Supplement to Norwalk, Conn., Volume One: Genealogy

ended his days and gone to sleep in his "stone dwelling" at "the head of the harbor" (site of the rear of the present car house of the Norwalk Street Railway Company), his daughter Mary (Mrs. Stephen) Davis having dwelt nigh his own home. Not greatly distant from Mr. Thacher's house stood the ante-revolutionary "Town House," facing, probably, the harbor. This structure was supplanted, after the town's burn- becca, August 22, 1763; Clemon, October 21, 1765 (Mrs. Benjamin Fillow); Samuel, March, 1768, and Denton21"1, September 21, 1774. Stephen, son of John Gregory31 'd, married, De- cember 2, 1757, Alar}', daughter of John and Eliza- beth Benedict, and had Esther, born July 6, 1758 (Mrs. Darius Olmstead); Aaron, March 18, 1760; Silas, October 7, 1762; Ruth, February 3, 1764 (Airs. John Hoyt, pages 90 and 418); Sarah, Septem- ber 11, 1765; Alolly, August 6, 1767 (Airs. Thaddeus Waterbury); Stephen2nd, June 6, 1769; Aloses, Feb- ruary 22, 1771; Lydia, November 14,1772; Betty, December 11, 1774; Susanna, April 17, 1776 (Mrs. Lewis Grumman, first, and, second, Airs. Allen H. Betts); Olive, February 19, 1778 (Airs. Thorp, first, and, second, Airs. Eliphalet Smith, and afterward Mrs. Joseph Piatt); Nehemiah, March 2, 1780, and Catharine, May 17, 1782 (Airs. Samuel Finch). Esther, oldest child of Stephen and Alary Greg- ory, married September 10, 1775, Darius Olmstead. Air. and Airs. Darius Olmstead lived where thier grandson (Silas Olmstead of 1896) resides in Cran- berry Plain. Their children were Aaron, born Alarch 3,1776; David, February 2, 1779; Silas, December 5, 1780; Alary, January 12, 1783; Esther, June 19, 1785, and Charles, November 6, 1791. Their third son. Silas, was the prosperous Silas Olmstead whose home in Tarrytown, N. Y., was on the banks of the Hudson. Charles, the youngest son of Darius Olm- stead, occupied his father's home site in Cranberry Plain, and is Norwalk represented to-day by his daughters Airs. George and Mrs. Edwin F. Beers (page 345). Aaron, son of Stephen Gregory, was unmartied. His brother Silas lived in Cranberry Plains, where his daughter Betsey (Airs. Chadwick Khmer) atterward resided. Ruth, another daughter of Stephen Gregory, married Hiram Grumman, and her sister married In- crease Thorp of Chestnut Hill. The children of Ruth (Airs. John Hoj t), daugh- ter of Stephen Gregory, were Aaron G. (see page 364), born September 2, 1784, married, Januarv 14, 1809, Hannah Smith Bouton.born December 4, 1792; Esther, May 10. 1787; Betsey, February 8, 1789 ; Salh-, April 25, 1791 ; Susannah, February 7, 1795; Nathaniel, May 1, 1797; Ruth, June 16, 1799; Adelia, July 3, 1802, and Anna, October 18, 1804. Sarah, daughter of Stephen Gregory, married, first, a Porter, and, second, Ezra Pickett of Water- ford, N. Y. There were two Pickett children, Charles and Jane. Jane married a Losse, who was a Sara- toga Springs hotel proprietor. Alary or Polly, daughter of Stephen Gregory (Airs. Thaddeus Waterbury), had several children, one of whom married Budd Finch and had Frank Henry and Henry Frank, the twin Chestnut Hill Finch Brothers of 1895. Another daughter married the worthy David Morehouse Fillow of the North- east (Cranberr}' Plain) district, and had Frank, David A., Burr, and a daughter who married Thad- deus Waterbury, Jr. Stephen, Jr., son of Stephen Gregory, married Chloe Fillow, a sister of Lewis Fillow, who until "very age" occupied his peaceful home on the New- town turnpike in Cranberrj' Plain. Chloe Fillow, (Airs. Stephen Gregory, Jr.) was brought up in her father's home at the " Poplar Plain Four Corners." Her married home was in the rural township of Somers, Westchester County, N. Y. Her daughter was the present Airs. Aaron Aliller, whose romantic hearthstone is on " Canaan Ridge," at the head of the 1898 New Canaan public reservoir of remarkably pure water. Aloses, son of Stephen Gregory, was the father of the wife of the trul}r excellent Captain Alfred Tay- lor of Poplar Plains. Lydia, daughter of Stephen Gregory, married a Fillow of Saratoga County (near Waterford), N.Y., whose son, Gregory Fillow, was proprietor of a liv- ery establishment in Waterford. Lydia Grego^-'s sister, Elizabeth, married Captain Wheaton Wood of Waterford, N. Y., who was a Hudson River Captain. Susannah, sister of Lydia and Elizabeth Gregory, was the grandmother of the present venerated and valued Allen Betts of the Norwalk Timber Steam Sawing Works, and the Senior Warden of St. Paul's Church. Olive, daughter of Stephen Gregory, was thrice married. Her son by her first union, was Increase Thorpe. Her children by her second (Smith) mar- riage were Esther (Airs. Burwell D. Gregory), Betsey (Airs. John W. Bouton), and Priscilla (Airs. Stephen Hoyt, first, and, second, Airs. George Morgan). Airs. Olive Smith had no issue by her last (Piatt) union. Nehemiah, son of Stephen Gregory, married Poll}', daughter of Elvin Hyatt of Wilton, and had Giles Gregory of Chestnut Hill, the father of Giles, Jr., and of Mrs. Robert Green of Norwalk (1895) . The other children of Nehemiah and Polhr Gregory were Stephen and Hyatt Gregory. 