John Wallis petitions the Superior Court

On April 4, 1738, at sundown, a child was born to Sarah Burt Wallis — or in the legalese of subsequent court records, this was “a Child Said to be born of y^e body of Sarah Wallis alias Burt.” The child became the basis for a petition for divorce launched by Sarah’s husband, John Wallis, less than three months later, on June 26th of that year.

John Wallis and Sarah Burt had married on September 24, 1737, with Thomas Hauley, pastor of the Church of Ridgefield, officiating. Doing the math, the child arrived just over six months later. That might be thought the cause. However, John knew that Sarah was pregnant when they married. In an August 1738 deposition to the court, Justice of Peace James Benedict attested that about four or five days before John Wallis and Sarah Burt married, he was visited by James Wallis, John’s father, who requested that Benedict conduct his son’s marriage. (James Wallis and James Benedict were brothers-in-law, married, respectively, to sisters Mary Hyatt and Sarah Hyatt, daughters of Thomas Hyatt of Norwalk.¹) Benedict asked Wallis why the couple was in such a hurry to marry, and Wallis answered, “She is Bigg they Say.” Benedict decided that without “Some Security” (presumably, the publication of marriage banns), he would not marry them.

So it was not the child’s early arrival that provoked John Wallis’s petition for divorce. Rather, it was the child’s appearance. Specifically, John believed that the child did not appear sufficiently White for him to be the father. In his June 26, 1738 petition, for a hearing on “the Last tuesday Save one in August next” to be held in Fairfield, Wallis asked the Superior Court to declare his marriage contract “to be Null and Void” and release him from all legal obligations because unbeknownst to him, Sarah “had before at time viz about three months [before their marriage] committed fornication with some Negro man” whose identity he did not know, and she had “deceived & defrauded” him by concealing the resulting pregnancy.

On June 28, 1738, “Sarah Burt alias Wallias” was served with a summons by Jacob Jones, Ridgefield constable.

Fairfield County Justices of Peace James Benedict, Joseph Platt, and Ebenezer Smith took numerous depositions from Ridgefield townspeople during August 1738.

Depositions from Lt. Richard Olmsted and wife Mary, Mrs. Hannah Smith, John Olmsted, Richard Olmsted, Jr., David Osburn and wife Rachael, and Rebecca Lobdell, wife of Samuel Lobdell (brother-in-law to Sarah’s brother Seaborn Burt, who married Susannah Lobdell), confirmed as common assumption that John Wallis married because “his Wife was Bigg.”

Townspeople disputed the racial appearance of the child in their testimonies. For example, Joshua Lobdell, with wife Eunice² agreeing “in full with her husband,” said he had seen “a Child that was Said to be born of y^e Body of Sarah Wallis y^e Wife of John Wallis” in May and “Sundry Times Since” at the house of her father, Benjamin Burt, and the child “is now as white agin as it was y^e first Time he saw S^d Child” (Susannah Lobdell, who married Seaborn Burt, was Joshua Lobdell’s daughter.) In contrast, for example, Hannah Sherwood, who also saw the child in May and “Some Considerable time after” at the Burt home, testified “And to my thinking I never See no English Child look so black, I See y^e Child Some Considerable time after again, and it Seemed then to look a more yellowish black than when I See it before.”

Although John Wallis’s petition said he did not know the identity of the “Negro man” he supposed to have fathered Sarah’s child, accusations against Peter, an enslaved man held by Sarah’s father, Benjamin Burt, were made by Abigail Wallis (Sarah’s sister and wife of John’s brother James Wallis Jr.), Rachel Dauchy (John Wallis and James Wallis Jr.’s sister and wife of Vivus Dauchy), and Hannah Sherwood. Mary Northrup, wife of Gamaliel Northrup (and Vivus Dauchy’s sister), compared Sarah’s child, who she had seen in early June at the Burt home, with a mixed-race child fathered by slaveholder Timothy Keeler: “I then Saw y^e face & hands of S^d Child, and to my thinking it was as Black, if not blacker then Timothy Keelers Mallotto Child that Come of his negro wench.”

Having heard John Wallis’s pleas and considered the evidence and law in the case, the Fairfield Superior Court ruled August 22, 1738 that they “Do not See Cause or grounds of Divorce or Reason to grant to ye S^d John Wallace a Divorce from his S^d Wife Sarah as prayed for.”

