Norwalk

Two of the 1650 settlers who crossed to Saugatuck to set foot on Xorwalk soil, their future home, brought with them an infant of not more than two summers. The child's father had selected for himself a home-lot close to the "parade ground" and next the "meetinghouse." This fact indicated planter-prominence. Besides this the home-site of Matthew Marvin, Sr. was historic, in so far as it marked the " Hollow" in which it is claimed the new comers passed their first night or nights. The little infant which was brought up in that undulating meadow, and whose mother (an old Marvin will makes her out a step- mother) must time and again have been harrassed by reason of the red man's trespassing while the husband and older son were "down in the fields" planting or hoeing, was named Rachel, who in time married Samuel Smith, who early came to the plantation, and the family of whom were the first English owners of the high and healthful Smith's Ridge. The goodly couple had two daughters, Rachel and Lydia, both of whom wedded well known Xorwalk young men. Across a few meadows from Lydia Smith's childhood home lived Ephraim Lockwood, the first of his name in Xorwalk, who had married Mercy, daughter of Matthias St. John. In his hill-summit home (Earle's 1896) was born to Ephraim and Mercy Lockwood, a son who was called James. The Lockwood's became large land own- ers and to this day the name is acreage-associated. The young James Lockwood married Oct. 23, 1707, the young Lydia Smith, and husband and wife were blest, on the sixth anniversary of their bridal (Oct. 23, 1713) by the birth of their second child (they lost their 'Marv Kent, oldest daughter of Rev. Elisha Kent, Kane. He was a Scotchman and lived upon a farm married Malcolm Morrison of Patterson, N. Y.. in Pawling, Dutchess County, N. Y. These were the whose children were Archihald Morrison of Eton parents of a large descent. Their son, Elisha Kent Hall, Kent, England, Mrs. James Adams and Mrs. Kane, married Alida Van Renssalaer, which two were Rev. John S. Stone of Cambridge, Mass. Lucy, next ' the parents of I' S. Judge John Kent Kane of Phila- daughter of Rev. Elisha Kent, married Charles Cul- len, a native of Ireland, but a resident in later life of Putnam County, N. Y. Their children were John and Charles Cullen who died unmarried, and Susan DeLancy Cullen who married James Van Renssalaer delphia, who was the father of Dr. Elisha Kent Kane the Arctic explorer, and of Dr. John Kent Kane of the U. S. N., who married Mabel Hayard, daughter of U. S. Senator James Asheton Bayard of Wilming- ton, Del. Sarah Kent, the last (page 179) daughter of of Utica, N. Y., a grandson of Gen. Robert Van I Rev. Elisha Kent, married Major Alexander Grant of Renssalaer of the Revolution. Sybil Kent, the 1 the Kritish Army, who was killed at the storming ul next daughter of Rev. Elisha Kent, married John Fort Montgomery. Oct. 7, 1771. 1 86 NORWALK. first child the year before) Hannah.' This daughter, Hannah, married a young physician who had completed his studies in Hartford and now followed his New London father to Norwalk. This physician was Dr. Uriah, son of James Rogers311'. The Dr. and his wife chose for themselves a home site, central for the groom's profession and convenient in every way for a family residence (Mill Hill Mallory site). Here the distinguished two lived many years and had born to them, June 7. 1735, their oldest child, Hannah, who was to become the mother of Dr. James Kent, Chancellor. The brother next to herself of Mrs. Dr. Uriah Rogers, Sr., James, was the Rev. James Lockwood who, Nov. 4, 1742, married Martha, daughter of Rev. Moses Dickinson, the Norwalk Congregational minister at that time. This Norwalk youth, not great in stat- ure, but extraordinarily great as a scholar, was called in 1758 to succeed as president of the College of New Jersey, none the less than Dr. Jonathan Edwards, and in 1766, to fol- low, as head of Yale College, the retiring President Clapp. Both these offers were de- clined. Among the reminiscences of a generation gone is that of the quietly dignified walk, in the morning or evening cool of the day, of Colonel Buckingham St. John Lock- wood, to, around and from his East Avenue acreage estate. With cane in hand the vener- able man could often be seen leisurely wending his way to the old "stile" (Norwalk Mili- tary Institute corner 1896), whence, after stopping a few moments and then lowering two or three rails to admit of passage through the "bars," he proceeded along the "lane" to overlook his meadows and rear forest-patch. Anon emerging therefrom and returning to the stile, he might possibly sometimes continue his stroll still further down the avenue. On the occasion of some such characteristic driving or walking trip he chanced to see, work- ing as usual in his field, the industrious John L. Smith (father of Edmund of 1896), and, approaching him, thus addressed the farmer : "Do you know, Mr. Smith, that you are a Lockwood ?" "I do, Colonel," was the reply ; but while neither party at that time seemed able to get at the root of any near or remote Lockwood relationship, the incident-recall has suggested another family " study." John Lockwood, born Feb. 8, 1719-20, younger brother of Mrs. Uriah Rogers, Sr., and consequently a son of Col. James and Lydia (Smith) Lockwood and grandson of Ephraim, appears to have had nine children, viz: John2"', Matthew, Jesse, Phineas, Seth (of Goshen, Conn.), Polly, Betty, Hannah and Sarah. His youngest daughter but one, Hannah, named quite possibly for Mrs. Dr. Rogers, married Sept. 14, 1780, James, son of Fountain Smith, the patriot.