Prominent People of New Milford, Connecticut

Over the past several days I’ve read a few books on the history of various towns in Connecticut. These books contain, along with a host of other information, a number of biographies of the “Prominent People” from the past/present of the town. Using my genealogical skills, I decided to see how many of these individuals shared ancestors with me from colonial Connecticut/New England. The first of these towns was Bristol which I investigated because the book about it was referenced in another book I was reading about “Manitou” (Indian stone structures in New England). The second such town was Wolcott, which is my hometown. This was based on a book by Samuel Orcutt who was the pastor of the congregational church there from 1872-1874. I had also done some similar research on Waterbury, based on an excellent book about its history by Henry Bronson. In the latter I used a list of the “First Families” in the town as my starting point.

Getting back to Orcutt – he got the history and writing bug as a result of his publication on Wolcott. And for the next two decades until his untimely death in 1893 he wrote and published several other similar books based on the town where he was then the pastor. Each of these tomes was 900-1200 pages, leading one to wonder how much time he spent on his “hobby” and how much he then neglected any sermon preparation and meeting with the members of his congregation (who were paying him to for that work and not for his research and writing). BTW – if you are interested in the history of any of these places, I recommend reading these books. But beware, there is a LOT of information in each of them and the hours will fly by as you get caught up in all the details!

In addition to one book on the Indians of the Housatonic and Naugatuck Valleys, Orcutt published books on Torrington, Derby (including surrounding towns like Ansonia), New Milford, and Stratford/Bridgeport. It’s tempting for me to follow in his footsteps and build out ancestral trees for each of the individuals for whom he wrote a biography. But the time required to do so is a bit daunting, even with the modern research tools that are available. However, I’m still considering it as these places each occupy a slightly different area in Western Connecticut and some of them are towns which started at different periods and drew their populations from different places. Torrington is farther NW but began in 1737, the same year as Bristol. Derby is further down the Naugatuck River and dates from 1642. New Milford is in the far western edge of the state and dates from 1703. And Stratford/Bridgeport are down on the SW coast and date from the mid-1600s. I’ve obtained online copies of each of these books, but except as noted in the next paragraph, I’ve only looked at the table of contents to confirm their format.

As much as it was tempting to take these books in the order in which Orcutt wrote them, I finally decided to tackle New Milford first. There were a couple of reasons for this. First, this was an area where I had reasonable expectations of finding distant cousins as my father’s ancestors were from this part of the state (the families in Bristol/Wolcott/Waterbury were mostly from Hartford/Wallingford/New Haven and were my mother’s ancestors). My father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and my great-great-grandfather all lived in New Milford at various times in their lives – the latter two being there during the time that Orcutt was pastoring the church in town. Second, I had already perused this book a few years ago as part of my research on the Indian tribes which occupied this part of the state, so I was familiar with some of the families who lived there.

So, without further ado, here are all the individuals from the biography section of the book. Unlike the ones I had looked at before, there are 3 women in this list. These are not exactly in the order in which they appear in the book as I have done some rearrangement to put family groups together. In a couple of cases I have put someone in the list who was not in the biographies for the purpose of noting the family group. Those individuals are denoted with the symbols ***.

All of these individuals are relatives of mine – three through marriage and the rest through common ancestors. Eight of them are first cousins or closer – the three Boardman brothers, David Ferriss, Roger Sherman, and the members of the Taylor family. Roger Sherman is well known as the only person who signed all four major documents related to the founding of the US – the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution.

 

·         Rev. Charles G. Acly (1811-1880), 2C5X via Josiah Talmadge (1713-1792)

·         *** Richard Baldwin (1622-1665), G10GF

o   Rev. Daniel Baldwin (1786-1860), 3C8X via Richard Baldwin

o   Rev. Norman Bristol Baldwin, (1824-1905), 4C7X via Richard Baldwin

o   Elmer Baldwin (1806-1831), 4C7X via Richard Baldwin

o   Albert N. Baldwin (1811-1891), 4C7X via Richard Baldwin

o   Sally Northrop (1776-1876), 4C7X via Richard Baldwin

·         Rev. Isaac Closson Beach (1802-1873), 4C6X via John Beach (1623-1677)