John Wallis petitions the Connecticut General Court

In the Connecticut colony’s early years, divorces were granted only by the General Court. The Connecticut and New Haven colonies united in 1665, and the Court of Assistants was set up the following year. Legislation enacted in 1667 called for divorce cases to be heard in the Court of Assistants (called Superior Court from 1711). Grounds for divorce included adultery, desertion, fraudulent contract, and seven years’ absence (Cohn 1970, p. 39). This was John Wallis’s first step in June 1738, when he sent his petition for divorce to the Superior Court for a hearing at the August 1738 session at Fairfield.

However, jurisdiction to hear divorce cases was retained by the General Assembly, which exercised its judicial function as the General Court, and petitions could also be submitted there, with both chambers hearing testimony and issuing decisions. Hence, John Wallis had recourse to submit to the General Assembly / General Court when his first petition was refused. So, the following year, on May 3, 1739, John Wallis petitioned the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut, to be held in Hartford on the second Thursday of that month, for a divorce from Sarah Burt.

In this petition, unlike the first, John Wallis named Peter, “Negro servant” of Benjamin Burt, Sarah’s father, as the man he supposed responsible for the “Molatto Child” to whom Sarah had given birth on April 4, 1738. John described his reaction as being one of “very Great Surprise and Amazement” and “finding himself thus imposed upon and Defrauded but not wanting to be inhuman to his S^d Wife kept and Supported her about a month after y^e birth of S^d Child and knew her not And then Returned her with her Child and all ye Estate he had Rec^d. with her to her fathers house where they have Lived Ever Since.”

John made two additional points to argue his case. That “the S^d Child was undoubtedly begotton by a Negro man or Some of y^e black or Ethiopian tribe which appears from the Complexion and Colour of y^e S^d Child” was considered by John to be “a very Great aggravation of y^e fraud and injury.” And finally, John contended he should receive “the Same Reliefe and favour” as for a fraudulent contract or adultery given that Sarah had “greviously Deceived and Defrauded” him by proceeding with their marriage while concealing her pregnancy. John stated that he “cannot be Reconciled to take S^d Sarah Vz. under Such abuses and frauds which Destroy y^e very End of Matrimony.”

A note attached to John’s petition shows John Burr, Assistant, on the same day, at Stratfield, instructed either of the Ridgefield constables to summon “Sarah Wallis alias Burt” to appear at the General Court in Hartford “y^e first tuesday Next after y^e first setting of S^d Assembly” if she can show reason why the “petition or prayer” should be refused. Constable Samuel Olmsted served Sarah with the summons this time.

There is no record (at least available to me at this time) of Sarah appearing in person at the General Court. However, John Wallis’s petition led to further depositions at Inferior Courts held in Ridgefield that month, and Sarah did testify there. She also arranged for several experts to conduct a physical examination of her child and provide their opinions.

Fairfield County Justices of Peace Ebenezer Smith and James Benedict received depositions from supporters of John Wallis on May 7, 1739.

James Wallis Jr. and Thomas Wallis (John’s brothers) testified that John Wallis and Sarah Burt married on September 24, 1737. Hannah Sherwood and Ruth Sherwood Jr. testified they were present at the marriage, which was performed by the Rev^d. M^r. Hauley, now deceased, in the usual way. James Wallis Jr. and his wife Abigail Wallis (Sarah’s sister) testified they were present at the house of John Wallis when the child was born on April 4, 1738.

Vivus Dauchy (husband of Rachel Wallis, sister to John Wallis and James Wallis Jr.), James Northrup, Daniel Sherwood, Thomas Hyatt (brother to Mary Hyatt Wallis and uncle to John Wallis), and Sarah Smith, wife of Ebenezer Smith, all testified that they believed the child to be “a mallotto Child” and not the child of a white man. More specifically, Northrup said that when he saw the child “a little time after” it was born at the house of John Wallis, “upon ye first Sight was much Surprisd, and thought it look’t not as Children usually do, And Could not think it to be y^e Child of y^e S^d John Wallis, nor y^e Child of any white man.” Daniel Sherwood said even if he had been in “Any other town, And had not known Any thing of S^d Child,” his opinion would be that the child is “mallotto.” Sherwood complained he had wanted to see the child again that day to confirm his opinion “but was not Allowed.”

Justice of Peace James Benedict received depositions from Sarah Burt Wallis and her supporters on May 12, 1739.

