Famous Relations

As I finished up my series on the “prominent people” who were recognized by Samuel Orcutt in his books on Connecticut town history, I realized that only a few of these individuals would have name recognition outside of the state. I constructed over 450 family trees over the course of the past month, but only a handful of them were for people who were significant and whose names people today might recognize. This blog is about the 1% - the ones of significance. There are only four who are part of this group. In addition, there is one other individual who is named in one of Orcutt’s books but for whom a biography was not written. Finally, I’d like to add one other interesting thing that came to light during my research.

 

Well-known names

Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888) is my 2^nd cousin, five time removed. He is from my hometown of Wolcott, CT and is the person for whom the elementary school I went to is named. While he is a recognizable person in his own right, he is probably remembered most as being the father of Louisa May Alcott – the author of Little Women and other books.

Seth Thomas (1785-1859), a contemporary of Amos Bronson Alcott, was also born in Wolcott (or more accurately, in Farmingbury as the town was not incorporated and named Wolcott until 1796). As I recounted in an early blog (see here), Seth is my 3^rd cousin, five times removed. The company he began made clocks for over 200 years – probably millions of them – and many of them are still gracing mantels around the world.

Roger Sherman (1721-1791) is my 1^st cousin, eight times removed. With no formal legal education, he passed the bar and began a long legal career. As a member of both the first and second Continental Congress, he was the only person to sign all four important legal documents that are part of the founding of the United States – the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. He was the primary author of what became known as the Connecticut Compromise which resulted in the bicameral legislature in the US government with the House of Representative having membership proportional to the population of each state but the Senate having membership divided equally among the states.

P. T. (Phineas Taylor) Barnum (1810-1891) is my 3^rd cousin, seven times removed. Born in Bridgeport, he was an American showman, businessman, and politician. While he is most remembered as being the founder of the Barnum & Bailey Circus, he was also an author, publisher, and philanthropist, and he served two terms in the Connecticut legislature as well as mayor of Bridgeport where he started the Bridgeport Hospital. My grandparents lived in Bridgeport and my father was born there and spent the early part of his growing up years there. My mother’s older sister, my aunt Alie, also got her nurses training at the Bridgeport Hospital. Finally, in an earlier blog, I had noted that my great-grandmother, Phoebe Isaacs, owned property in Bridgeport that bordered “in part on the land of Estate of P.T.Barnum”. So there are a number of connections between my ancestors and Barnum.

 

One More

Jonathan Edwards (1701-1758) is my great*7 uncle through his marriage to Sarah Pierpont. Although he does not have a biography in any of Orcutt’s books, he is mentioned in the one on the history of Bridgeport. Edwards is probably the most recognized of the Puritan preachers. I won’t go into much detail here as there are lots of other places where you can read about him.

 

An Interesting Story

As I was building the family tree for one of the prominent individuals from Bridgeport, one of the men I needed to investigate was Ethan Ferris Bishop (1825-1883). But there were a few names in his family tree that caught my eye. First, his paternal grandmother had the surname of Scofield, and second, his wife’s maiden name was Moody. This juxtaposition of two names of prominent individuals in the evangelical history of the US was intriguing – I needed to learn more.

I had already documented in an earlier blog that the famous evangelist, Dwight L. Moody (1837-1889) was my 7^th cousin, twice removed. Further investigation revealed that Cyrus Scofield (1843-1921), author of the Scofield Study Bible, was my 5^th cousin, seven times removed. But was Ethan Bishop also related to both individuals?

While Cyrus Scofield was born in Michigan, his great-grandfather was from Stamford, CT. Thus, he is also a 7^th cousin of Ethan Bishop. Similarly, Moody was born in Massachusetts, but his original immigrant ancestors came from England to Roxbury, MA, in 1633 but relocated to Hartford CT just a few years later. However, Ethan’s wife, Georgianna Moody, is descended from a much later immigrant. I have not been able to trace the two Moody lines back in England with sufficient confidence to determine if they connect. But just the coincidence of the family names coming together in a single place in Bridgeport was too tempting to not want to investigate.