- James and Hannah (Lockwood) Smith became the parents 'The history of Fountain Smith, grandfather of John L. Smith, belongs to the Revolutionary period. He was born March 2, 1725, and was son of Robert and Judith (Fountain) Smith. Robert Smith came from Jamaica, Long Island, and made quite a desir- able Norwalk purchase. He belonged to the Smith family of Long Island and his mother was honored by a Jamaica public vote. Fountain was the oldest son of Robert, and his home was a little south of the homestead of his grandson, John L., at present the residence of Edmund Smith, son of John L. The old Fountain Smith well is shown to-day. On Sunday NORW ALK. on Nov. 5, 1787, of John L. Smith, whose grandfather John Lockwood was nephew of Eliphalet Lockwood, the great-great-grandfather of Col. Buckingham St. John Lockwood. A SECOND ROGERS-LOCKWOOD CONNECTION. Col. James Lockwood (son of settler Ephraim Lockwood), the father of Mrs. Uriah Rogers, Sr. of Norwalk, had a brother Joseph, born April 1, 1680, who married Aug. 14, 1707, Mary, daughter of John Wood of Stamford. The Woods were in Stamford as early as 1 640- 1 and the name appears in Norwalk at a no distant date from the town's settlement. Joseph Lockwood ,st-, as was the case with the earlier and later Lockwoods, had eligible land property. To himself and wife Mary was born Nov. 23, 1710, Joseph 2d-, who married Rebecca "Rodgers,"' born Dec. 2, 1716, of Huntington, Long Island. From a Norwalk carefully collated register of the Long Island Rodgers or Rogers it would seem that the Huntington family of that name proceeded directly from Thomas Rogers of the Mayflower. This claim is stoutly and, seemingly, successfully supported in this place. To Joseph sd- and Rebecca "Rodgers" Lockwood was born, March 27, 1738. David, their oldest son and child. This son had been a soldier in the Fifth Connecticut Regiment when he married, on Aug. 6, 1777, Martha Trowbridge. There is a record of his dismission, before his mar- riage, from active service, and a neat record of his procuring (in his place) and registration of (the very year of his wedding) an "able" man to "serve during the war." This is at- tested by Capt. Amos Waldbridge and has certification in the Norwalk land records. His morning, July 11, 1779, said Fountain Smith had risen early, and although very deaf seemed aware that something unusual was transpiring. The morning was warm and he had removed or had not yet put on his coat. Suddenly Tryon's men, who were march- ing north from Fitch's Point came upon him, and took him coatless, a prisoner. Upon the enemies return, after firing the town, to their boats, he was carried to Long Island and sent to New York, where he soon ended his days, a victim of the cruelties of war. His widow, who was horn in 1731, lived to be ninety-three years old and died, it is to be presumed, in the old house, occupied in 1896 by the aged Mrs. Albert Hyatt of Strawberry Hill. Here she lived, during widow- hood, with her son Hutton (grandfather of Henry Seymour of West Avenue 1896) remaining so true to the cause vindicated by her martyr husband as to de- cline, afterwards, to sit at table with anyone profes- sing royal sympathy. She died somewhat after mid- summer, 1824, and is buried in the ancient ground in East Norwalk. Her husband's remains were not brought to Norwalk. James and Hannah (Lockwood) Smith, son and daughter-in-law of Fountain, lived in the home near Oyster Shell Point and immediately west of the resi- dence in 1896 of the widow of Burr Ilendrick. This was the home-premise before the Revolutionary war of Col. Thomas Fitch. His father, Gov. Fitch, bought the property while his soldier son was heading several continental companies in the celebrated expe- dition of 1758 to the north, and it was while Col. Fitch was thus engaged that, in derision of the ap- pearance of his command, an English official wrote, near East Albany, the wordy-jargon "Yankee Doodle," etc. When the town was burned the Colo- nel seems to have given up this home site and to have removed to the reconstructed home of his widowed mother on the East side of the Earle's Hill of 1896. James Smith was married to Hannah Lockwood, a little more than a year after Tryon's visit and settled, subsequently, on the old Col. Fitch property. He had one son other than John L. viz. James, Jr.