Sarah Wallis and her sister Thankful Burt disputed John Wallis’s claim that “he knew her not” during the month after the child’s birth, before he returned Sarah and the child to the Burt home. Thankful Burt testified “She was at y^e house of John Wallis tending or nursing her sister, that She Saw John Wallis in y^e Naked Bed with his wife y^e nights following y^e 18th & 19th of April 1738.”

Sarah Wallis stated that John Wallis “Lay with her, and used her as a wife” not only on the two nights mentioned by Thankful but six additional nights too, and even “in y^e Day time,” which she did not welcome.

Joshua Lobdell Sr. testified, his wife Eunice agreeing, that “y^e Common talk in y^e Town was that She was bigg by John Wallis before marriage, And that was y^e Cause of their marrying So Quick.” Lobdell’s testimony was reiterated by his son Samuel Lobdell, David Osburn, and Thomas Smith Jr. These witnesses, along with Elisabeth Smith, wife of Samuel Smith, described the child’s appearance in terms of skin colour and hair texture in an affirmation of Whiteness. For example, in Samuel Lobdell’s words, he “thinks according to his observation it is whiter rather than Blacker then it was” and that “y^e hair of y^e Child is not like negroes hair to feel on, not harsh but soft, nor Curld like negroes hair.”

Following John Wallis’s petition to the General Court, Sarah Burt Wallis sought out the expertise of Jean Harpin, John Copp (married to Ruth Hayes Belden, widow of Sarah’s great-uncle John Belden), and Isaac Brown, described as “Practioners in Physick” in their May 10, 1739 deposition before Norwalk Justice of Peace Samuel Hanford. Sarah had brought the petition to these doctors, and asked them “to View the Child and Give their Opinion Whether the Child in their Judgements was begotten by a Negroe as is Aledg’d against her.” Having had Sarah undress the child and “Viewed the Naked Body & all the parts of it,” their opinion was that “theres Nothing appears But that the s^d John Wallis or Some Other White Person May be the Father of s^d Child, it not haveing the Visognomy of Negroes nor Shapes nor Limbs & Nor y^e Appearance of Any Ethiopian Bloud in it.”

Noted at the bottom is that Justice of Peace Hanford notified the “adverse party” (i.e., John Wallis) of the deposition.

The depositions made by Sarah Burt, the trio of experts she consulted, and the townspeople of Ridgefield following John Wallis’s second petition were opened in the General Assembly in Hartford in May 1739. The General Court file also included the August 1738 decision at Fairfield by the Superior Court and depositions made earlier that same month concerning John’s first petition. The Lower House and Upper House at the General Assembly in Hartford disagreed on whether or not to grant “the prayer of this petition”: the Lower House voted “in y^e affirmative,” and the Upper House “resolved in the Negative.” Members of both houses struck a committee to try to resolve their differences and agreed to revisit the petition at the General Assembly at New Haven that October.

However, at the General Assembly in New Haven in October 1739, the Lower House and Upper House voted the same way they had voted in May.

A conference committee was again struck, but it seems the differences between Houses could not be bridged, as John Wallis filed a third petition for divorce three months later.

John Wallis petitions the Superior Court, again

John Wallis’s third petition for divorce was successful. This final petition by Wallis, dated January 23, 1739/40, was again addressed to the Superior Court, this one to be held in Fairfield “on y^e Last tuesday Save one in February next.”

In the petition, Wallis wrote that he “made suit” to Sarah Burt of Ridgefield during May 1737, with Sarah’s agreement and the consent of her father, Benjamin Burt, and subsequently, they agreed to enter into a “Marryed Relation.” Given this commitment, Wallis added, he “Supposed and Depended y^t y^e S^d Sarah who was by their personal and private agreement & contract betrothed to him would have been true and faithful to him rejected all others and with y^t Confidence and Dependance in her Did on y^e 24th Day of September 1737 take her to Wife in y^e Covenant of Matrimony.”

John Wallis claimed that when he first saw the child born April 4, 1738, “he did not suspect to be any other than his own but a little after he was filled with Surprize fears Doubts and uncertainty whose it was and what y^e Event would be till about a month after y^e birth of S^d Child when he was fully Convinced that y^e Same was begotton by Some Negro or Molatto man and thereupon forthwith being undeceived Returned her and all y^t portion he Rec^d with her to her fathers house.”

On February 7, 1739/40, Ridgefield constable Samuel Olmsted once again summoned Sarah Burt to appear in court.

And once again, sworn affidavits followed from the townspeople of Ridgefield, some supporting John Wallis and some supporting Sarah Burt.

