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

Moses, third son of Nehemiah and Elizabeth Rogers, married Sarah Wool- sey ; and Sarah Woolsey’s mother (Mrs. Benjamin Woolsey) was Esther, daugh- ter of St. Paul’s first warden, Ralph Isaacs. So that the quiet head stone which has for so many years stood in such a peaceful portion of St. Paul’s Church yard, and is lettered Mary (Rumsey) Isaacs, marks the sleeping spot of the grandmother, by marriage, of a member of Trinity Corporation, St. John’s, New Brunswick; and an old time vestryman of Trinity Church, New York; and a director of the old United States Bank ; and great-grandparent of Hon. Samuel Miles Hopkins, of New York City, Albany and Washington, (a descend- ant of whom has now purchased, and is improving, a portion of the old Stam- ford Point House,) and of other prominent members of American society. Mrs. Col. William Paterson VanRensselaer, (Sarah Rogers) daughter-in-law of the “Patroon” Stephen VanRensselaer, whose manor stood on the Hudson, in the city of Albany, is one of her great-grandchildren. It may be recalled that Col. Wm. P. VanRensselaer occupied, several years since, the Wilson home- stead, at Belden’s Point, and more recently a point or island near Greenwich, on the Sound. From Ralph and Mary Isaacs descended the Hon. Ralph I. Ingersoll, United States Minister to Russia, and his son, Ex-Governor Charles R. Ingersoll, of New Haven, who married Virginia, a daughter of Commodore Francis H. Gregory, of the U. S. navy, and formerly of Norwalk. Nehemiah Rogers is buried by the side of his father and mother. The tomb stones of the two parents read thus : __ “Here lyes Buried The Body of JAMES ROGERS, ESQ. Aged 58 years & 5 months Died July ye 13th 1 7 3 3’’ “Here lies the Body of Mrs. FREELOVE ROGERS Relict to Capt. James Rogers Esq’r who died Jan. ‘26th, 1739, in ye 46th year of her age.” It is possible that Mrs. Freelove Rogers was Capt. Rogers’ second wife. Vestryman David Lambert’s sister, Elizabeth, married Peter Lockwood, the great-grandfather of Miss Julia Abigail Lockwood, and her brothers, William B. E., and Colonel F. St. John Lockwood; and Peter and Elizabeth Lockwood were the parents of Lambert Lockwood, of Bridgeport, who married Elizabeth Roe, of New Jersey. Their son was the late Roe Lockwood, the New York publisher, and their grandson is the present George R. Lockwood, who has succeeded to his father. A daughter of Lambert and Elizabeth (Roe) Lockwood married Frederick T. Peet, of the old Pearl street dry goods firm of Bostwick & Peet. Frederick T. Peet was senior warden of St. Ann’s Church, Brooklyn, and Sunday school superintendent, also, under Doctor Cutler’s rectorship. He did not live to see the new St. Ann’s Church completed. His widow still survives, and resides on Columbia Heights, Brooklyn. James Rogers 1st. and Sr., the grandfather of James, buried in Norwalk, was a man of wealth and position in New London, and at the court of the colony. 47 folk, was collector of the rates in Dr. Learning’s time. His father gave with those who gave the most for the church burnt in 1779. He came over in the same ship with the Marvins. He was one of the catalogued Connecticut colonial gentlemen, whom the records designate by the prefix Mr. (Master.) The original Thomas Fitch, of Norwalk, was another of these. There were several such titled ones, in the early days, in this town. There obtains the impression that the Norwalk Rogerses are of the Doctor John Rogers (President of Harvard College, 1682,) affinity. President John Rogers’ father’s name was Nathanael; and if one who has seemingly taken much pains to collect and preserve family facts can be relied upon, he, (Nathanael born in 1598, in England, and who was one hundred and sixty- eight days on his passage to this land,) was great uncle to James Rogers, 3d., who is entombed in Norwalk, which makes President Rogers, and Nehemiah and Elizabeth Fitch Rogers, third cousins. President Rogers’ immediate descendants settled east or north-east of Connecticut. His son John was grandfather of Daniel Dennison Rogers, who, about a century ago, was one of the business men of Boston; and Daniel Dennison’s son, John, who died two years ago, was the father of John Rogers, the sculptor, whose summer residence is in the bordering town of New Canaan. In closing these foot notes to the Fitches and Rogerses the author would affirm that he — and here he ventures to again borrow the words of the able writer of the series of articles entitled, “The Rogers’ Lineage ,” a writer who is the grandson of President Dwight, of Yale College, and a descendant of the first elected warden of St. Paul’s parish — ‘Takes positive pleasu*e in recording these wayside discoveries of genealogical facts, as he kjiows that in other days , many an eye, not thought of now, will carefully traverse and curiously scan f and con over all that they can find preserved of such record s of the past with unmixed delight.” Commodore Francis H. Gregory, alluded to in the preceding note, was grand son of Jabez Gregory, who was assemblyman for several successive years; and son