill estate of 1896) to the " Meeting House" (Mrs. William G. Thomas, East Avenue home 1896) was hardly a quarter-mile walk, and the Dr., wife, children and little James Kent had, very probably, attended morning and afternoon, where minister Dickinson discoursed, that closing Lord's day of the year, upon the flight of time and the flux of life. The child, little James Kent, like young James King1 (see note page 171) of fifty years later, was here regarded. He was a grandson of Dr. Rogers, with whom he passed several years (1768- 1772) while attending school, and probably not one of his numerous Norwalk kin dreamed that the youth's fame was, one day, to fill the world. Night had settled over "Mill Hill" and Sunday was already hard pursued by incoming Monday, when a mounted messenger from the east flit past The Green and alighted before Dr. Rogers' door. His errand was a sad one, for he informed the family that their daughter Hannah (Mrs. Moss Kent) and the lad's (James) mother, was dying at the Compo water- side, some three or four miles away. Taking the boy James into the saddle with him the messenger spurred his steed over the Westport hills and across the Westport bridge, and down "Compo Road" until he reached the harbor-facing home (since the Lawrence Sea- scape Villa.) At the door-step one stood waiting to receive the child to her arms. It was ■This Norwalk school lad was James Gore King, Jr., son of James G. I5t- and Sarah (Grade) King and consequently a grandson of Hon. Rufus and Mary (Alsop) King, and a great-grandson of Nehemiah and Elizabeth (Fitch) Rogers, which branch of the King family descended from Richard King, a Maine mer- chant of celebrity. The Ridgefield Kings, a member of which old household, J. Howard King, is (in 1896) greatly embellishing the King premises in that at- tractive town, stand in more immediate association with Gen. Joshua King, and once proprietor, in part, of the ancient " Mill " at '* Norwalk Bridge." Young James G- King the transient Norwalk school boy of the earlier nineteenth century, and who is here remembered with admiration, married his cousin, a daughter of Gov. John Alsop King. His sister married William Denning Duer, whose father, William Alexander Duer, was second cousin of the Philip Livingston alluded to in foot note, page 19, whose memorial is in the Norwalk Berkeley Street Chapel, and who was the son of Peter Van Brugh and Mary (Alexander) Livingston, and grandson of Philip and Katharine (Van Brugh) Livingston, who was the son of Robert Livingston, the American founder of the family. Philip Livingston of Nor- walk memory, spent his summers at the family's Greenburgh (Dobb's Ferry) seat and passed the win- ter season at his town residence in Park place (after- ward the home of Goold Hoyt^-of Norwalk.) His s-jii, Peter Van Brugh Livingston, married Mrs. Maria (called in the family Harriet) Houstoun, and lived in Bk-ecker Street. He had, finally, the dispos- ition of a goodly share of his father s estate, a portion of which, falling under the hammer, was redeemed through the intervention of his cousin, Miss Eliza- beth Ludlow. One of these restored family heir looms is a robe of brocaded silk which belonged to Mrs. Philip Livingston (mother of Peter who married Mrs. Houstoun) and which has been preserved by converting it into covers for three small reception room divans. Another choice souvenir is the elegant fabric of white lace worn by a niece of Mis. Philip Livingston (Mrs. John A. Willink) as bridesmaid at the wedding of John A., brother of President Charles and Hon. James G. King; while a still further Liv- ingston relic is an oil painting, the work of Mrs. Dr. McKnight, daughter of William Edgar, which was a bridal present at the Peter V. B, Livingston Houstoun solemnities. These and other mementoes (referred to on page 174) are carefully Norwalk kept. The story of the King bridesmaids robes and of the several handsome "empire" suits which belong to the Norwalk collection is quite unique. When Gen. Howe evacuated Boston and, piloted by a Nor- walk Hoyt seaman, took up his encampment on lower Long Island, his officers often found that time dragged. During their long stay near the present city of Brooklyn, parties were occasionally given to relieve the tedium. The several sisters of Mrs. Philip Livingston (see note page 17) were very social and were often invited guests. In return for their courte- sies His Majesty's " command " presented their horses to the ladies as a leave-taking compliment at the close of the war. After their return to England they were still unforgetful of their pleasant American associa- tions and sent the referred-to robes to the family. XORWALK. 185 his aunt Lucy," his father's sister, and the mother of Mrs. James Van Renssalaer, and sister of Mrs. John Kane whose son EHsha Kent Kane married Alida Van Renssalaer. which Klisha and Alida were the grandparents of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the Arctic explorer. Mrs. Lucy Cullen bore the just arrived Rogers grandson into the presence of his departing mother, who soon after her renown-destined offspring entered, closed her eyes in this world, forever. Her remains, as has been noted, were borne to South East. No Xor- walk maiden has a prouder memory than Hannah Kent, and the cradle on "Mill Hill" and the grave in South East, was and is well filled. MRS. HANNAH ROGERS' ANCESTORS, AFTERS AND AFFINITY