Townspeople who supported John Wallis testified as to the couple’s commitment to marry, and by implication thereby, John’s expectation, as recorded in his second petition for divorce, that “Sarah who was by their personal and private agreement & contract betrothed to him would have been true and faithful to him rejected all others.”

In the words of James Wallis Jr., John’s brother, “John Wallis did keep Company in a Constant way with Sarah Burt . . . as Near as I Could Observe for y^e Space of Almost a year before he was married to her, And I did Conclude, and was Satisfied in my mind that his intent in keeping her Company So much as he did, was with a Design to marry her.” Vivus Dauchy and wife Rachel (sister to John Wallis and James Wallis Jr.) and Thomas Smith Jr. and Richard Olmstead Jr. provided similar testimonies, the duration of courtship respectively reported as “10 months before they were married” and “at Least, or near upon half a year . . . before y^e Child was begotten.”

That the couple had made a “personal and private agreement” was substantiated by Abigail Wallis, Sarah’s sister and John’s sister-in-law, who testified “She heard ye Sarah Wallis Say, About 10 months before their marriage, John told her that if She would be true to him, and keep no other Mans Company, he would be true to her, and keep no other Girls Company, which I perceived Seemed to be very Agreeable to her.”

Others testified that Sarah’s parents were aware of the couple’s plans. Agnes Benedict, wife of Peter Benedict (son of James Benedict and Sarah Hyatt Benedict and cousin to John Wallis), said she heard Sarah’s mother say about 10 months before the child was born “that She Supposed John Wallis and her Daughter would be married as Soon as he could get a house fitt to live in.” Abigail Sherwood reported, “And I being at y^e house of M^r. Burts on a Certain Day, I asked Sarah if John had asked Consent. She gave me to understand he had, I gave her to understand if it had been my Case he should not, She Said if he had not, her father would not get her things.” Lt. Ebenezer Smith, Esq. testified that he ran into Benjamin Burt getting Sarah such things at Mr. Ralph Isaac’s shop in Norwalk in late May or early June 1737. Burt said that “his Daughter were going to have a Likely Man,” they were there “in order to fitt out” Sarah “with things necessary to keep house.”

Townspeople who supported Sarah Burt testified as to her good character and insisted that only in the case of John Wallis had she strayed from virtue.

Said Lt. Richard Olmsted, “I never knew, or heard, but that y^e Said Sarah Wallis was as Civil and honest a person as any body in y^e whole town, Save in y^e Cause of John Wallis.” Said Ebenezer Lobdell (brother-in-law to Sarah’s brother Seaborn Burt, who married Susannah Lobdell), “the “Carriage of y^e woman, I never knew, or heard but it was virtuous and Commendable, Saving in y^e Case of John Wallis.” Said Ebenezer Brooks (cousin to Sarah’s father, Benjamin Burt, and brother-in-law to Sarah’s mother, Sarah Belden Burt), “I never heard any report of any bad, or light Carriage of y^e Said Sarah Wallis in any respect — except in the case of John Wallis.”

Making similar statements as to Sarah’s “carriage” or agreeing in full with the statements made by others were Mary Olmsted, Lt. Richard Olmsted’s wife; Rachel Benedict; Martha Smith; Elizabeth (Belden) Brooks, Ebenezer Brooks’ wife (aunt to Sarah, sister to Sarah’s mother, Sarah Belden Burt); Joshua Lobdell and wife; Lemuel Morehouse and wife; Christopher Burt (Sarah’s eldest brother) and wife (Joanna Saint John); Mr. Richard Osburn; Samuel Lobdell; and David Osburn.

On August 19, 1740, the Fairfield Superior Court issued a continuance in the case.

A year later, on August 18, 1741, the Fairfield Superior Court granted John Wallis of Ridgefield the divorce he had long sought. Sarah Burt, also of Ridgefield, had been called three times to court, and had not appeared.

Mamanasco hill: next generation

As children of Ridgefield’s first generation of proprietors, Sarah Burt and John Wallis were part of the town’s next generation. Benjamin Burt and James Wallis, their fathers, were not among the original proprietors, however.

In May 1708, Connecticut’s General Assembly at Hartford granted permission to a group of townsmen from Norwalk to purchase land from “the Indians” that would be bounded on the north and northeast by Danbury, the south by Norwalk, and the west by the boundary with New York, “to ye End they might make a plantation there and settle upon the same.” On September 30, 1708, a deed was signed by “Catoonah Sachem of Ramapoo Indians, and Associates” granting an estimated 20,000 acres for a price of 100 pounds.

