Address at the Centenary of St. Paul's Church, Norwalk, Conn.

Commodore Cannon died on Thursday, February 17, 1796, aged seventy-one, and is buried in the Cannon vault, in St. Paul’s yard. He was great-grand- father to several of the communicants, in 1886, of St. Paul’s church, Norwalk, and St. Paul’s, Troy, and to the present LeGrand Bouton Cannon, (a pupil formerly of Dr. Sherwood,) of New York. The silver tea service which belonged to him, and which was secreted in the chimney of his house, on East avenue, during its burning, in 1779, has been preserved in part, and pieces of it are held by different descendants; the tea-pourer being the property of Mr. Le Grand Cannon Betts, and the cream pitcher of his cousin, the daughter of Mr. Ch aides Ogilvie Cannon Botts, and a large bowl of Mr. James LeGrand Can- non, of Westport. The Perry family, into which Commodore Cannon married, lived near the “Fairfield Green,” just east of the present Probate Building. The Perrys and Buckleys and Jenningses, old Fairfield and Southport families, were very inti- mate, if not closely related, one hundred and thirty or so years ago. ^Another grandson of the original John Cannon, LeGrand, born in 1733 and buried, in Stratford, in 1789, was the great-grand-parent of Miss Harriet Starr Cannon, at the present time Mother Superior of the Sisterhood of St. Mary, New York. Miss Harriet S. Cannon has been, until recently, the custodian of the Cannon bible. tHis mother, Mrs. “Commodore” (Esther Perry,) Cannon, died in the same house and in the same room also, that her son, Samuel, died in. tCol. Buckingham Lockwood, in 1823-4, purchased this residence of the heirs of Samuel Cannon. §Miss Azubia Hitchcock. 82 notable residents, His Excellency, Clark Bissell, formerly governor of Connecticut.* Thomas Belden was warden for a period of at least twenty -five years, and until liis death in 1806. The next of the family whose names are upon the journal are Isaac and Henry, the sons of John. Isaac, the father-in-law of the Rev. Mr. Somers,! and Lewis O. Wilson, Esq,, filled office, and Henry was vestryman for nineteen years, and a lay delegate at different times to the diocesan conven- tion, and one of the committee appointed, in 1806, to contract for and superintend the building of the new parsonage, and, in 1807, to appear before the General Assembly of the state to petition for redress from the Connecticut Turnpike Company for encroachment upon church territory. The Belden witness would be incomplete without tribute to some of the descendents of the family. John Belden’s oldest child’s name is to be most regardfully pronounced. Mary Esther Belden, afterward Mrs. William St. John, was one of the best of Norwalk women, and her attachment to this parish has probably never been exceeded. She lived, from her marriage, in 1777, until her peaceful death, in 1850, at the age of ninety-seven, under the graceful elms which her husband had planted, and which to-day form the arching frontage of what is known as the Morgan property ; and her chil- dren (William, Stephen Buckingham, Mrs. Bush, and Hooker), were well-known citizens ; while the places of her daughter-in-law, Mrs. William St. John, Jr., and of Mrs. William St.. John Jr.’s three daughters, Mrs. Munson Hoyt, Mrs. Charles Sherry, and Mrs. Francis Skiddy,| of New York, the first person in this place baptised by the revered Kemper, it will be difficult if not impossible ever to fill. These sisters, and their mother and grandmother, were *A site which may fairly he pronounced Academic. Upon these grounds and under the direction of successive rectors of St. Paul’s Church, a number of our older students have, since Thomas Belden’s day, read the compositions of the best masters of the literature of Greece and Rome. tThe Rev. Mr. Somers officiated in St. Mark’s parish, New Canaan, for sev- eral months during 1827-8. JAt the re-opening of the Church, October 26, 1867, (Rev. Dr. Mead’s seventy- third birthday,) after the chancel and other alterations had been made, the silver alms basin, now in use, was presented to the church by Mrs. Sarah L. Skiddy. It may be added that the Gothic Eagle lectern, which, on the first anniversary of the decease of Dr. Mead, July 17, 1880, was dedicated to his memory and placed in front of the chancel, was a contribution, in the depart- ment ecclesiastical, to the World’s Exposition, held in Philadelphia, in 1876, in honor of the completion of the first century of the United States; and also that the font of white marble, which stands to the right of the lectern, was presented to the parish on the second anniversary