Norwalk

Richard Olmsted,' proprietor of home-lot xv, was one of the most honored and honorable of the Xorwalk settlers, and in this town's records his name date-leads all others. He was the new settlement's surveyor and was probably more practically versed with the topograph}- of the plantation than any other member of the Norwalk company. His first bit of work would appear to have been the layout of the " Towne Street," which extended, originally, from Beacham's lane to the crest of Goodman Hoyt's Hill; from the south end, that is. of the East Xorwalk Cemetery of 1 S96 to the highest point of the "Earle's Hill" of the same year. Along this straight and, for the greater part, level, street, every one of the resident-named - Ludlow agreement " planters built. Their con- tiguous homes were of simple construction but their Olmsted, Marvin, Fitch, St. John and other tenants were solid people. Mr. Olmsted's domicile stood nearly midwav (south of llmt hearth-lone, on the east side of tile street as ..tie approach** the present •• New Canaan hotel." A large lamily was here reared, one member of which, Justus, -'d. has been referred to. Another child, Steph- en, iCnpl. ) who was horn near "Travning-dac," 1770, and was baptized on Hie eve of his" • eighth day "'of age, married, at twenty-four, folly, daughter of Dea- con John and Hannah (Benedict) Carter, and a niece of the proprietor (Abijah Comtek) of the many Oblong-adjoining acres, now known a< the Samuel Comstock New Canaan (arm. Captain Stephen and Polly (Carter) Hoc, had a daughter, folic, who mar- ried finally Keeler, whose carriage establishment afterward adjoined, or nearly -o, his wife's gr.nul lather - home. between the Houton Hurt New Canaan grist mill and that ol Jti-tuS Hovt nood the Col Urn tt '.„ mill, afterwaul Young's axe mill. These milling",' dtWJ'K- were planted on five Mile River, the wtt-r- of which •miutl stream, from its rise in Vista to its mouth at the Rowayton of 1K96, were at several points mill-used. Mr,. Col. Watson and Mr. Young; were both drowned near the site of the Watson mill. 'Upon the list "of all persons holding land in Hartford, in fcb., 1639," occur the names of James, N icholas, John and Richard Olmsted. James is sup- posed to have been the father of Nicholas and the uncle of John and Richard. John and Richard's uncle, in whose company they came, it is believed, to America left them, at his decease, a small legacy. Richard was one of the petitioners in 1650, for the planting of Xorwalk, and he is the third one men- tioned in the governor and company s patent to the Noi-walk proprietors, upon the extant records of which proprietors, volume one, page one, line one, his name appears, four acres and one rood were apportioned to him for a home lot, which lay on the east side of the Town Street, not far from the NORWALK. Rider home of 1896) between the street's extremes. Richard Olmsted was forty-two years old when he arrived from Hartford, in Norwalk, with his two sons, James and John, the second of whom was an infant under, it is to be presumed, two years of age. The father had been twice married (see his will, made Sept. 5, 1684). His Norwich brother, John, was married but left no issue. John Olmsted, of Norwich, died before 1679. His wife (see Caulkins) eventually bequeathed a right in " two thousand Norwich acres to her late husband's near kinsmen, Lieut. James and Ensign John Olmsted, of Norwalk." The supposition of an Olmsted- Marvin affinity receives strength from a devisement in Richard Olmsted's will to Samuel Smith of "ye bed, etc., of my last wives," said Smith having married a daughter of Matthew Marvin.'"' Both sons of Richard Olmsted were, it is probable, quite young when the family came to Norwalk. James, the older of the two, married, May I, 1673, Phcebe, daughter of Thos. Barlow, of Fairfield, and had James, Joseph, Nathan, Samuel and John. Ensign John (brother of James), who was baptized Dec. 30, 1649, married July 17, 1673, Mary, daughter of Thomas,st- and Mary Benedict, by whom he had his children, Mary, Sarah (Mrs. Jonathan Abbott), Rebecca (Mrs. Samuel St. John), Elizabeth (Mrs. Henry Whitney), Daniel, Jane (Mrs. Benj. Wilson), Richard, Eunice, Deborah, Abigail, Anna and John. Mary, the oldest child of Lieut. John and Mary (Benedict) Olmsted, was prob- ably born in the meadow home, neighbor-site of the recently improved Oscar Raymond East Avenue house.' She was a sister-in-law of such early known Norwalk personages as Samuel St. John and Henry Whitney, and married in the spring (May 9) of 1694. Thomas, son of John"*- and Ann (Mrs. Ann Derby) Reed, of " Reed's Farm," Norwalk. Mary's (1896) East Norwalk Rider home. His neighbor to the south was Nathaniel Ely, and to the north Thom- as Hale. In his rear laiT the common land, and he fronted the Town Street. On the opposite side of the street tenanted Matthew Marvin, Sr., and Thom- as Fitch, Sr., so that the three homes of, respectively, Norwalk's maiden Justice, Commissioner and Re- corder lay in close proximity. Richard Olmsted was a public