Norwalk

Names are not always capriciously assigned. John was a Fitch family name beyond the sea. Rebecca was the first name of Mrs. John Fitch ,5t-- Nathaniel was undoubtedly in honor of Nathaniel Richards (Mrs. John Fitch's step-father), while Mary was the name of an aunt. These children, all, took family names. John Fitch2d\ son of John1"- and Rebecca, married Lydia, one of the seven daugh- ters (no sons) of Francis Bushnell. This Bushnell youth (Francis) was a contribution to the Norwalk settlement. His wife Hannah, to whom he was married Oct. 12, 1675, was, on that date, twenty years and eight months old, to a day. She was the oldest daughter of Thomas Seymour'"- (son of Richard '*'•) and the first-fruit of his happy marriage to a daughter of Matthew Marvin, Sr., Hannah, who was a young lady (born in England) of sixteen, when her father moved from Hartford to Norwalk. Francis and Hannah Bushnell founded a home at the foot of Strawberry Hill, Norwalk, and their old well, probably jointly used with the Barnum's (Thomas Barnum was next neighbor) can be seen to-day a little north of the home of the late Daniel Fitch. Francis Bushnell was one of the founders, in 1685, of Danbury, and Norwalk thereby lost, in himself and wife, two good settlers. He died in 1697, some years, evidently, before his daughter Lydia (mentioned fourth, in children's order, in his inventory) married John Fitch*1', whose children were: Matthew; born, May, 1708. Theophilus ; Bushnell ; Rebecca; married John, son of Samuel Richards. Lydia ; married William Bolt. John. Matthew Fitch, son of John sd- and Lydia, lived in New Canaan and was twice mar- ried. His first wife was Jemima, daughter of Eber St. John. By her he had one child, born, Dec. 25, 1735, and baptized the next year by Rev. John Eells of New Canaan. Mrs. Matthew Fitch'"1- died and Mr. Fitch married, second, Dec. 7, 1738, Lydia, daughter of Nathan Olmstead. (See foot note, page 104.) By this union there were Nathan, Mercy, Hannah, Matthew2'1-, Lydia, Rebecca and Susanna. Theophilus Fitch <*\ son of John and Lydia, was New Canaan's old and well known citizen, whose family story is interwoven with several of the excellent household histories of that interesting and genealogically inviting town. His youngest son, Joseph, born Oct. 21, 1758, lived on the rural road that to-day directly connects Brushy and Smith's Ridges. On Oct. 12, 1784, said Joseph married Hannah Sperry, the first child of which couple was i g8 a daughter who took her mother's name. This daughter, Hannah, born April 23, 1786, married Sherman, son of Rev. Justus Mitchell. Sherman and Hannah Mitchell had a daughter, Martha, who married Joseph2<\ son of Joseph ,5t- and Martha (Leeds) Silliman, which Silliman mention makes logical the insertion, in this particular place, of the fol- lowing : NORWALK-CANAAN GOV WILLIAM LEETE DESCENT. During a brief portion of one of Norwalk's settlement-years, the young daughter of Gov. Leete of Guilford, was prohibited, although she "could not perceive the reason of it at the time," from going near her father's store in that town.' In the cellar of that store were concealed King Charles' two judges, Goffe and Whalley, concerning which refugees Rev. John Davenport of the colon}' had preached, admonishingly, from the text : "Take counsel, execute judgment, make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday, hide the outcast, betray not him that wandereth : Let mine outcasts dwell with thee, Monti; be thou a covert to them from the face of the spoiler. — Isaiah xvi, 3-4. and the store premises referred to were, for the time being, quarantined. This maiden married John Trowbridge of New Haven, and was the mother of one only daughter, Anne, w ho by her marriage, on Nov. 30, 1708, to Samuel Cooke, principal of the Hopkins Gram- mar School, New Haven, became the parent of a numerous Norwalk and New Canaan offspring. Samuel Cooke, born Nov. 22, 1687, was a son of Thomas Cooke, Jr., and a grand- son of the Milford Cooke settler of 1650, who having prepared for the Congregational ministry, accepted a call — "£100 a year with firewood" — to the parish in Stratfield, now Bridgeport." He is described as being dignified in manner and as wearing a "particularly careful" ministerial dress. His bride. Anne Trowbridge, was a trifle past twenty on their wedding day. Seven children were born to them, of whom, Anne, the youngest, married, in 1742, Rev. Robert Silliman, son of Robert"1- and Ruth (Treadvvcll) Silliman, which Robert"1 was a son of Robert'"- and Sarah (Hulli Silliman, which Robert lst- was a son of Daniel Silliman the settler, all of Fairfield. Immediately after his marriage, Rev. Robert Silliman removed to New Canaan, having there been called to succeed Rev. John Eells as pastor. He remained in New Canaan about thirty years, and on Jan. 8, 1772, accepted a call to Saybrook, where he resided until his death in 1781. His wire died two and a half years before his own unexpected decease in New Canaan, where he was visiting, and in which place he is buried. He was highly connected, being nephew of Hon. Ebenczer Silli- man'of Fairfield, and cousin of Gen. Gold Selleck Silliman of the Revolutionary period, and second cousin to the future Prof. Benjamin Silliman of Yale College. He left five sons ■Bather's Connecticut, j speaker of the House and lost his office because that 'Dcxter's ^i ale Annals i , . . , £ r- , . 