In November 1708, a committee was chosen to lay out Ridgefield’s town plot, with home lots of 7.5 acres each (allowing adjustments for quality), assigned by draw. Originally, there were 24 proprietors, mostly from Norwalk, with a few from Milford. There were 25 lots laid out: one was designated “The proprietors Reserve.”

The proprietors had equal right to further divisions of land, with draws for plow land, meadow land, pasture land, boggy meadow, and upland held subsequently. In March 1709, when meadow land lots were laid out, there were 25 proprietors, Ebenezer Smith having been added, with a 26th lot reserved to the proprietors. By the “Boggy Meadow division,” in January 1709/10, there were 26 proprietors, Joseph Benedict having been added, with a 27th lot reserved to the proprietors and a 28th lot for the “Black Smiths Right.”

Benjamin Burt, Sarah’s father, took up the “Black Smiths Right.” On May 6, 1712, Ridgefield’s proprietors voted the 1/28th right set aside for a blacksmith to be granted to Benjamin Burt; he was to pay nine pounds. The lands laid out to him were recorded.

The proprietors reserve had been set aside for a minister, and on January 20, 1714/15, the proprietors voted to grant this “one full twenty Eighth part of ye whole ProprietyShip” to their present minister, Mr. Thomas Hauley.

This made for 28 proprietors in total.

On February 24, 1714/15, the proprietors voted to admit James Wallis, now of Ridgefield, as a proprietor going forward. The proprietors were on the verge of acquiring a new tract of land from “Tackora, Alias Oreneca, Indian.” Wallis was to make an equal contribution to the purchase cost in return for a full proprietor right in the new tract.

James Wallis was brother-in-law to two of the original proprietors: Thomas Hyatt was Mary Hyatt Wallis’s brother, and James Benedict’s wife, Sarah Hyatt Benedict, was Mary Hyatt Wallis’s sister. James Wallis was born in Scotland and had been pressed into service in the Royal Navy, but when anchored in Long Island Sound, around 1705, he managed to jump ship and swim ashore to Norwalk, where he wooed and wed Mary Hyatt, daughter of Thomas Hyatt and Mary Saint John.

The tract of land obtained from Tackora alias Oreneca is referred to as “the new purchase” in the Ridgefield land records. Tackora alias Oreneca is described in the deed, dated March 18, 1715 [1714/15], as “one of ye Native proprietors and owners of these tracts of unpurchased lands, Lying above Ridgefield in ye County of Fairfield, and Colony of Connecticutt in New England.” There is an additional signature from Ocomoywa’, but he is not mentioned in the deed itself; rather the tract is characterized as “belonging unto me ye Said Oreneca.” The proprietors paid four pounds.

The northwest corner of the original purchase was marked by an oak tree lying on the north side of the outlet of water coming out from “a sort of a grassy pond” called Mamanusquag pond. In the Ridgefield land records, the spelling of this Indigenous name varies: for example, “Mamanasquogg,” “Mamanasquog,” “Mamanusquaw,” “Mamanasqua,” “Mamanasco,” and “Mamanusco.” The boundaries of the new tract were described as beginning at Mananasquogg pond, and the 1714/15 deed mentioned that a mill “now Stands” on the pond, sitting four rods to the east of the marked tree.

So it appears there was already a mill onsite when at a meeting in November 1716, the Ridgefield proprietors voted to sequester “Mamanasquogg pond” and its outlet for the operation of a grist mill. On January 30, 1716/17, Daniel Sherwood entered a “Covenant” with the proprietors to erect “a good sufficient grist mill” on the outlet of “mamanasquog pond.” By agreeing to be miller for Ridgefield, Daniel Sherwood became the town’s 29th proprietor, his full right, unlike James Wallis’s, equal to that held by the original proprietors.

The home lots of the first generation of Ridgefield proprietors were laid out on both sides of what was then “Town Street” and is now “Main Street.” When Benjamin Burt, James Wallis, and Daniel Sherwood became proprietors, they received adjoining home lots on the west side of Town Street, to the north of lots laid out for the original proprietors: Daniel Sherwood was bounded by James Wallis on the north and Benjamin Burt on the south (Burt’s lot was bounded by a highway on the south, called then Burts Lane and now Catoonah St.). Many of the proprietors’ children, as members of the next generation, established homesteads elsewhere, including northwest of Ridgefield’s town plot on Mamanasco hill.

