Norwalk

It will possibly be observed that reference to claimed-Fitch-baronial-connection has been refrained from in the foregoing Home-Lot XII description. The author does not ignore the claim, but has chosen the rather to fill the designated description-space with the registration of the Norwalk Fitch family facts. The Fitch descendants comprise a great company, and the important household has notice in different portions of this work. XORWALK, HOME-LOT XT! I. NATHANIEL ELY THOMAS BEITS, Sr. CHRISTOPHER COMKTOCK. The two oldest public thoroughfares in Norwalk (naming them in their probable order of construction) were, paradoxical as the order may seem (see page 34). "The Other Highway" and "The Towne Highway." The first of these "ways" was, as is else- where in this work intimated, marked out by, it is to be presumed, the Stamford settlers in their pre-Norwalk pilgrimages between Fairfield and New Haven. Nathaniel Ely of Cambridge, in 1632, a resident in 1635 of Hartford and an Hartford official in 1637, but afterward a Norwalk constituent, constable and a committeeman to set the Golden Hill boundaries of Nimrod and other Pequonnock (now Bridgeport) Indian lands,1 had allotted to him the eligible home-site bounded by the " Other Highway and the Town Highway," or at the northwest corner of the present East avenue and Fitch street. From the old world Mr. Ely proceeded to Cambridge and Hartford from which latter place he came, in [650, to Norwalk, having been one of the "Ludlow agreement" signers. Whether he bore any kinship to Samuel Ely (see page 78) or to Richard Ely,' is not ascertained. He ■ About 1657-9 large numbers of the Shore In- dians removed nothward from the Sound into the country, so that there remained only about one hun- dred wigwams on " Gold," now Golden Hill, Bridge- port. A wigwam is- said to have represented some six souls, and if so, it follows that in the neighbor- hood of six hundred red men were left in the vicinity of " Pequonnock " to be cared for. The General Court, consequently, in 1659, ordered that this rem- nant should occupy the height In question, and, for some reason, constituted a committee of Norwalk men to carry out its order. The Court selected four of this town's staunchest settlers, viz. : Matthew Campfield, Thomas Fitch, Richard Olmsted and Na- thaniel Ely, to mark out eighty acres of the elevation referred to and return a report of their doings dur- ing the ensuipg autumn. The committee did so, signing the document thus: " Narwoke, Nov. 2, 1660." After report made the Indians proceeded, forthwith, to occupy the premises. ■K)f Lyme, and thought to have been the pro- genitor of the late Dud lev 1J. Ely, one of the saga- cious and successful citizens of the present city of South Norwalk. On May-day, i86t, Mr. Ely took up his residence in the thriving section of the Norwalk township known formerly as "Old Well'" but latterly as South Norwalk, and such was his influence that when the village had grown into the municipality he was the chosen candidate for the first mayoralty. His brother, Nathan C., was also a Norwalk resident, the two having been the last representatives of their generation of the family, Mrs. Dudley P. Ely was a daughter of Judge J. O. Phelps, of Sim-bury, Conn. The late Hon. Jon. E. Wheeler, of the extensive Wheeler manufactory, of West-port, married Harriet P., the oldest daughter of D. P. Ely, She died in the spring of 1868, leaving one child, Harry E., who died the following fall. Mr-. Wheeler's sisters— she had no brothers — were Charlotte, died unmarried; Mary E. (Mrs. Millard); Augusta A. (Mrs. Gen. Russell Fr«-t); Dudline (Mrs. Charles T. Raymond). Mr. Wheeler married, second, Mrs. Henrietta V Ells, of New York city, by which union there were no children. He died Feb. 7, 1886. With his hrother Elonzo S. he came, in the spring of i860, from Central Conn., to Westport, and purchasing the already standing Sau- gatuck brick building from Gershom B. Bradley, there founded, under the firm name of E. S. Wheel- er and Co., an important manufacturing plant. Mr, E. S. Wheeler is still living and is pre-ident of the establishment which in 1896 is known as the Kauga- tuck Manufacturing Company, The two brothers, Hon. Jon. E., and Elonzo S. Wheeler resided in ad- joining homes on the banks of the Saugatuck and a little north of the ancient 11 Rocky Neck." E. S. Wheeler married Caroline Smith, of Naugatnck, Conn., and had Robinson H., Clarence L., Kate W,, Bertha C. (Mrs. John Hazelton) and Elonzo Sterne, who married Elsie, daughter of Thos. R. Lees, of Westport. Robinson II., son of E. S. and Caroline Wheeler, married, first, Sarah F., daughter of Burr Smith, Saugatuck, and had Robinson L. and Cam 226 NOR \V AI.K. was a delegate in 1656 to the Conn. General Assembly, but he retained his Norwalk lot transiently, parting with it in 1660 to Thomas Betts, Sr., at about which time he removed to Springfield, Mass., and had no after permanent appearance in Xor.valk.' THOMAS BETTS, Su., (Second Occupant. ) This ancestor of a long descendant-line was born in England in [615-16. He was enrolled (seventeenth ill number! on the Guilford, Conn., settlers-register. Accompanied by his wife Mary he came to Norwalk in about 1660. Mrs. Mary Betts may possibly have been married before her Betts union, as in the will of Thos. Betts, Sr., executed May io, 16X8. he refers to "her children." The Betts estate was appraised Dec. 4. 