official, and was Norwalk's first Clerk. He died, it is probable, in the autumn of 1686, having been twice married, and having survived both wives and one daughter, and leaving behind two children, both by his first wife, viz.: Sergeant James and Lieut. John Olmsted, from whom the Norwalk Olm- sted's have descended. James was his older son, but he gave his home-lot to John. On February I, 1715, eleven-thirteenths of this homestead, which had been in the possession of the father and son " for upwards Of fifty years," was sold to Thos. Fitch, 3<i. the father of the Governor, whose home adjoined the Olmsted's on the north, occupying about the site of Oscar Ray- mond's property to day. This same " eleven-thir- teenths" Olmsted homestead, plus enough Fitch land to make out six acres, was the legacy on Jan. 6, 1729, of Thos. Fitch3d. to his son, Samuel, the brother of the Governor, which estate was the cradle of, among other children, Elizabeth Fitch, the mother of Moses Fitch, Nehemiah and Henry Rogers. 'The rear of this house was, it seems, the dwell- ing place of Haynes, son of James and Mary (Buck- ingham-Haynes) Fitch. Mr. Raymond has plaster- covered the ancient visibly-protruding posts and joists, but the structure, notwithstanding the recent veranda-addition, preserves its antique look. The place fell, afterwards, to Jonathan (son of Daniel) Fitch, who there took his wife, Sarah, daughter of James Cannon. Mrs. Jonathan Fitch long survived her husband and was, in her age, the tender care of her daughter, Mrs. Stephen Raymond. The devo- tion of this daughter and her sister, Rebecca, Mrs. James Mallory, to their mother was remarkable and beautiful. Mrs. Mallory was married in the north parlor of this house and removed to her new home on Mill Hill, but her carriage stood, almost daily, be- fore her honored parent's door. This parent passed a serene age and was at last gently gathered to her Cannon fathers. Her grand-daughter, Mrs. Oscar Raymond, has some handsome Cannon china and glassware in her possession. The house is now one of Norwalk's older dwellings. 268 N O R \V ALK. married home lay some three or four miles southwest of her father's •' Town Street" domi- cile, and nigh to the " Rowalton" waters. Her husband's family came thither from West- chester County, having previously been English Cromwell-loyalists. Thomas and May Reed had just established themselves at the "Farms" when a new groom and bride, John and Elizabeth Boult, there founded a home. The Reeds and Boults had been fellow- Cromwellians, from the latter of whom have descended the family of the Ohio banker, Jay O. Moss, and a younger branch of the Jay Cooke, Philadelphia, banking firm. To Thomas and Man- (Olmsted) Reed was born, Aug. 7, 1701, a son, John, who was the father of Ann, who married, Dec. 7, 1738. Eliakim, born, July 8, [717. son of Kd- mond and Elizabeth (Boutoni Waring or Warren, from which union sprang the here fol- lowing : REKUOI.MSTED-BUAKIM WARREN UNE.VOE, On the last day of the winter of 1706-7 the convened early Xorwalkers isee page 30) constituted Joseph St. John and Samuel Keeler a committee to care for East Satiga- tuck lands. On this same date a new purchaser appeared and bargained with the father of Gov. Thos. Fitch for a tract as centre-remote perhaps as Saugatuck, but which formed a portion of the eligible height once ruled by the Sachem Runckingheage, and since known by the name of " Roton Hill." This stranger-investor, Edmond Waring or Warren, Sr., hailed from Queen's Village, L. I., but was not totally unknown in Xorwalk. He had fre- quently, it is possible, sailed to this town from his own island home (on the Sound almost opposite Xorwalk) as eight years before he had married, a Xorwalk youth of nineteen, Hlizabeth, daughter of John Bouton, and taken her to Queen s Village, where he founded a large family, the members of which came, afterward, to be well versed with Xorwalk. Mis children, who were mostly born on Long Island, were: Kdmond. Jr.. born Sept. 16. 1700. Jacob, born Jan. 15. 1712-13. Isaac, born Jan. 13, 1702. Michael, born July 16. 1715. John, born Dec. 21, 1704. Eliakim, born July X, 1717. Solomon, born Apr, 24. 1707. Elizabeth, born March 8. [719-20. (Mrs. Edward Nash.) Mary, bom Dec. 22. 170S. Abigail, born Apr. 19, 1723. (Mis. Henry JJ.nman.) (Mrs S;inulei Richards, ,|r.)' Xathan. born Feb. 6. 17 10-11. Hannah, b. in Xorwalk. Sept. 7. 1725. (Mrs. James Richards. )J 'Abigail Warren (Mis. Samuel Richards, Jr.,) . ren have cause 10 revere its worthy story. Edmond was seven ,ears the junior of her husband. She died , Warren, Sr., was not in the flesh when his grandson, t . i'7"4' haVmg ''ad ""' S<>n"' Salm,t'1 alul Isaac Richards, planted the hearthstone, near the an- I Star, and two daughters, Keller and Elizabeth, ller cicnt Pequot wild, and which to-day is almost a ruin. vimngest son and child, Isaac, horn Sept. ,;, ,759, but to the widely sprinkled Warren-tSoutou blood of married Hannah Benedict (see note page 123.) Isaac ,896, the spot is" a family shrine. The title to-day ti,