John Wallis and Sarah Burt Wallis seem to have been among Mamanasco hill’s early residents. In their February 19, 1739/40 depositions, Rachel Dauchy and James Benedict indicated that John and Sarah were living somewhere up from (presumably north of) the house of Benjamin Burt, Sarah’s father. Rachel Dauchy (John Wallis’s sister) said she asked Christopher Burt (Sarah’s brother) about the child, Christopher “Sometime before y^e Child was brought down having been up to See y^e Child.” James Benedict mentioned being at (his son) Peter Benedict’s house and speaking with John Wallis “Sometime before y^e S^d Sarah was brought down to her father’s house.” When James Benedict’s daughter-in-law Agnes Benedict testified she heard Sarah Burt’s mother say “that She Supposed John Wallis and her Daughter would be married as Soon as he could get a house fitt to live in,” John was probably building the “house fitt to live in” at Mamanasco hill.

According to Ridgefield historian Jack Sanders, “Mamanasco Hill is a very old name for the ridge to the northeast of Mamanasco Lake, a ridge that includes North Salem Road, upper Pond Road, Circle Drive, Hobby Drive, and Colonial Lane.” In the 1830s, the name for the area became “Scotts Ridge.”

While landholders at Mamanasco hill can be readily traced through the Ridgefield land records, it is more difficult to discern which landholders established homesteads there. By 1712, Samuel Smith, late of Milford,³ Thomas Smith, Benjamin Willson, and Benjamin Burt held land at Mamanasco hill. The adjoining lots of Samuel Smith and Thomas Smith were located on the east side of the ridge. By 1721, Alexander Resseguie of Norwalk (having bought out Benjamin Willson), Joseph Keeler, James Wallis, David Scott, and Joseph Northrup were also Mamanasco hill landholders, with Joseph Keeler, James Wallis, and David Scott located below Mamanasco Pond.

In April 1734, Benjamin Burt deeded 13.5 acres on Mamanasco hill to Thomas Smith in exchange for Peter, the enslaved man in the Burt household subsequently accused of fathering Sarah’s child.

The land sold by Benjamin Burt was bounded on the north by Alexander Resseguie, on the south by John Wallis, and on the east and west by highways.

John Wallis had bought the 25 acres of land at Mamanasco, bounded north by land of Benjamin Burt, south by land of Joseph Keeler, and east and west by highways, from Alexander Resseguie, by then of Ridgefield, for 200 pounds in January 1732/33. In April 1733, John sold Vivus Dauchy a full half of the tract of land, taken off the south part, for 100 pounds. John’s sister Rachel Wallis had married Dauchy in November 1732. John’s brother James Wallis Jr. bought 12 acres of land at Mamanasco, bounded north and west by land of David Scott and south by land of Joseph Keeler, from Joseph Lee for 70 pounds in October 1735. James Wallis Jr. and Sarah’s sister Abigail Burt had married in February 1735/6. Joseph Lee had himself purchased that land from James Wallis, Sr. in November 1729.

On May 20, 1738, John Wallis signed over “all y^e peices & parcells of Land which I have at a place Called Mamanusquaw in y^e Township of Ridgfield” to his father, James Wallis. This occurred between his return of Sarah Burt, her dowry, and her child to the house of her father, Benjamin Burt, in early May and his filing a petition for divorce on June 26th.

On April 14, 1742, eight months after the Fairfield Superior Court granted John Wallis a divorce, James Wallis signed all properties at Mamanasco back over to his son.

And so, this appears to be an early, 18th-century, example of a man protecting his assets during divorce proceedings.

The extent of John Wallis’s landholdings at Mamanasco during this period is unclear, as these deeds of gift between John and his father do not itemize the properties. Certainly, one property was the 12 acres and three rods on Mamanasco hill that John sold to Gideon Smith for 140 pounds on the same day that James Wallis deeded the properties back to his son. This was half the 25-acre parcel John Wallis had bought from Alexander Resseguie for 200 pounds, bounded on the north by Thomas Smith (who had bought from Benjamin Burt) and on the south by his brother-in-law Vivus Dauchy (to whom he had sold the other half). Additionally, in February 1748/49, John Wallis, by then of Salem, sold to Lemuel Morehouse, for 480 pounds, 35 acres on the east side of “Mamanasqua Pond,” bounded east by highway, north by Isaac Keeler’s land, west by highway, and south by common land; in return, also for 480 pounds, John Wallis bought from Lemuel Morehouse 31 acres in the New Purchase adjacent to The Oblong/Westchester Co.

