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

The centenary of Governor Fitch’s death (July 18th, 1874) was made the occasion (an entirely private one,) of the reading, to his comrades, of an historical paper, by the late Albert Burr Wright, of Princeton College, New Jersey; and after the beating of “Retreat” at the tomb, at close of day, the wreath of white, which hacl since morning encircled the inscription upon the tablet, was sent to a great-granddaughter of the governor, one of his oldest and nearest Norwalk family survivors, the late Miss Mary Esther Raymond, who was attended in her last sickness, in 1881, and buried after her decease, by the rector of St. Paul’s. By the will of Governor Fitch, made March 8th, 1774, his wife was to have the use of the house, lot and buildings during her life. Her oldest son, Colonel Thomas, Jr., seems to have had the care of his widowed mother and occupied the house (his own homestead bequeathed to him by his father was what is now the Hendricks property) until his death, which occurred eight days before that of his wife, in the winter of 1795. It ought to be remembered that while Governor Fitch’s house was burned by the British, yet that a portion of the building was saved, and that this possibly was re-built and re-occupied. After the parents’ removal by death, Thomas Fitch (Colonel Thomas’ son), disposed of the property to Samuel M. Fitch, who married the governor’s grand- daughter, Esther, (second cousin to her husband; Esther’s father was Timothy, son of the governor; Samuel’s father was Daniel, a nephew of the governor.) Samuel and Esther Fitch took posses- sion of their new home on the very evening of their marriage, and immediately after the ceremony in the bride’s father’s house, which stood opposite to the present residence of Mr. Jabez Fitch Raymond. Here the two passed their wedded lives, brought up children and grandchildren, and finally died, the wife at the age of seventy -four, and the husband at the age of eighty -seven. The title to the property now lies with their granddaughter, Mrs. Elizabeth (Fitch) Bowen, of Montreal, Canada. Josiah Hanford Fitch (son of Jonathan, who was son of Samuel, the brother of Governor Fitch) was father of the late Mrs. Samuel Daskam, a much beloved communicant of St. Paul’s church, and of her brothers, Lewis and Horace Fitch, of New Haven, the for- mer being the father of the Rev. William Fitch, of Brooklyn, Long Island, and theTatter having for many years been an officer in St. Thomas parish, (Rev. Dr. E. E. Beardsley, rector,) New Haven. This same Josiah Hanford Fitch went to the Norwalk forests, on the last day of April, 1816, and, after selecting several healthy maples, planted them along East avenue, and they became the towering trees which stand before the residence of Winfield S. Moody, Esq. Josiali’s father was a Yale graduate, and his mother was a Miss Deborah Hanford, aunt of the late Joseph P. Hanford, selectman for a number of terms of Norwalk, and who was the father of the late Winfield Scott Hanford, church warden. Daniel Fitch, another son of Samuel, and brother of Eliza- beth (Mrs. Nehemiah Rogers), and nephew of the governor, wap grandfather of Mrs. James Mallory and Mrs. Stephen Ray- mond. Their father, Jonathan Fitch, (son of Daniel,) married Sarah, daughter of James Cannon, and sister of Esther, (Mrs. William St. John), and Amelia (Mrs. Garrett Harson Newkirk,) and Mary (Mrs. George Lockwood.) Jonathan Fitch had two brothers, viz., Samuel M., and Henry. The three brothers dwelt near each other, in houses which are now standing, and in each of which, three generations of each family have resided. Daniel, their father, died several years before the death of Rebecca, their mother. James Fitch, the remaining brother of Governor Thomas and Samuel, married Mary, the widow of Jedediah Buckingham. The Buckinghams, it would appear, were from Saybrook; but Mrs. Jedediah Buckingham, was Mary, daughter of William Haynes, of Norwalk. James, son of James, married, in 1746, Ann Hanford, and had five children. Mrs. Ann H. Fitch died in 1768, and Mr. Fitch married for his second wife Esther Marvin. James, son of James, 2d., by his first wife, married Esther Camp. Ann Han- ford was the daughter of Elnathan Hanford, and Esther Camp was the late Jonathan Camp’s aunt. So that the Fitch-Hanford connection is through two, and the Fitch-Camp connection through one of Governor Fitch’s brothers. Mr. Harvey Fitch, of St. Paul’s, (1886) is a descendant of a grandson of Samuel, the brother of Thomas (Governor) Fitch. A granddaughter of Governor Fitch married Stephen St. John, of Norwalk, nephew of one of Governor Jonathan Trumbull’s brother’s closest friends. This intimate