Norwalk

"Sir James Wart', a member, in 1583, of the Irish Parliiuent and who was knighted In- James 1, married Alice Prideaux, daughter of the Lord Mayor of Lon- don. Mary, daughter of Sir James and Alice Ware, married Emmanuel Downing, which Emmanuel and Mary Downing had a daughter, Mary, who married Anthony Stoddard, horn 1617, and the parent of the American Stoddard family. Anthony and Mary Stoddard's son, Solomon, born in Boston in 1643, married Esther, a daughter of Jane Newberry (Mrs. Rev. John Warham, of Windsor, and the mother of the first wife of Rev. Thomas Hanford, of Norwalk). Rev. Solomon and Hester Stoddard had a daughter, Esther, who married Rev. Timothy Edwards, first minister of East Windsor. Jonathan, born Oct. 1703, son of Rev. Timothy and Esther Edwards, be- came in time President Jonathan Edwards, who mar- ried, in 1727, Sarah, daughter of Rev. James Pier- pont, of New Haven. Jonathan and Sarah Edwards' daughter, Mary, married Timothy Dwight, of North- ampton, Mass. Timothy and Mary Dwight had a son, Timothy, born in 17S3, who was president of Vale College. Soloman and Hester Stoddard's daughter, Han- nah, married Rev. Wro. Williams, Jr. Rev. Win. and Hannah Williams, Jr., had a daughter, Anna, who married Col. Oliver Partridge. Col. Oliver and Mrs. Anna Partridge had a daughter, Elizabeth, 2 + 2 N O R W A L K friend of royal James. " Where is God ?" was asked of one of her blood ; " Where is He not," was the reply. The works of God were her offsprings delight, and with clasped hands and reverent repetitions of "forever and ever," some of her descent were wont to salute even as humble a natural object as a small highland stream. Thomas Newberry deceased in 1635-6, Roger Ludlow, the purchaser of Nor walk, being one of the sub- scribers to his will. His wife survived him in the enjoyment of a comfortable legacy of £200 (marrying for a second husband, Rev. John Warham, the first minister of Wind- sor see page 138) twenty years, and died at Xorwalk, in the parsonage1 of the "Prime who married Dr. Erastus Sr.rgeant, Sr., who was the father of Dr. Erastus Sargeant, Jr., who married Mar- garet, daughter of Stephen and Margaret (Pynchon) Keeler, of Norwalk. The Stoddard* include, says one, the best of French, English and Welsh blood. C'oL Oliver Partridge was a Harvard graduate and a Colonist of wide reputation. He died in 17KJ, and his wife died in 1S02. "Old Norwalk's parsonages (before the Revolu- tionary War i — Congregational and Episcopal— were storied structures. Hannah, daughter of Mrs. Thus, Newbury, referred to in the text, was the first wife of Rev. Thus, Hanford, the first minister of Xorwalk. This lady whose blood back of, or contemporary with her, were ancestors and ancestresses who pos- sessed genius and power to evolve from surrounding conditions the germs of the grand matters-status of to-dav, here wrought and influenced for several rears. After her decease her husband married, sec- mid, (see page 138) the widow of Jonathan luce, of New Haven, and brought, once more, to the Xorwalk parsonage family fame. Rev. Stephen Buckingham was the town's second pastor and Mrs. Buckingham was unexcelled. The tow 11 had built a new "minis- ter's house," Us site being about where now stands the Hast Xorwalk R. R. depot for west hound trains. Ik-re Mrs. Buckingham presided with grace. She was (he grand -daughter of the immortal Thomas Hooker, of Hartford, and " is reputed to have been the most accomplished lady that ever came to Xor- walk/' Her si-ler, M:in , was the wile of Rev. (arnes Pierpont. of Xew Haven, and she was the aunt ol Mrs. President Jonathan Edwards. Her husband and self were, by birth and connection, of Xew Eng- land's best stock, and the Xorwalk parsonage con- muted to be a highly clever and cultured hearthstone, Kev. Moses Dickinson succeeded Mr. Buckingham. Mr. Dickinson was born in Springfield, Dec. 12, 1695, and himself and wife Martha came to Xorwalk 111 June, 1727. Hi- father, Hezekiah Dickinson, was a trader and his mother was Abigail, daughter of Rev. Samuel Blakeman, of Stratford. His brother Jonathan'- house was distinguished in that the Col- lege of Xew Jersey was there opened and his own paisunage in Xorwalk had at its head a man of com- manding presence and esteemed one of the first among his fellows, and was the birthplace of his daughter, Mary, who married, Nov. 4, 1742, Rev. James Lockwood, of Xorwalk, who declined the presidencies of Princeton and Yale Colleges, and was the brother of Hannah (Mrs. Dr. Uriah Rogers, Sr. ) , the grandmother of Chancellor James Kent Mrs. Martha Dickinson died and the second Mrs. Moses Dickinson who ministered at the parsonage was Hannah, daughter of Capt. Joseph Ally 11, of Wethersfieki. Before Hannah Allyn married Rev. Moses Dickinson she had been the wife of Rev. Ebenezer W right, of the old Congregational Church in Stamford. Mr. Wright died May 5, 1746, and his widow married (as his second wife) June 24, 1755, Capt, Joseph