Robert Stuart of Norwalk, Connecticut

 

Norwalk (Conn.) – by Charles Melbourne Selleck, 1896

 

Page 321

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Home-Lot XXI. Samuel Hale, Robert Stuart

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       Robert Stuart, the second occupant of home-lot xxi, made the purchase on March 8, 1660. The lot was in the rear of the East Avenue Chichester property of 1896. Mr. Stuart may have made the purchase as anticipatory of his marriage, June 12, 1661, to Bethia, daughter of Thomas and Rose (Sherwood) Rumble of Stratford. Mrs. Stuart’s father, Thomas Rumble, was born in 1613, and came in 1635 to Boston. The year after Thomas Rumble landed, a small craft of 25 tons brought the brave Lyon Gardiner, and his wife Mary, to these shores. These two worthies were the founders of the well-known “Gardiner’s Island,” in the eastern part of Long Island Sound. Lyon Gardiner reached Saybrook Nov. 28, 1635, and the next season built the Saybrook Fort. At this time Thomas Rumble put himself under Mr. Gardiner’s command, and fought against the Pequots. The first white child born (Apr. 29, 1636) in Connecticut, David, son of Lyon and Mary Gardiner, was the offspring of Rumble’s leader, the birth of which lad the soldier, Rumble, for thirteen years survived.

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       Four years after his death, his widow, Rose, married Thomas Barlow of Fairfield. Mrs Barlow survived her second husband, and married, third, Edward Nash, the founder of the Nash family of Norwalk. Her daughter Bethia had wedded Robert Stuart, and the two good people lived on the home-lot under description (xxi). To the south of their domain stretched a tract east of the highway (rear of the present Oscar W. Raymond and other properties) which may originally have possible been intended for Mr. Ludlow’s sons, but which fell to Richard Bushnell’s ownership. Mr. Bushnell was a non-resident of Norwalk, probably, but as he had married Maria, daughter of Matthew Marvin, Sr., he was Norwalk-connected.

On May 30, 1663, Robert Stuart bought from Thos. Adgate of Norwich (who had married the widow of Richard Bushnell and was administrator of the Bushnell estate) a portion of this fine piece, and on Oct. 22, 1674, he purchased still more of it. Mr. Stuart also owned a large slice of the property in the “Ely Neck”, later “Belden Neck” vicinity. “Stuart’s Meadow” was his belonging as well as “Stuart’s Landing.” The latter was quite a shipping pier or place, near what was afterward known as the “Village,” (between the South Norwalk and Wilson Point of 1896). Robert Stuart made his thus endorsed will, “They that are in the Lord are happy indeed,” on March 12, 1679, and died in 1688, leaving issue as follows:

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1. James, born March 19, 1662-3

2. Abigail, born middle Aug. 1666 (Mrs. Richard Corsair)

3. John, born March 18, 1668-9

4. Deborah, born May 1669

5. Elizabeth, born Sept. 1671

6. Phoebe, born Feb. 1673

7. Sarah, born 1675

8. Samuel, born May, 1677

9. Rachel, born 1685 (Married David, son of John Raymond)

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       The children of James and Experience Stuart were James 2nd, Robert, Hannah (married John Taylor), Deborah (married Apr 14, 1726, James Pickett), Mary (married John Morehouse of Fairfield), and Emma (who married, March 4, 1723-4, John Paret of Fairfield). The family seat was where now resides, on East Avenue, the widow of the late Wm. G. Thomas. This piece of property (some two or so acres) was on Feb. 20, 1667, granted by the town “Proprietors” to James Beebe of Stratford. Soon after James Stuart became of age, he bought (1685) Mr. Beebe out, and the latter removed to Danbury. Mr. Stuart held the acres intact until Dec. 1, 1726, when he deeded one-half acre to the town as a site for a third Meeting House, he receiving for the new ecclesiastical locality three and one-half “Ely Neck” acres. The choice of this lot for the third church was made by a disinterested committee (James Wadsworth, John Hall and Samuel Clark) appointed by the Connecticut General Assembly. The old church (second edifice) stood on the Earle’s Hill of 1896, but the settlement was stretching northward, and convenience compelled the sanctuary’s removal. The structure here reared (Thomas place of 1896) was the same that was burned by the British in 1779. After the town’s conflagration, the fourth Meeting House was built at the south end of “The Green” opposite, or nearly so, of the present First Congregational Church. Subsequently to Mr. Stuart’s disposal of his land to the Church Society he left Norwalk and made a home in Kent, Litchfield County, Connecticut.

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       John Stuart, brother of James, had John 2nd, Silas, Reuben, Benjamin, Ezra, Abigail (married Jan. 20, 1746, Samuel Fountain), Jemima and Sarah. He was a town surveyor. On Christmas day, 1723, he sold ten acres of East Avenue (1896) property to Robert Smith, founder of the Smith branches (Fountain, Hutton and John L.) of the Smith family, and afterward removed to Wilton, of which place he was one of the settlers.

Samuel Stuart, brother of James and John, married Hannah, daughter of Thomas Bennet of Fairfield. His children were: Samuel 2nd, John, Simeon, Nathan, Ruth (married Jonathan Atherton) and Dorothy, who on Aug. 18, 1742-3, married Daniel Burchard of Cortland Manor.

The three sons of Robert and Bethia Stuart, viz James, John, and Samuel, have many name-descendants today, and the sons and daughters of the old Stuart proprietor of home-lot xxi have widely diffused his blood.