1 lie administered the Stamp Act oath to Gov. Fitch ot sect, ive '' ; y ^ f°Urteen C°n- N°"valk- The Silliman name has long dignified secmhe s, -„,„„., dun„» the last five of which he was Fairfield County history. NORWALK. 199 and three daughters. His oldest son, Samuel Cooke Silliman, did not quit the town with himself, but remained upon the family site. He was twice married, first to Elizabeth Strat- ton and second to Dinah Comstock, whose home was in the more remote portion of the Canaan parish. He died Feb. 14, 1798. His brothers removed with the parents from New- Canaan, but Joseph ist% the youngest, a lad of fifteen at going- away, came back, now a physician, to New Canaan, where he was afterward a continuous recipient of public honors. He married, Nov. 23, 1785, Martha Leeds' of the Stamford family of that name. These had seven children, viz: Joseph 2V who married Martha, daughter of Sherman and Han- nah (Fitch) Mitchell and grand-daughter of Rev. Justus Mitchell; William, who married a daughter of Esquire Eliphalet St. John, whose boys' seminary crowned Canoe Hill; Elizabeth, who married Hon. Minot, second son of Rev. Justus Mitchell, and was the head of the White Plains Mitchell family; Samuel C.3d-, who married a daughter of Uriah Reed3 of Canaan Ridge (grand-daughter of Timothy, a grandson of John Reed of Crom- 1 Daughter, probably, of Elisha and Sarah (Seeley) Leeds; born Dec. 27, 1756. ?He occupied the Silliman mansion still standing near where stood William Haynes' boundary "oak tree," at the south-eastern limit of Haynes' Ridge. He was a man of affairs during the busy six-day week and on Sunday the Silliman pew (south-west corner of the old Church Hill Meeting House) was regularly and reputably "filled. There have been three Congregational Church edifices in New Canaan and the sites of the first two so closely adjoined as to almost, if not quite, lap each other. The site of the present church is a few score feet from that of the second, upon which latter spot for one to stand is for one to be well nigh history-in- spired. Here, in 1732, the first meeting house was built. Permission to organize an ecclesiastical society had already been granted, but the "objective point" was not reached for two years. The central figure in the portraiture which one at this spot mind-draws is that of a bright young man of 30 years, well related, who stood first in his college class and was New Ca- naan's earliest pastor. He was accompanied by a young bride, Anna Beard, and John and Anna Eells estab- lished themselves with one son and two daughters on that lovely spine, perhaps a mile eastward of their spiritual home, and known, very properly, to-day, as Carter Street. Mr. Eells' congregation at that time was a small but an earnest body of men and women. Nearest the pastor and immediately under his pul- pit in that first church, sat John Bouton. He was then inyears, but he was a good man and founded a line of worthies. Matthew Fitch also sat there and his short-lived St. John wife, who became members just before the society experienced its first bereavement by the decease, May 8, 1736, of the pastor's first wife. Ebenezerand Hannah Carter, the progenitors of an ex- cellent descent, also sat there. Mr. Eells' constituency was a growingone and a second edifice was demanded. This was built in 1752 and continued in use ninety years one of the most beautiful pictures of its last days, being the stately walk through its aisles on the way to the pulpit, of the benignant-faced, and bene- volent-natured Rev. Theophilus Smith, as well as the entrance, at the west door, of his dignified mother-in- law, Mrs. Samuel St. John, leaning upon the arm of one of her sons, and followed, in summer, by her home-visiting children and grand-children, the party filling the St. John pew in the north-west corner of the sanctuary and constituting a noticeable group. The St. John children were much admired as was the case with Col. Enoch St. John's Alabamian charge, the two Pope lads, who also went to the same Church. These boys were masterly handlers of the gun, and having been asked how they acquired their skill chivalrously replied, "Our mother taught us." The bravery of Henry, the older brother, was put to a further test when sudden sickness or death having occurred, in the night, in the family, the courageous youngsoutherner breasted a New England snow storm, and trudged, through deep darkness, over the New Canaan Ridge, in quest of assistance. This same Henry Pope wrote, in 1895, a graphic letter descrip- tive of his New Canaan life and sent it north. He died in Mobile, June 7, 1895.