The grist mill at the outlet of Mananasco Pond eventually ended up in the hands of the Burt family, and for a time, Mamanasco Pond was called Burts Pond. In November 1742, Benjamin Burt, Sarah’s father, exchanged lands in the New Patent (what became Ridgebury) for Joseph Keeler Jr.’s right in the mill. Interest in the mill had been transferred from Daniel Sherwood to Samuel Saint John in April 1721, from Samuel Saint John to Nathan Whitney, from Nathan Whitney to Joseph Keeler Sr. in May 1725, and from Joseph Keeler Sr. to his son Joseph Keeler Jr. in August 1741. Benjamin Burt retained his right in the mill until he died in 1759 and the right passed to his son Seaborn Burt.

Not a polygamist: John Wallis remarries and moves to Salem, New York

In his petition to the General Court, John Wallis said he desired a a dispensation or divorce “to secure him from any penalty of ye Laws Respecting Polygamy” should he marry another.

Polygamy was not theoretical as a prospect for John. Although divorce cases were not common in early 18th-century Connecticut, in 1722/23, David Scott was sued successfully for divorce by his wife Mary Scott, on the grounds he had entered into a second, polygamous, marriage and willfully deserted her for more than three years. David Scott was neighbour to the Burts and Wallises at both Mamanasco hill — presumably, Scotts Ridge is named after him — and Ridgefield’s town plot, where his home lot lay immediately south of Benjamin Burt’s across what is today Catoonah St. David Scott’s stepson, Vivus Dauchy, became brother-in-law to John Wallis, when he married John’s sister Rachel Wallis.

Another divorce in the neighbourhood: David Scott, polygamist

Fortunately, third time lucky in petitioning for divorce, John was free to remarry without worrying about becoming a polygamist. According to The Wallace Family in America, John Wallis married Martha Scofield, about 1746. They had 12 children born between 1747 and 1769, who were entered in the Ridgefield town records. In addition to the 10 children listed below, Epenetus was born in 1766 and Mary was born in 1769.

Although the children of John Wallis and Martha Scofield were entered in the Ridgefield town records, the family lived in Westchester County, New York, in an area of The Oblong that became Salem, then Upper Salem, and finally North Salem as years passed.

According to land records, by early 1739, in the midst of John’s repeated petitions for divorce, his parents, James and Mary (Hyatt) Wallis, and brother and sister-in-law James Wallis, Jr. and Abigail (Burt) Wallis had moved from Ridgefield to the Oblong. In February 1742/3, when Jabez Smith bought land from the Wallis siblings, John Wallis, Jacob Wallis, Vivus and Rachel (Wallis) Dauchy, and Daniel and Agnes (Wallis) Benedict were living in Ridgefield, while Samuel and Sarah (Wallis) Saint John, like James Wallis Jr., were living in Westchester Co., though the Saint Johns in Cortlandt Manor. Their brother Thomas Wallis had died that October. John Wallis, newly remarried, was living in the Oblong, in the Town of Salem, by February 1746/7.

“The Oblong” was an entity created due to a protracted boundary dispute between the colonies of Connecticut and New York. The Oblong land bordering Ridgefield had been claimed by the Ridgefield townspeople as theirs. Early conflicts about the Connecticut–New York boundary were between the Dutch and English. In 1650, Governor Stuyvesant and Connecticut authorities agreed on a provisional boundary that would “begin at the west side of Greenwich Bay, being about four miles from Stamford, and so run a northerly line twenty miles up into the country until it shall be notified by the two governments of the Dutch and of England, provided the said line shall not come within ten miles of the Hudson River.” The provisional Hartford treaty of 1650 was never ratified, however. The 1650 line is shown on this 1876 map representing 17th-century southern New England and New York, with later state boundaries superimposed:

Even after the English defeated the Dutch, controversy continued, as boundaries in the charter of the colony of Connecticut by King Charles II in 1662 and letters patent granted to the Duke of York and Albany in 1664 overlapped. The charter placed Connecticut’s boundaries “on the south by the sea” and from the Massachusetts line “to the south sea on the west part,” while the letters patent placed New York’s boundaries as extending from the Connecticut River. In 1683, New York and Connecticut officials agreed on a boundary running 20 miles east of the Hudson River, except for Connecticut’s retention of its towns east of the Byram River (i.e., Greenwich and Stamford), which lay within that 20 miles. In return, Connecticut would give up its claim to Rye and cede an equivalent tract of land north of the “panhandle.” Called “The Oblong,” this tract, 1.81 miles wide, extended north to Massachusetts from what became Ridgefield. But once again, the agreement was not ratified. It was not until 1731 that commissioners from both colonies performed a complete survey and placed monuments to mark the boundary.