of the decease of Dr. Mead, by Miss Jane Maria Mead, in memory of her father and mother; while the walnut pulpit, on the east side of the chancel, is a memorial to Theodore E. Smith, vestryman, who lived and died in the apostolic faith which he loved. of lovely character in life, and left very beautiful memories behind them at death. To Henry Belden’s two daughters, the estimable Margaret and Amelia, the St. Paul’s of to-day is debtor. The keynote of their lives sounded clearly out at the close, and their marked devotion and beneficence are a hallowed “In Memoriam. ”* * Another early name is that of Nash. Nathan Nash was one of the first wardens of the parish. Micajah Nash was the grandfather of Dennis and of the Daniel Nash nearest our own day, and himself, The brass chancel rail, of high excellence, which, during the first year of the incumbency of the present rector, was made to take the place of the rail built in 1841, and re-laid, in 1867, was the donation of Mr. Charles E. St. John, in memory of his wife, Mrs. Susan (Sherry) St. John, daughter of Charles and Susan (St. John) Sherry, deceased. Besides these, theie is a Memorial Scholarship Fund, which now amounts to several hundred dollars, and which is named for a communicant of the parish, and beloved teacher in the Sunday school, whose life is not measured so much by the number of years he lived, as by “the good work, well done,” which he fulfilled ; the late Alfred Jackson. * Belding, (now Belden) / s t\v\ ancient New England name. The original Norwalk Beldens were John and Samuel, sons of John, of Wethersfield. The date of their arrival in this place is uncertain, but they were here in 1673. John fought in the Indian War, was made sergeant, and, later, lieutenant, and was a “merchant,” of Norwalk, in 1710. He mariied Kuth, daughter of Samuel Hayes, and sister of the Isaac Hayes, who married Elizabeth Sher- wood, of Fairfield. Neither John nor Samuel Belden seems to have had house lots assigned to them. When the first home lots were laid out they were not upon the spot. John died about 1712-13, leaving two sons, John, Jr. and Samuel, 2d., and a widow who afterwards married John Copp, the town clerk. Samuel, 1st., had landed possessions in different localities, but the inference is that he was unmarried. He left his house, lot, orchard, etc., to his “kinsman and nephew,” Samuel “son of his deceased brother, John,” and in the event of Samuel’s death before reaching “twenty and one” years of age, everything was to go to his other nephew, John. Samuel, 2d., was the future chairman of the first meeting, of which we have record, held in the parish; and his brother, John, who, in 1728, married a daughter of Captain John Hill, of Rhode Island, was the father of THOMAS Beldf.n, who was born, in 1731, and was a bachelor, and justice of the peace, and church warden, and representative for twelve years in the General Assembly; and of Hezekiah, also a bachelor, and parish clerk from 1781 to 1788 ; and of Samuel, who was born in Norwalk, but lived in Wilton, and there aided the church, and married the sister of David Lambert, Jr., (the children of whom were Hezekiah, William, Samuel, and Thomas) and of John, who, married Rebecca, daughter of John Bartlett, and whose children were John, Jr., who was unmarried, and Mary Esther, who married William St. John, Sr., and Isaac, who married Esther Reed and Amos, who married an Isaacs and who removed to Putnam County, New York, and Sarah, who married Samuel Cannon, and Henry, who married a sister of Goold Hoyt. Mrs. Mary Esther (Belden) St. John’s children are referred to in the address, and also the children of Isaac Belden. Amos Belden had eleven children ; (The last one living, Sarah, (Mrs. William Mitchell, now resides, at ninety years of age, in Texas, )and Henry Belden had one son, John, (brother to Mar- garet and Amelia), who died young. Thomas Belden, warden, built the Belden vault, in the church yard. The Norwalk Hayeses were the ancestors of John Lewis, of Washington, D. C., who was a successful Wall street operator, an author and one of the founders of the New York City Free Academy. In 1840 he gave ten thousand dollars to the schools of the town, in Westchester County, which bears his name, and was preparing to build a new St. Paul’s church, Lewisboro, New York, when he was removed by death, on Sunday afternoon, October 1, 1871. t Barber writes that the first English child, born in New England, bore the name of White. The first English child born in Norwalk, bore, it is stated, the name of Nash. Edward Nash settled in Norwalk two years after its purchase. 34