Supplement to Norwalk, Conn., Volume One: Genealogy

xGeorge Selleck wasNorwalk's first confectioner. He amassed a neat sum by his business and built the brick house (now Bishop place) on Wall Street. It was at his house that Rev. William Cooper Mead, D.D., and wife and daughter Jane Maria were enter- tained on the occasion of the visit of the future rector of St. Paul's Church before his acceptance of the call to the same. 2George Thomas Merrill married, January 11, 1898, Phebe, daughter of John Roff of New York City, and had George Kennith, born February 16, 1899, and baptized August 20, 1899. NORWALK 449 T H A C H E R. THE ORIGINAL NORWALK THACHER HOME-SITE (1724.)1 Genius, scholarship and piety conspicuously characterized this Norwalk family name of the eighteenth century's second quarter. " Thacher, 'tis virtue that thy name endears, Virtue that climbs beyond the starry spheres." An A. D. 1678 Massachusetts Indian's Thacher-tribute. The town of Norwalk was nearly seventy-five years of age when a member of the Yarmouth Church was dismissed from his ecclesiastical relations in that Massachusetts set- tlement and made his bow to the fast growing plantation known by the name of Norwalk. This man proved a contribution to the Norwalk progenitors' quality -stock. He came, indeed, after the first founders had passed hence, but the influence of such corporators as are named in the town's original deeds was still felt. New generations were stepping upon the stage, but the old leaven yet worked, and the body was permeated with its beneficent transforma- tion effects. The true glory of the children of Josiah Thacher's day was that their fathers had been right and righteous men, and their Massachusetts adopted citizen-brother was no exception. The story of Captain Josiah Thacher's ancestry is as follows : 1This plate represents the locality fixed upon by Captain Josiah Thacher one hundred and seventy- five years ago for his earliest Norwalk residence. The town had now grown northward from its original plant-place (East Norwalk, 1896) and vacant home- sites in that upper direction were being one by one NORWALK After a voyage of two months less two days there stepped from the ship James, on these western shores, on June 4, 1635, a brother(Anthony)of Rev. Peter Thacher1 of old Sarum, who had for several years been a vicar of the established church of the mother land. occupied. The line of trees to the picture's left, oppo- site, as it is supposed, the first Thacher home-site, were of after growth, and indicate the approach to the property (now Hunter home on East Avenue) later transferred by Captain Thacher to the society of the First Church (Congregational) for parsonage use. Rev. Moses Dickinson, who came to Norwalk somewhat after Captain Thacher's arrival, was con- versant with the area. Dr. Burnet came after Pastor Dickinson's incumbency. Under the leafless branches sorrowfully gathered the people in the earW spring of 1819 on the occasion of the funeral of the Rev. Ros- well R. Swan, while Sylvester Eaton evidently there took solid comfort in his great ease-suggesting chair which was long kept in Norwalk as an Eaton relic. Mr. Eaton was an exceptional^' large man, and as a daughter of Captain Hezekiah Betts (Eliza Susan), who was also very stout, was wont to accompany and introduce him on the occasion of his parochial calls the two, whether walking or riding, constituted a striking Norwalk personal picture. After Mr. Eaton's vacancy, in 1827, of the pas- torate, the once old Thacher surrounding and owner- ship gradually fell into other than parsonage service. Martin Kalbfleisch, a Norwalk chemist and late Brook- lyn, L. I., high official, made the premises for several years a home, since which time Jacob A. VanZandt, who married a Norwalk St. John, has tenanted the property. It is now owned in part by George W. Hunter, and its northern portion by a Norwalk law- yer, E. M. Loekwood, who with his wife, a daughter of the late staunchly solid John Patterson, of sturdy Scotch stock, and a New York City merchant and New Canaan Summer resident, occupy it, having there reared, in 1898-9, an imposing home-seat of Colonial pattern-excellence. No portion of Norwalk has probably been more appearance-affected by mod- ern topographical alterations than this same Thacher adjoining. Immediately south (Bennett home, 1899), stood the "Mansion" of James Brown, the partner of the famous William Smith of New York in the great Oblong land purchases of earh' times. These men owned a vast tract in what was and is to-day known as Salem, one of their Indian bought tracts covering eleven thousand acres. Brown had been married a few years when Captain Thacher planted himself within a short distance of his house, and the Captain probably knew the barrister and future Ob- long o] >era tor well. Smith, the business partner of Brown, was the eminent New York Judge of