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

Hannah, born in 1731, was the first daughter to gladden the parents’ hearts. She bore the name of her New Haven mother, but like the delicate sea-pinks which edged her father’s spray- besprinkled meadows* “ down in the fields,” she bloomed beauti- fully and quickly blanched. She died at the age of fourteen. Maey, sixteen months younger than her sister Hannah, married at the age of eighteen, and was the mother of Thomas Fitch Thatcher, who dwelt, many years ago, on the summit of what the fathers called “ Drye Hill,” the first rise beyond the North Center school house, and which is now (1886), the site of several pictur- esque homes. Timothy, the fourth son, was bred, and lived, and was buried in Norwalk. He was born in 1735, and married Esther Platt, June 8th, 1764. Several of his children removed from Norwalk. Wil- liam married a Hanford, and took up his residence in the West. His children are Judge John Fitch, of Toledo ; Edward, formerly of the New York Custom House ; Mrs. Mary Brian, and Mrs. Ann Daws. The daughters live in different parts of Ohio. Edvmrd married in Norwalk, and went to Troy, New York. He was the father of Mrs. Angenette Hall, of that city, and grandfather of the Hon. Benjamin H. Hall, and his brothers and sister now resid- ing in Troy. Thomas was visited, in 1865, in Ohio, by a relative, and found to be in comfortable health at the age of eighty, cared for by two sons and one daughter. Hannah married Captain Asar Belden,f a member of St. Paul’s Church, who was an officer in the Revolutionary war, holding the commission of Captain of Artillery. He was with Warren, at Bunker Hill ; with Washington, when he *An historian in the eastern part of Connecticut mentions the tradition, “that the Fitches always selected their farms beside rivers.” It is notice- able that the older Norwalk Fitches purchased largely of water-bordered lands. They owned Oyster-Shell Point, Fort Point, Fitch’s Point, Gregory’s Point, and around Cow Pasture Point, almost, if not quite, to the Westport canal. They owned largely of the islands, also, and Mrs. Col. Thomas Fitch’s father made his daughter a present of a good share of Cockenoes island. tSee note page 94. 94 evacuated New York ; and with Wooster, when he fell, a little dis- tance north of Ridgefield street, and he helped to bear the brave leader from the field. The home of Hannah and her husband was about three miles distant, in a northerly direction, from St. Mat- thew’s Church, and the soldier and his partner are buried near the grave of her brother Edward, in the yard down town. There were two sons Timothy ; one died in childhood, and the second was bom in 1769. There were two Nancys, also. Nancy, the first, born in 1775, soon died ; Joseph was born in 1777, and Nancy, 2d. wras born in 1781. She married Thomas Hart Taylor, of Westport. From Charles, born in 1790, and who married Miss Anna Nash, descended Betsey (Mrs. Jacob Scribner, of Wilton), Sally Ann (Mrs. Charles Fox), Timothy B., of Norwalk, (who married Anna E. Stephens, of North Stamford), and William, who was unmarried and died West. And when fails the remembrance of Esther (Mrs Samuel M. Fitch), and of Sally (Mrs. Jabez Raymond), two fond old-time Norwalk memories will have faded. Simplicity of manner, and genuine geniality of nature, and hospitality such as these sis- ters possessed and dispensed, made life a poem. Hezekiah, the Governor’s fifth son, married into a branch of the Fairfield family, which entertained such colonial gentry as General La Fayette, Benjamin Franklin, and Timothy Dwight ; a family which Trumbull visited, and the members of which saluted John Hancock when he was wedded within their residence ; ‘‘the coiffures, sprinkled with diamond dust, the long-waisted gowns, the shimmer of silks and satins, the ribbons, laces and ruffles, the gems that sparkled on wrists and bosoms, the glossy queues, the plum colored coats and velvet small clothes, the white silk stockings, the elaborate ruffles at wrists and throat,” making the occasion a memorable one ; and the same circle, sorrowing with the stricken, when in the same home lay Madame Hancock, tCaptain Asar Belden’s first wife was sister of the late Levi Taylor, of Wil- ton, and their children were William (Yale graduate); Charles and Joseph, hoth of whom died young; Lewis and Benjamin, physicians in New York City; Daniel, a resident of Brockport, N. Y. ; and Annie, who married Noah, father of the late lamented Samuel E. Olmstead, of St. Paul’s vestry. The children by his second wife (Hannah Fitch) were George F, and Platt Belden. Platt removed to the state of New York. The children of George F. were, the late George F., Jr., (who married Louisa Cornwall), and Mr. Henry H. Belden of Westport. Captain Asar Belden was brother of the Rev. David Belden, a former presbyter of the church who officiated in Wilton. At a parish meet- ing held in November, 1796, steps were taken to secure the Rev. Mr. Belden’s services for St. Paul’s, until Dr. Wm. Smith’s arrival. Rev. David Belden’s sons were, John A. (father of Nathan M. Belden, now of the Connecticut Leg- islature, and a resident of Wilton) and David H. Belden, of Newtown, whose sons Reuben and Howard, are at present engaged in an extensive business in this country and Australia. John Arms, and David H. Belden had several sis- ters: one of whom is Mrs. Tweedy, of Danbury. 