·         Rev. George Stephen Bennitt (1849-1915), 4C5X via Jeremiah Canfield (1662-1739)

·         *** Daniel Boardman (1687-1744), G7GF

o   Daniel Boardman (1757-1833), 1C7X via Daniel Boardman

o   David Sherman Boardman (1768-1864), 1C7X via Daniel Boardman

o   Elijah Boardman (1760-1823), CT Land Co, 1C7X via Daniel Boardman

o   Judge William Whiting Boardman (1794-1871), 2C6X via Daniel Boardman

o   Cornelia Elizabeth Boardman (1808-1880), dau of Elijah, 2C6X via Daniel Boardman

o   Rev. Nathaniel Sheldon Wheaton DD (1792-1862), president of Trinity, 2C6X via Daniel Boardman

·         Rev. David Bostwick (1721-1763), 3C9X via Francis Bushnell II (1583-1646)

·         Elisha Bostwick (1748-1834), 4C8X via Francis Bushnell II (1583-1646)

·         Epaphras W. Bull, Esq. (1779-1812), 3C7X via Joseph Mygatt (1655-1698)

o   Polly (Wells) Bull (1784-1877), wife of Epaphras W. Bull, 2C6X via Thomas Welles (1690-1750)

·         Heman A. Crane (1809-1879), 6C4X via Martin Kellogg (1595-1671)

·         Rev. Thomas Davies (1736-1766), from Herefordshire England, wife is 6C8X via Robert Bathurst (1513-1577)

·         Rev. Albert Elijah Dunning (1844-1923), 6C4X via John Beach (1623-1677)

·         Daniel Everitt, Esq (1748-1805), 3C7X via Thomas Newell (1611-1689)

·         David Ferriss (1707-1779), 1C8X via Willian Read/Reed (1654-1697)

·         Rev. Stanley Griswold (1763-1815), 2C7X via Joseph Mygatt (1678-1724)

·         Rev. Enoch Huntington (1801-1876), 5C7X via Matthew Allyn (1605-1670)

o   Rev. John Taylor Huntington (1830-1919), 6C6X via Matthew Allyn (1605-1670)

·         George II Noble (1814-1872), 6C4X via Thomas Dibble (1613-1700)

·         Rev. William L Peck (1823-1898), 5C5X via Jeremiah Peck (1623-1699)

·         Noah Porter (1811-1892), 4C6X via Robert Porter (1624-1689)

·         *** Nicholas Ruggles (1524-1617), G12GF

o   Samuel Ruggles (1795-1871), 5C8X via Nicholas Ruggles

o   Samuel Bulkley Ruggles LLD (1799-1881), 6C7X via Nicholas Ruggles

o   Lucia [Ruggles] Holman Tomlinson (1793-1886), 5C8X via Nicholas Ruggles, first American woman to sail around the world

·         Judge David Curtis Sanford (1798-1864), 6C5X via James Wakelee (1594-1690)

·         Rev. James L Scott (1813-1902), from Boston, wife is 3C5X via Isaac Judson (1700-1789)

·         Roger Sherman (1721-1791), 1C8X via Joseph Sherman (1650-1731), champion of concept of Senate to represent smaller states

·         Prof. Nehemiah Strong (1730-1807), 2C9X via John Strong (1605-1699)

·         Rev. Nathaniel Taylor (1722-1800), G6GF

o   Nathaniel William Taylor DD (1786-1858), 1C5X, had negro servants

o   George Taylor, MD (1802-1881), G4Uncle

·         Partridge Thatcher, Esq, (1714-1786), 3C8X via William Deane (1568-1634), large number of negroes, adored Charles I and hated Cromwell

·         Rev. Joseph Treat (1783-1841), 4C7X via Richard Treat (1584-1669)

o   Amos Sherman Treat (1816-), 5C6X via Richard Treat (1584-1669)

·         Rev. Edward Livingston Wells DD (1834-1880), wife is 6C3X via John Hotchkiss (1643-1689)