the Supreme Court and father of the eloquent and opulent Judge "William Smith the Historian." The partnership of Brown and Smith is an exceptionally interesting Norwalk mention (see page 113). Smith was born in 1696, and Brown, it is surmised, not much earlier. Both died the same year (1769). Brown's son, James, who was some four or so years old when Captain Josiah Thacher founded his home within a stone's throw of the Browns, grew to become the important James Brown2'11' of the Oblong, whose sister Mar}' married Samuel, the oldest son of Ralph Isaacs, Sr., of Nor- walk (page 329). Smith's son William, baptized July 7, 1728, attained to legal and professional emi- nence. He married Janet Livingston, was the brother of Joshua H. Smith, who landed Major John Andre on shore near West Point on the Hudson, and brought about Arnold and Andre's interview at his house near Stony Point, and went eventually to the Provinces. This son of the partner of Norwalk's lawyer, James Brown, left New York City "at the peace." He was found in the Provinces where dwelt "Hester (Esther) Burlock with one child." This Mrs. Burlock (see pages 272 and 279) was the DeForest widow of Job Burlock of Wilton, and her child (Sam- uel, born in Wilton in 1770) was the father of Samuel DeForest Burlock referred to on page 280. Job Burlock is said to have been shot dead on his Wilton door step, and his widow marrying, sec- ond, Captain Barker of His Majesty's army in the Provinces, had two beautiful Barker daughters. Mrs. Job Burlock (afterward Mrs. Captain Barker) was the mother, also, of Thomas Burlock, whose city establishment near "the Hook" the Norwalk boats passed on their New York trips, and who was the brother of Mrs. Nathan Bouton, whose daughters became Mrs. Nathan Warren and Mrs.LeGrand Can- non. (See page 272.) Samuel Burlock (page 280), who went at the age of thirteen with his widowed mother from Wil- ton to New Brunswick, married into the Long Island Layton family. This family lived at what is now known as Little Neck, Great Neck and Wheatland. They were, evidently, thrifty people, and have had well known descendants. Among the later of these is the family of David Layton. It is believed that the present residence, on East Avenue, of the Bennett family, contains timber that formed a portion of the old James Brown man- sion frame (page 113), and also that its neighboring- ancient Thacher well is still, quite possibly, in exist- ence. iA line of well known American professional men sprang from this Thacher founder. His son Thomas, bom on May day, 1620, came, a youth of fifteen, to I this country, and here studied for the ministry, hav- ' ing been ordained January 2, 1644. The young man N O R W A L K 45i Rev. Anthony Thacher, a curate in the old world and one of the Plymouth Colony founders in the new, married, second, Elizabeth Jones, and had John, born March 17, 1638-9, in Salem, Mass. John, sonof Rev. Anthony and Elizabeth Thacher, became a man of Colonial renown. He held a noted military position (Colonel), was for a score of years selectman of Yarmouth, and for fifteen years a representative to the General Court of Massachusetts; was Governor's Assistant and a member of the Council of War and of the Provincial Council. This distinguished progenitor married Rebecca, niece of Governor Edward Winslow, and was the father of Josiah Thacherlst, whose son, Josiah2nd (Captain), settled in Norwalk. Captain Josiah Thacher21"1, born at Yarmouth, Mass., July 7, 1701, son of Josiahlst and Mary (Hedge) Thacher, appeared in Norwalk in 1724. From Alexander Ressiquie1 he bought, married Elizabeth, daughter of Rev. Ralph Partridge, first minister of Duxbury, Mass. Rev. Thomas and Elizabeth Thacher had a son Peter, born 1651, who was the first minister of Milton, Mass. This Peter married, 1677, Theodora, born 1659, daughter of Rev. John and Susannah Oxenbridge of Boston. Rev. John Oxenbridge was a son of Dr. Daniel Oxenbridge, whose wife Katheriue Harby was a granddaughter of Lady Katherine Nevill, who was a granddaughter of Baron George Nevill, who was a grandson of Isabel Beauchamp, who was a great granddaughter of King Edward III. Rev. Peter and Theodora Thacher had a son Oxenbridge, born 1680, whose learned son Oxenbridge Thacher, Jr., born 1725, was a member of the Massachusetts General Court. He had a son, Rev. Dr. Peter Thacher, D. D., born March 21, 1752, who was the Brattle Street Boston minis- ter whom Whitfield prayer-denominated "the young Elijah." This eminent man's brother, Thomas, born 1756, was a minister in Dedham, Mass., and a dis- tinguished sermonizer and lecturer. These all and others of like prominence were descendants of Rev. Peter Thacher of England and of kin to Captain Josiah Thacher of Norwalk. ■■Copy of Original Deed to Captain Josiah Thacher. Norwalk Land Records, Vol. V., Folio 285. To all people to whom these presents shall come, Greeting :