95 shrouded for burial. One of the later descendants of the family became the wife of the late Morris Ketchum. Elizajbeth Fitch, who was born in 1738, and who married Andrew Rowland, of Fairfield, was the brave woman who, in 1779, when the shot was flying thick and Fairfield was oil fire, remained alone in her dwelling, and facing the foe, asked for pro- tection. This heroine, brought up under the now spreading elm, on East avenue, which her father planted, and who has been pro- nounced “an accomplished lady,” calmly sleeps in her husband’s town, and a stone in the yard hard by Fairfield’s charming street, informs the stranger that — ELIZABETH ROWLAND, The widow of Andrew Rowland, Esq., and daughter of the late Governor Fitch, of this State, died March 29th, 1825, in her 87th year. The founder of her husband’s family came to Fairfield in 1669. Andrew Rowland was of the third generation from Henry the settler. He died twenty-three years before his wife, and one item, which he by will bequeathed, was an “estate lying south of Lake Erie, and conveyed by grant, by the General Assembly, to me and others, of one-half million acres of land.” The fine Rowland residence, which is to-day such an ornament to the Fair- field street, is the home of one of Andrew and Elizabeth Row- land’s descendants. The Governor’s youngest daughter, Esther, lived only twenty - nine summers. She was unmarried, and her dust, with that of Giles, who was taken away at two years of age, is garnered close by that of her celebrated parent and brother in the highly -to-be venerated burial ground, down town, a ground which will always, it is to be hoped, be respectably and respectfully protected and preserved by the authorities of this ancient town. This memorandum is confined to the descent in this country, and more especially in this part of the country, of the family for remarks pertaining to which these last leaves of the appendix are reserved. That there are those who claim for the Fitch fathers abroad, baronial connection and the dignities of knighthood, is no secret, but investigation as to such particulars would be foreign to the design of these pages. There are recitals, of interest to many, perhaps, who have been referred to in the previous lines, which 96 would be entirely legitimate in a work of less restricted scope. The author’s departure, in this addendum, from the plan of the work, a plan which has for its object the perpetuation of parish memories, is because of the pride which, as a citizen of Norwalk, he has felt in this matter. One, quoted before, thus moralizes over the ina- bility to obtain, in one of its birth places, and that one this town, reliable information concerning this same family: “Sic transit gloria mundi: so soon pass out of human sight all traces of family greatness, in the very places where those who bore its honors highest carved their names the deepest.” It may be, it is, un- doubtedly, often so, but in this instance not altogether so, happily. At all events, the writer asks that credit be given his native town for the preservation of at least a few of the links in the pedigree-chain of that family, the Norwalk head of which (Thomas Fitch, Sr.,) was the great-grandparent of one of the most eminent executives of the company and colony of Connecticut, and the grand-uncle of one (Major James Fitch) who contributed the glass and furnished the nails for the only building which con- stituted the original Yale College, and the great granduncle of John Fitch, the inventor of the first steamboat. He is indebted to the Hon. John Fitch, of New York, for the interest which he has manifested, and for the confirmation from his pen as to the rank, and fame, and fortune to which many of the Fitch descent have attained. The family is one of the largest in the United States, and numbers among its members citizens of high repute, and from remote sections; Hon. Graham N. Fitch, M. D., of Indiana; Con- gressman Thomas Fitch, of Nevada; Lieutenant General Jabez, and Judge John Fitch, of Ohio; Lieutenant Colonel Fitch, of California; President Fitch, of Williams College; Judge Fitz- Gaines, and Drs. S. S. and Almeron Fitch, of New York; Colonel Asa Fitch, of Connecticut; Mayor William Fitch, of New Haven; the Fitches, of Fitchville; and the Norwich and the Willimantic Fitches. And it is not only one of the largest, it is one of the oldest families in the country, and the respective genealogies of its different branches, which some of the name may possibly be disposed to attempt, would be a work of peculiar interest, and, in some sense, of national importance.