of Captain Moses Gregory, vestryman from 1839 to 1844, and Norwalk delegate to the convention of 1818, which formed the state constitution; and cousin of Hon. Thaddeus Betts, lieutenant-governor of Connecticut and United States senator, and uncle of James G. Gregory, M. D., (1886,) of Norwalk. Gregory, anciently Greggoire, is one of the oldest of Norwalk names. The forefather was John, and by grant, and Indian deed, and purchase, be became possessed of a valuable estate. His home domain was one of the best situated pieces of property in the settlement, embracing the tract, dotted to-day all over with dwellings, which extends from the Thomas Benedict place as far as to East Avenue, and which Is bounded north and south by the highway. He was one of the five heaviest real estate holders, and one of the eigh t heaviest commonage proprietors in the plantation, and was deputy to the general assembly in 1M>2. *The St. Paul’s Hanfords, of former days, were Thomas and Elnathan, and William, and Haines, and Eleazar, and Ories, and Nehemiah, and Samuel, Jr., and Thomas, 2d., and Abraham, and Theophilus, and Ebenezer; and Hannah, and Sarah, (widows.) Thomas and Elnathan, from whom the present Hanfords of the two Norwalk parishes sprang, were the first of the name to appear as members of St. Paul’s and they were good and true sons. The fathers in the past, by their deeds, said : •* Let us in this parish have worthy men,” and the success of the parish during the early and critical stages of its existence was, humanly speaking, achieved by hard work, and conscientious fidelity, on the part of just such children as Thomas and Elnathan Hanford, both of whom challenge our gratitude, and command our respect. A very thorough genealogy of the family has been compiled by one of its members, and should be published at an early date. Thomas Hanford was made first vestryman, at the first meeting, of which there is record, held after the Revolutionary War. The second Thomas Han- ford in Norwalk history, great-uncle, it is probable, of Thomas, of St. Paul’s, was one of the earliest school principals in the town. One of the codes, by which the settlers were governed, contained this clause : “After a town has increased to one hundred families, it shall support a grammar school.” Norwalk started with about twenty families, but, in Principal Hanford’s day, 1692, the number was so large that better educational facilities were demanded. The children were compelled to attend school five full days of the week, and a half-day on Saturday. Sunday schools were not opened until one hundred and twenty-four years later, and a portion of Saturday morning was spent in 48 David Tuttle is credited by work done, and Edward Nash needs only to be named ; Ebenezer Smith was elected hi 1752, and Joseph the religious instruction of the young, who seemed to he happy, and healthy. They were not daintily brought up, but, on the contrary, hardily and indus- triously; still, it was not all work and no play with them, and between “chores” the boys amused themselves in hunting rabbits, catching fish from the mill pond, pitching quoits, and playing ball, and one of the girls’ princi- pal diversions seems to have been “samplar” marking. The old jumping-rock, which stood close to the highway, and the down town boys’ enjoyment of it, generations gone, are traditions to-day. The summerwas devoted to out-door toil, but, as autumn approached, husking parties, and apple parings, and quilting, (or rather tacking) bees, were of common occurrence, as were social evening gatherings, despite Zerrubabel Hoyt’s nine o’clock bell, which rang the young people home; and when winter settled drearily down, the bright reflections at night, across the glistening snow, through the small, old-fashioned seven-by-nine window panes, from open fireplace piled with back logs four feet long, were relieving, and cheering. The little folks’ hour after supper was spent before the blazing hearth, and near the huge chimney jambs, in watching the flames, or in feeding them with the shells of hickory - or butter-nuts, or in sitting around the “stand,” upon which burned one home- manufactured candle, and another stood ready for lighting, in the event of a neighbor’s dropping in. The lads, with quill pens between their fingers, and heads low bent, would be intent upon imitating the master’s copy, and the girls, employed in winding yarn, or possibly knitting, but with eye fixed upon the “English reader,” the leaves being held down by the snuffers. This, or like this, was somewhat of child-life down-town, years long ago. We partic- ularize “Down Town” for the reason that it was the first occupied portion of Norwalk, and has clustering round it, consequently, old, and not altogether uninteresting, local mentions and memories. It was here, near Enos Osborn, Esq.’s, house, that the wealthiest citizen of Norwalk, and one of the most opulent men in Western Connecticut two hun- dred years ago, lived. It was just north of the summit of “Goodman Hoyt’s” (the Hammersley) Hill, that Norwalk’s young student, and first representative at Yale College, resided.