St. John, of Xorwalk. Mr. St. John died Sept. 29, 1756, when his widow married for the third time, Jul v 28, 1757, Rev. Moses Dickinson. Mr. Dickinson died May 1, 1778, leaving his widow, Han- nah, who survived him for twenty-five years, dying at Plymouth. Conn., June 16, 1803, at the great age of ninety-eight. Rev. Wm, Tennent was for seven years a Col- league Pastor with Rev. Mr. Dickinson. He probably did hot occupy the parsonage, as Mr. Dickinson over- lived Mr. Tennent's assistantship by some six years. Mr. Tennent came to Norwalk at the early age of twentv-eight. We have no record of his marriage, but he died at the age of forty. His mother was a Mrs. Noble, to whom his father was introduced in Xew York City. Both parties were pleaded with tile introduction, at the close of which Rev. Mr. Tennent remarked that if it met with her approbation he would return to Freehold, N. j., attend to his Sun- day duty and come back on Monday for the wedding. The lady, who knew well of him, acquiesced and the ceremony was duly performed. She became a valu- able wife, and the mother, in 1737, of the Norwalk associate of Rev. Mr. Dickinson. Her great niece, Martha Tennent, a woman of exceptional worth and superb talent, married a young man who was brought up in the meadow now the site of the Manice Lock- wood and Maliorv estate homes on Mil! Hill, Da\id, son of Dr. Uriah and Hannah (Lockwood) Rogers, afterward the eminent Dr. David Rogers, Sr., of NOR W ALK. 243 Ancient Society," April 23, 1655,' her life-st< England family "item." " NOT A1 Rev. John Warham, the first minister Greenfield Hill, among whose children were Dr. Charles Rogers, of South Carolina, Dr. David, Jr., of New York, Dr. William, of Perm., Dr. Morris, who married a Long Island Willets, Mrs. Dr. Dewes, of Philadelphia, Mrs. Rev. John P. Austin, of New Ha- ven, (grandmother of Justice A. E. Austin, of Nor- walk,) and Samuel Rogers, a New York merchant. Moses Dickinson died the year before Norwalk was British-burned and the Congregational and Epis- copal parsonages, at that time standing, were ruth- lessly destroyed by Tryon. As St. Paul's parish was not incorporated until the town had attained nearly ninety years of age, and as its first rectory is supposed to have been built around the frame of the first tentative church, some- where in the neighborhood of 174.2, its history up to the conflagation of 1779 is comparatively meagre. Its rectors' families nevertheless were of note. Henry Caner, the first rector, knew possibly hut little of Norwalk parsonage life. Himself and wife Anne McKenzie, to whom he was married Aug-. 25, 1728, were, it is probable, away from Norwalk more or less of the time, although he here gathered some 115 com- municants. His half-brother, Richard, succeeded him for a short time. Rev. Richard's wife is not ascer- tained. He died wiien not quite twenty-nine years old. He left a daughter who is named in Jonathan Cutler's will. The two Caner's were promising men, sons of Henry Caner, a New Haven architect, who erected the first building belonging to Yale College. Neither of them had probably much of a " settled habitation" in Norwalk. There was no rectory until Richard's time, and he spent only three years in Norwalk. Dr. John Ogilvie seems to have been hardly more than a tentative supply at St. Paul's. He fol- lowed the Caner's but was unmarried when at Nor- walk. His second wife, in later years, however, was known of in Norwalk. She was the widow Philips, of the Philips Manor estate, when she married Dr. Ogilvie. She generously remembered St, Paul's church, of which her step-son, Rev. Geo. Ogilvie, was for some time rector. She survived her hus- band, Rev. John Ogilvie, and had a delightful home not far from West Point. It was upon her grounds that, in more recent years, the popular work entitled, 11 The Wide, Wide World," was written. The only St. Paul's parsonage occupant, at least for any great extent of time, before the Revolution, was Dr. Jere- miah Learning. Mr. Learning was baptized May 12, 1717, and he received his first Communion in the furnishing the following interesting New -ONE." of Windsor, Conn., married, second, Jane.1 Episcopal Church on Christmas Day, 1745. For two years from that time he acted as lay-reader in Nor- walk and then was sent to England to obtain orders, old Trinity Church, Newport, bearing his expenses. Only fourteen days intervened between his two or- dinations in 1748. In 1758 he became rector of St. Paul's, Norwalk, and hither brought his wife, tire Elizabeth Peck, of New York City, after whose fam- ily the "Peck Slip" of said city was named. These occupied the Norwalk parsonage until everything they locally possessed was therein burned by the British on July 11, 1779. Dr. Learning's estate was inventoried, at his death, at £116 hut his wife's large property went to her neice, Ann, daughter of Samuel and Hannah — Norwalk records say Christian — (Peck) Farmar, and wife of Bishop Abraham Jarvis.