of the talented Dr. John Trumbull was a young member, (Mr. Buckingham St John) of much promise, of one of the families of Norwalk, and a tutor, in 1770, in Yale College. He was lost on Long Island Sound, during his passage between New Haven and Norwalk, and Dr. Trumbull’s tribute to his memory begins thus: The world now yields to nights returning sway, The deeper gloom leads on the solemn hour, And calls my steps, beneath the moon’s pale ray, To roam in sadness on the sea-beat shore. * * * * * * * * * * The “ elegy” thus continues : “ The faithless morning on our opening sails Smiled out serene, and smoothed our gliding way, While the gay vessel fanned, by breathing gales, Play’d on the placid bosom of the sea. When lo, descending on the darkening wind, Burst the dire storm — and feeble to sustain The rushing blasts in warring fury joined, The frail skiff sinks beneath the surging main. And see, afar the oarless boat conveys The rescued sailors to the distant shore : Alone, of aid bereft, with one last gaze, I sunk in deeps, and sunk to rise no more. * ** ******* Ah, what availed that energy of mind, The heights of science and of arts t’ explore, That early led, where genius unconfined Spreads her glad feast and opes her classic store. Ah, what availed, in earthly bliss so frail, The fame gay -dawning on thy rising years ! Ah, what avail’d — for what could then avail ? Th^ friends’ deep sorrow or thy country’s tears ; ** **** **** Adieu, my friend ! so dear in vain, adieu, Till some short days their fleeting courses roll ; Soon shall our steps thine earlier fate pursue, Moved in the race and crowding to the goal. ********** Then, joined in bliss, as once in friendship joined, May pitying heaven our purer spirits raise, Each crime atoned, each virtue well refined, To pass a blest eternity of praise.” Mr. Stephen St. John belonged to a Norwalk family of past and present repute. He was a business man of the town, and his life- day was a protraated one. He died suddenly, upon the grounds of his brother-in-law, Isaac Scudder Isaacs. Mrs. St. John was sister (so it is supposed), of Captain Hall Fitcli, a resident of Norwalk, and later of Troy, New York, and aunt to Mrs. Albert P. Heartt, of the Philip Heartt family of the latter city.* Mrs. Angenatte Hall (daughter of Edward, grandson of Governor Fitch, of Norwalk, and wife of Daniel Hall, of Troy), was second cousin of Mrs. St. John. Mr. and Mrs. St. John had two daugh- ters, Henrietta and Julia Ann. Henrietta married and removed to Troy. Julia Ann was the first Mrs. Horace Gibbs, of Norwalk. John Cannon, Jr., of St. Paul’s, married Sarah, (sister of Stephen) St. John, who was the mother of Antoinette (Mrs. Senator Betts) and her sisters Sarah, Harriett and Esther Mary, and their *This city, seated advantageously at the head of navigation on the Hudson, attracted, at the close of the past, and during the first quarter of the present century, a number of emigrants from Norwalk. These were an element of strength in the new city, and contributed, in no small measure, to its wax- ing prosperity. Bouton, Cannon, Craft, Kellogg, and Warren have been, and are names of influence and of dignity in Troy. Those who left Norwalk were kinsfolk, and, previous to their departure, were attached to St. Paul’s. The parents (Esaias and Phebe Bouton) of several of them were of deserved repu- tation in their native parish. The father’s (Esaias Bouton) descent is alluded to in a note on page forty, and his wife, who was from Massachusetts, was a descendant of one of the New England governors, (Hopkins), and bore the name (so the Norwalk relatives contended) of the governor’s daughter, Phebe. This daughter married into a Massachusetts Bay family, one branch of which chose Norwalk for its home. Among the children of this branch was Phebe (Mrs. Esaias Bouton). They made large purchases of land in Norwalk. Moses Byxbee, one of the number, and a member of St. Paul’s, invested to the amount of several thousand dollars in one plot. The original home was near the summit of Flax Hill, and perhaps no better fruit was ever grown in the county than that which grew in the orchards which belonged to this home. Esaias Bouton, a not remote neighbor, married Phebe, a daughter. Eliakim Warren from the same vicinity, married their (Esaias and Phebe Bouton’s) daughter. These were the two (Eliakim and Phebe Warren), who were the parents of the Warren family of Troy. The husband (St. Paul’s vestryman who has before been alluded to) was the first church warden in Troy, and his excellent wife took a deep interest in church matters, and was unremitting in efforts to insure the success of the earliest parish planted in the thriving city of their adoption.