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

Jacob Osborn, who is alluded to in notes on pages sixty-one and sixty-two, was the fourth member of the Osborn name ever attached to St. Paul’s parish. Osborn is an early American, but not an early Norwalk name. Richard Osborn, the settler, was a Londoner, and went first to the Barbadoes. He was twenty-two years old when he left Europe, and he reached the West Indies during the win- ter of 1633-4. Himself and several fellow emigrants seemed disappointed in their sovereign’s island possessions, and during the next twelve months, at least three of the “Hopewell’s” passengers embarked for New England. These three (Richard Osborn was one), proceeding directly to Massachusetts, went to the “Hingham settlement” in that colony. From Hingham, Mr. Osborn removed to New Haven, where he lived for some fourteen or fifteen years. He had two sons, John and David. John remained in Fairfield, and died there, in 1709. David crossed the state line and established himself below what is now called Pelhamville, in Lower Westchester County. He married Abigail, daughter of Phillip Pinckney, of East Chester. One author states that he died in East Chester; another historian avers that after his marriage he claimed “that he belonged to the Connecticut jurisdiction, and removed there”; (to Ridgefield). In either case he died young. He left a son, 120 named for his grandfather, who, the parent of Peter Parley states, lived to be over one hundred years of age. This son, Richard, 2d., removed from Westchester County, to the vicinity of Ridgefield, and was the ancestor of Jacob Osborn, the clerk of St. Paul’s par- ish, and town clerk of Norwalk, and master of St. John’s Masonic Lodge. From the first Richard Osborn’s son John, Mr. John Osborn, who now resides with his son, Arthur, on West Avenue, traces his family line. Although Richard Osborn, Sr., came from London to America, yet the Osborn, or Osburn (Christopher Osborn) home abroad was in Duxbury. The town of Fairfield granted Richard Osborn, Sr. , eighty acres of land as a testimony of its appreciation of the public service he had rendered. There is a fact, which may be mentioned, concerning another name in foot note, page sixty-one. From the Samuel Wilson there referred to, the United States received the name of “Uncle Sam.” During the war of 1812, Mr. Wilson (see New England genealogical register) had extensive contracts with the government for the sup- ply of its army with salted food. He was formerly known as “Uncle Sam Wilson,” and the brand or mark by which the packages from his establishment were designated was U. S. (Uncle Sam). The term become a familiar one throughout the army, and was soon applied to the country itself. Mr. Wilson died in Troy, July 31st., 1854, aged eighty-eight. Note one, page sixty-four, calls for an explanation. Jennings, Redfield, Dimon, and Marquand are old Fairfield names. This town (Fairfield) was, so to speak, the capital of the county, and many of its founders were prominent colonists. Jacob Jennings’ sister-in-law (evidently), the widow of Dr. Seth Jennings, married John Redfield. John Redfield was son of James Redfield, who was son of forefather William Redfield, of Boston or its vicinity. The genealogy of the Redfields (see History of Fairfield County) was the first genealogy “compiled in this country.” Henry Marquand, who came to America from one of the English Channel islands, married the again (thus it appears) widowed sister-in-law of Jacob Jennings. Henry Marquand died, in 1772, and left but one son, Isaac. This son was the New York city jeweller, who, it is asserted, spent a portion of his early life in Norwalk with his uncle (by connection) Jacob J ennings. Isaac Marquand married a Perry of the same Fairfield family that Commodore Cannon married into, 121 and that Dr. Samuel Perry, of Norwalk sprang from. (Richard Perry was tlie founder; Nathaniel was Richard Perry’s son, and Joseph was the son of Nathaniel. Joseph [grandson of Richard] was the ancestor of the Norwalk and Ridgefield Perrys, and, on the mother’s side, of the Norwalk and Troy Cannons). Isaac and Mabel (Perry) Marquand were the parents of Henry and Frederick Marquand, one of whom has erected the Yale chapel which bears the family name. The Dimon family into which Goold Hoyt married, was another Fairfield family of worth, and between it, also and the Perry family there was intermarriage. At the close of the Isaacs paragraph, on page eighty-six, it is incorrectly intimated that Grace, the last daughter of Ralph Isaacs, Sr., was foremother of the New Haven Ingersolls. The correct statement would be (see erratta) that Grace, the daughter of Ralph Isaacs, Jr., was the Ingersoll ancestress. The youngest son of Ralph Isaacs, Sr., “merchant or trader” of Norwalk, and head of the warden-line of St. Paul’s parish, took his father’s name, and to him was bequeathed, after the parent’s occupancy of it, the home establishment. This son inherited the Isaacs South Norwalk prop- erty, also, which latter was afterward transferred to the wife of Dr. Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College from 1795 to 1817. This lady was a granddaughter of Ralph Isaacs, Sr. Mr. Isaacs’ second daughter, Esther, married Benjamin Woolsey, of Long Island; and Benjamin and Esther Woolsey had two daughters. One of these daughters, Mary, married Dr. Dwight, and the other, Sarah, married Moses Rogers. Dr. Dwight and Moses Rogers, therefore, were brothers-in-law. Their families became separated during the Revolutionary War, the former having removed to the provinces, and the latter residing in the cultivated and charming home (now the residence of Frederick Bronson, Esq. ) on Greenfield Hill. Both Mary and Sarah Woolsey were remembered by legacies of equal amounts in their grandfather’s will. Mr. Isaacs made generous and judicious bequests. To his widow he left a handsome amount in cash, and the income from an equal amount. Grace, the youngest child, and yet in her teens, was the recipient of several thousands, also. Benjamin and Ralph, Jr. were constituted executors of the estate, and made residuary legatees. The former, the distinguished free mason, died not long thereafter and, was fr 122 buried in St. Paul’s yard, and tlie latter removed to New Haven County. He named liis two daughters after, it is probable, his mother, Mary, and his sister, Grace. Grace (daughter of Ealph, Jr.,) married Jonathan Ingersoll, father of the New Haven Inger- solls, and it is possible that her sister, Mary, may have been the Mary Isaacs who married Timothy Jerome, not of the Jerome family of the state of New York, one of the members of which married into the old Reed family of Norwalk, but of that family which is represented by Thomas Spencer Jerome, Esq., now of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Benjamin Rumsey, of Fairfield, the father-in-law of Ralph Isaacs, Sr., bad a son, Joseph, and, it would appear, a son Benja- min, also. His daughter, Mary, Mrs. Ralph Isaacs, Sr. , who rests in the church yard, was great-great-grandmother of the present president of Yale College, Timothy Dwight. D.D., LL.T)., grand- son of Yale’s first president of the same name. The Norwalk Isaacs descendants are under the impression that there were two distinct families of settlers of that name in this land, and they are unquestionably correct in this particular. J oseph Isaacs, the first settler, appeared here as early as 1636. He died May 11th, 1612, leaving, Elizabeth a widow. She afterward mar- ried Nicholas Davis. There was a passenger to America, in 1634, in one of the Ipswich ships, by the name of Rebecca Isaacs. She was thirty-four years of age, and is supposed to have been sister of the first Joseph. There was also a Thomas Isaacs, a merchant in Boston, in 1672. A genealogist of the past writes thus: There is a “family of this name (Isaacs) at Norwalk, honorary in several generations, but it is believed their pedigree on this side of the ocean must not be found before the eighteenth century. ” There was an Isaac Isaacs who graduated at Yale, in 1750, and a Ralph, in 1761, and a Benjamin, in 1781, and a Ralph, in 1784. The first two were, possibly, Ralph, Sr’s. , sons, and the last two, his grand- sons. Mrs. Samuel Isaacs (Mary Brown) mentioned on page eighty-seven, was granddaughter of John Ruscoe. The history of the Ruscoes, to which attention seems now to be directed, is one of interest. James Brown, the settler, married John Ruscoe’s daughter. Lieutenant William Lees married another daughter (Mahetabel). John Abbott married Ruth Ruscoe, and Sarah married a Ridgefield Rockwell. Rebecca Ruscoe died early, and Mary was probably unmarried. James Brown, 2d., and his brothers, Isaac, Elisha and John, were heirs, with the afore-mentioned, of the Ruscoe estate. Janies Brown, 2d., the attorney, married a New Jersey lady, and his daughter Mary was the Mrs. Samuel Isaacs who, with her brother James, has been several times referred to in this work. Ralph Isaacs, Sr., purchased, April 18th, 1757, James Brown’s north-west portion of the Isaacs property, and so became owner of the broad acres near “the great bridge,” and which extended from the present Water street to West avenue. In Hoyt paragraph, page eighty-eight, occurs the correctly quoted expression, “neare the backside of Norwalke.” It is very possible, however, that the reading of the same should be, near the “Bankside, etc.” There was, as early as 1658, “a place be- tween Fairfield towne and Norwalk,” called Bankside. Simon Hoyt, the settler, lived, before he came to this county, at or near Windsor, Connecticut. His mother (grandmother of Wal- ter, the first Norwalk Hoyt), was familiarly known in Windsor as “old Goody Hoyt.” She died in 1648.