468 N O R W A L K. ing, by the predecessor of the present brick building on Town House Hill, opposite to which Captain Thacher also possessed a house-lot. The sea-faring Captain continued active, it would appear, almost to the going out of his life-tide. He left no "log" as the success-register of his ocean going ventures, but the Norwalk town records attest to his land enterprises. Money was seemingly at his command, as well as the mind-ability to wisely invest and employ it. On January 6, 1775, he settled his "stone dwelling house at the great bridge" upon his sons Daniel and Stephen G., which edifice became, in 1785, the property of James Selleck of the family of the first Mrs. William Lockwood. Until advancing age Mr. Thacher held the old Whitney Mill (northwest corner of Main and Wall Streets, 1896). He was its proprietor and the owner, also of "Thacher's mill pond " in the rear. The Whitney-Thacher grain establishment has a history (page 35). The story of such lives as Captain Josiah Thacher and his contemporaries Joseph Hitchcock, Goold Hoyt, John Belden, John Cannon, Joshua King, Peter Quintard, Thaddeus Betts, and the Lockwoods, Marvins, Raymonds, Benedicts, Hanfords, Ketchums and Rogers of his day is instructive. Write, urges a western lady of prominence and a gifted graduate of the Emma Willard Seminary of Troy, N. Y., the history of the Norwalk ladies of the immediate pre and post revolutionary periods. Mrs. Judge Austin Adams, herself of Norwalk blood, is unquestionably correct. There is, quite likely, much in the lives of the John Gregory (Lieutenant), son of Dentonlst and Elizabeth Gregory, married, first, December 8, 1774, Sarah Fairchild, and had Sarah (Mrs. Zecha- riah Whitman Fitch), born July 11, 1775; Hannah, February 6, 1778 ; Jesse, March 14, 1780; Helena, December 22, 1784; Elizabeth, September 1, 1787; Betsey, February 26, 1790; John, April 25, 1792, and Branford, December 31, 1795, who died January 26, 1798. The first Mrs. Lieutenant John Gregory died January 15, 1795-6, and her husband married, second, September 20, 1795-6, Nancy Dickinson, who died September 3, 1798. Lieutenant John Gregory married, third, December 9, 1798 (date copied cor- rectly but there is possibly a mistake), Betsey, born July 3, 1772, daughter of Burwell and Sarah (Bur- well Betts (second wife), and had Antoinette, unmar- ried, and Angeline (second wife of Edmond Tuttle), twins, and George B. and Burwell D. Burwell Betts married, first, November 1, 1740, Thankful Raymond, who died December 3, 1747. Mrs. Stephen Gregory was a cousin of Captain Hezekiah Betts, the Revolutionary soldier. Her grandfather was Captain Thomas Benedict, who was a son of John and Phebe (Gregory) Benedict, which John Benedict was a son of Thomas Benedict the set- tler. Mrs. Gregory's sister Elizabeth married Thomas Hayes of the Hayes family branch, which removed to Vermont and is represented to-day by Mrs. Sophia Sage of San Francisco. Silas Gregory, son of Stephen and Mary Grego- ry, and wife Polly had Julia (Mrs. William Hanford), Silas Burr, born February 13, 1807, and Susan (Mrs. Abraham Sherwood of Bedford, N. Y.). Silas B. Gregory married, first, Ruth Ann Sherwood and had William Burr and Jane Ann. Silas B. Gregory mar- ried, second, Emma Green, who came to this country with her father at six years of age from England. Her father was a jeweler whose Norwalk store was the old Thomas B. Merrill building at "the Bridge." The children of Silas B. and Emma Gregory were Silas W., George, Frederick, Thomas, Jane and Emma. Josiah, son of Denton1 st and Elizabeth Gregorys married, January 23, 1783, Ellen Adams. He owned, largely in Cranberry Plains and built and liberally supported the Methodist Episcopal church in Poplar Plains. His sister Clemon married, June 4, 1785, Benjamin Fillow, and had Lewis, born March 13, 1786; Phebe, March 18, 1788, and James, December 21,1791. Denton Gregory2nd, son of Denton Greg- ory1 st, and Elizabeth, was the father of William Gregory, now of Cranberry Plains. The casual men- tion of Captain Josiah Thacher's Gregory heirship prompts to Thacher-Gregory inquiry. XORWALK. 469 Norwalk women of those days deserving of stud}7, and the same may also be said of their husbands and brothers. Thacher ! "To men of station and of low degree. Thy faith shines forth like beacons o'er the sea." THACHER COAT OF ARMS. The Thacher armorial " argument" is that a Thacher Crusader, laid off the garb of a soldier and put on the vestments of the church. a free translation of the arms— motto runs: " let arms yield to the gown, and let the laurel give way to the tongue; or, the power of eloquence is so a etimes superior to military force." A MODERN NORWALK WEBB GENERATION. Fannie Willard, daughter of Francis and Susannah O. (Scofield) Leonard,1 married. April 12, 1898, Theodore A., Jr., son of Theodore A., Sr., and Emily F. (Childs) Sheffield (page 362).