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        (Footnote, p. 322) The children of Richard and Abigail (Stuart) Corsair were: John, born 1693; Abigail (married a Watson); Hezekiah, born July 3, 1708; Josiah, born March 1, 1710 (removed to Milford); and Thoas, born 1711.

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       Deborah, daughter of Ensign James and Experience Stuart, married April 14, 1726, James 2nd, son of James and Rebecca (Keeler) Pickett, and grandson of John and Margaret Pickett the settlers. The son John, born Sept. 6, 1737, of James and Deborah (Stuart) Pickett, married Mercy Platt, and had a son John, who married Mary Bates, which John and Mary (Bates) Pickett were the parents of Clarissa Pickett, born March 28, 1799, who married the late Joseph Platt Wood of East Avenue, Norwalk, who was the father of the energetic Noah Wood, now of said avenue, and who, in 1896, owns and occupies the house of the late Edwin Hall, D.D., in the second story south east front room of which was compiled “Hall’s Norwalk,” and written “Hall’s Infant Baptism,” and later in the author’s Norwalk life, “Hall’s Puritans and their Principles.”

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       (Footnote, p. 323) Samuel and Hannah Stuart had a son, Simeon, who married Nov. 15, 1739, Abigail Smith, who had Simeon 2nd, who seemed to marry Mary or Maria, daughter of David Whelpley, and to have had Olive, born May 28, 1760, who married Samuel 3rd, son of Samuel 2nd and Elizabeth (Platt) Fitch, who were the parents of Elizabeth (Platt) Fitch of Wilton.

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       The Stuart family has widely scattered representatives today. Nathaniel, son of Nathan Stuart, was baptized Oct. 15, 1755, and married Mary, daughter of Isaac, son of Joseph and grandson of Ephraim Lockwood the settler. Nathaniel and Mary Stuart removed to Vermont. Nathaniel’s younger brother, Nathan, born 1747, and almost, if not the only Stuart-named occupant of St. Matthew’s cemetery, Wilton, has a somewhat pathetic history. The little fellow was home-gathered just as the sun was setting on the evening of July 20, 1761, when a bolt descended from a thunder-cloud, and, as was the case with Blackleach Jessup of the same parish, was instantly killed.

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       On June 21, 1778, William Scott of the Flat Rock (Ridgefield) district family, married Susannah Stuart. The Scott’s seem to have arrived at the Wilton-Ridgefield borders from the more southern portion of the country. They are represented today in Ridgefield and Norwalk. It was near their “Flat Rock” possessions that Tryon’s men slept on the April 1777 night after the burning of Danbury, and at the time of the Ridgefield skirmish.

The branches of the old Quintard family which is today represented by the investigating C.A. Quintard of Main Street, derived its Stuart-Pickett blood from Deborah, daughter of Ensign James Stuart, who married James, son of James Pickett. Ezra Pickett, born on July 12, 1740, son of James and Deborah Pickett, and who, on March 30, 1761, married Elizabeth Benedict was the father of Elizabeth Pickett who married Isaac, father of the late Evert Quintard, one of Norwalk’s venerable and much regarded citizens.

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Of Robert Stuart Descent

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       The good fore-parents, Robert and Bethia Stuart, had recently bought their home-site (near the 1896 Edmund Smith house, just East of Earle’s Hill) when their first born, James Stuart, came to gladden the home in the spring of 1662-3. The young James, in due time, became a father, and having settled about a half-mile north of his parents (Thomas East Avenue home of 1896) his wife Experience presented him with a son who, named for his paternal grandfather, was Robert Stuart. Robert had several children: Betty, born 1740; Sarah, bap. June 3, 1743; Experience, bap. May 1, 1751; Isaiah, bap Aug 29, 1748; and Isaac, born 1749. The last named child, Isaac, married, Dec. 25, 1771, Olive, born Oct. 20, 1749, daughter of (so it seems) Thaddeus and Abigail Morehouse. Soon after his marriage Isaac left his peaceful home on the Wilton height, and joining Capt. Comstock’s company, “went to war.” He had a brother James also, and his sister Sarah, marrying Peter Hubbell, was the mother of the late venerable Matthias Hubbell of Main Street, Norwalk. Isaac Stuart’s children were Betty, born July 9, 1772; Martha, born Dec. 24, 1777; Moses, born March 26, 1780; and Sarah, born Aug. 25, 1781.

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       Moses, the only son of Isaac and Olive Stuart, left at his decease Jan. 24, 1852, an imperishable name and record. He was a Yale man, Class of 1799, and for a short time a Yale tutor. He was settled for a few years over the Centre Church, New Haven, and then was elected Professor of Sacred Literature in the Andover, Mass., Theological Seminary. He married a miss Hannah Clark of Danbury, and had several children. It was a long step from the quiet portal at the rear of “Drum Hill” to the eminent pulpit on the Elm Street Green, but the promising young Moses accomplished it, and his exceptional attainments and character have conferred glory upon the family name and his ancient birth-town.  His father died March 23, 1820, and his mother reached a grand age, having deceased June 24, 1840.

 

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At a town meeting held February 28, 1706-7, a committee – Joseph St. John and Samuel Keeler, Sr. – was chosen to “view said property (East Saugatuck territory)” and was instructed to “methodize” this land and bring it into “a capacity for drawing of lots.” The committee proceeded to its duty, and on December 22, 1709, the following draft of lots (one acre to 50 pounds commonage) was presented to the town and ordered to be recorded. (Vol. iv, fol. 158, Norwalk Town Records)

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The Lot-Drawers

Lot No. 25 – Robert Stuart, 283 Acres, 5 Commonage acres, 2 Roods, 26 Rods

 

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