1688. The children of Thos."'- and Mary Betts were: Mary, born 1646; married John Raymond."1- Thomas,-''1- born June 3, 1650; married Sarah Marvin. Hannah, born Nov. 22, 1652 ; married Samuel Camp. John. "•■ born May 10, 1655: married twice. Stephen, born Oct. 4. 1657 : died young. Daniel, born Oct. 4. 1657; married Deborah Taylor. Samuel, born April 4. 1660; married Judith Reynolds. James, born 1663; married Hannah Bouton. Sarah; married Joseph St. John."1- The curtain rises and the brothers and sisters above tabulated take their place-; upon the Betts stage. Of the daughters of the notable group Mary, the oldest, was the structure enlarged) was properly put in place. They were instructed to provide a luncheon "with a bar- rel of good beans" for "the helps" on that occa- sion. They, it is believed, lined the building with the street and most likely entered it from the south. It U inferred that for prudence sake there were no windows in the east end, and, for the same reason, no door, possibly. Soon after his mission in relation to the meeting house was accomplished Mr. lily vacat- ed his Norwalk home, leaving the "Ely's Neck" of 1S96, which was called for him, to perpetuate lus name. F.ly'. Neck was the earliest designation of the Norwalk southwestern coast-adjacent land, a good portion of which was subsequently called " Uehietl > Neck." It was approached bv what is now known as the " Kly Neck road." To the east of the "Neck" there put up a small salt water estuary as far in- land as the ancient "Stuart Landing," the neighbor- hood of which locality came, in time, to be denomi- nated " the village." There seem to have been pot- tery works in the vicinity, and there was, unquestion- ably, at high tide, water communication thereat with outside ports. line M., who died young, and Edith M., Charles E., Sarah II., and the twins, Harry and Herbert, both of whom died in infancy. Mrs. R. II. Wheeler died Feb. 34, 1S77, and her husband married, second, Helen, daughter of l/apt. Francis Sherwood, of (ireens Farms. Clarence L., son of E. S. and Caro- j line Wheeler, a Norwalk school vouth of some rears since, is married and lives in Marion, tnd. 'He was alive in 167; and seems, by a Norwalk record of that date, to have had still an open account with Thomas Hetts, Sr., to whom he sold his home estate. One of his last Norwalk performed deeds was to secure assistance, in 1657. to " raise the meet- ing house.'' This was doubtless the first framed i place of worship in Norwalk. The pioneers' original sanctuary was, probably, a log structure, floored and ! roofed, hut hastily constructed and unfurnished and [ uncomfortable. Its „tuj tllc ,],e „,- th(. b,lik|in„ of if,;7 tsee page fii) were the -arm-, and it served , only a tentative purpose. Matthew Marvin, Sr., | -vuiiuel Hales and Isaac More were constituted by the proprietor-, a committee to see that the frame of ihi- firs, permanent structure (probably the old NO 14 WALK. foremother of the Xonvalk Raymonds. Hannah of the Xonvalk Camps and Sarah of many of the St. Johns and Lockwoods. From the sons sprang the long roll of those of Betts name, who by their faithful discharge of public and private responsibilities, have proven a valuable Xonvalk constituency. Mary was about seventeen when the family came from Guilford, which household had here resided for a short time when there arrived with his father to the new plantation a Saybrook young man, John, son of Richard Raymond, who married the said Mary on Dec. 10, 1664. The elder Raymond (Richard) tarried only about two years in Xonvalk and left his house and estate to be occupied and managed by his son and daughter-in-law, who there brought up their sons John, Samuel and Thomas Raymond and the boys' sister Hannah. Thomas, the second Belts child, married Sarah, daughter of .Matthew"1 and Man- Marvin, six months before the groom had reached his thirtieth birthday. The parents of Thomas and Sarah Marvin Ketts were close neighbors, and the union, Jan. 13, 1680, was that of two good families. They had six children, viz., Thomas,-5'1- John, Sarah, Matthew, Mary and Elizabeth.