The entire length of The Oblong can be seen on this 1780 map of “Connecticut and parts adjacent”:

A close-up look at Fairfield County on the map shows the Town of Salem, just west of Ridgefield, lying within The Oblong:

Salem became Upper Salem and Lower Salem in 1784, and in 1788, Upper Salem was incorporated into the Town of North Salem, along with the eastern portion of Cortlandt Manor that had been in the hands of Stephen Delancey prior to its confiscation given that Delancey took the loyalist side in the Revolutionary War.

John Wallis/Wallace lived a long life: he was buried in June Cemetery in North Salem; according to the entry on Find a Grave, the gravestone reads, “In memory of John Wallace who died March 2, 1812 in the 103rd year of his life.”

Even though over the course of his life John Wallis moved no more than a half dozen or so miles from where he was born, over the course of that century, the lives of all who lived in this little corner of America were shaped by numerous contested and changing boundaries — concerning not only the erasure of Indigenous ownership and negotiation of limits of neighbouring colonial towns and colonies, but the boundaries of national identities, racial differences, and people’s status as free, indentured, or enslaved.

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Much more remains to be said about what became of Sarah Burt; Sarah Burt’s child, who was without name and even sex in the court records; Peter, who was enslaved in the Burt household; and the rest of the Burt family. And much more again remains to be said about the wresting of land from its Indigenous owners, the history of slavery in Connecticut, the dynamics of the construction of racial difference in 18th-century New England, and how race and slavery shaped social and economic relations among Ridgefield families, which having been transmitted across generations exercise their legacies today. These are topics of future posts.

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Footnotes

1. Thomas Hyatt’s Norwalk house, built in 1677 and one of only a few houses left standing after the British burned Norwalk in the Revolutionary War, was illegally demolished in 2022. Comments on the article reflect divergent ideas about preservation and relations to the past. ↩︎
2. Eunice (last name unknown) was Joshua Lobdell’s second wife. Mary Burwell, of Milford, was his first wife and mother to Susannah Lobdell, who married Sarah’s brother Seaborn Burt. ↩︎
3. Among the original Ridgefield proprietors, there were two Samuel Smiths. In land records, to distinguish them, the Samuel Smith from Norwalk is referred to as “Norwalk Samuel Smith” and the Samuel Smith from Milford is referred to as “Milford Samuel Smith.” ↩︎

References

Books and articles:

Cohn, Henry S. 1970. “Connecticut’s Divorce Mechanism: 1636-1969. American Journal of Legal History 14 (1): 35–54; https://doi.org/10.2307/844518.

Jacobus, Donald Lines. 1968. “The Scott Family of Ridgefield, Conn.” The American Genealogist 44 (1): 9–14.

Rockwell, George L. 1927. The History of Ridgefield, Connecticut; https://archive.org/details/TheHistoryOfRidgefieldConnecticut/

Sanders, Jack. “A Stroll Through Time.” 068 Magazine (March/April 2022): 14-18; https://issuu.com/ridgefieldmagazine/docs/completemarch_april2022

Archival materials:

Divorce Papers, 1720-1799 (Fairfield Superior Court) – Connecticut State Archives / Genealogical Society of Utah — available on FamilySearch

Connecticut Archives Series, Crimes & Misdemeanors,
First Series, Vol. 2 (available on FamilySearch) & Vol. 4 (available on FamilySearch)

Land Records, Ridgefield Town Clerk (available on Family Search)

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Susan Bigelow, librarian at the Connecticut State Library, for help locating sources.

Thanks to the Dartmouth Family History Centre, and help from Ann Smith, for access to historical and archival records reproduced by the Latter Day Saints.

Thanks to historian Jack Sanders for sharing his work and providing feedback and advice based on his extensive knowledge of Ridgefield, past and present. Jack’s books can be found here.

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Copyright, December 2024, by Lisa Gannett — no reproduction or commercial use without permission of author

In his petition to the General Court, John Wallis said he desired a dispensation or divorce “to secure him from any penalty of y^e Laws Respecting Polygamy” should he marry another.

Polygamy was not theoretical as a prospect for John. Although divorce cases were not common in early 18th-century Connecticut, in February 1722/23,¹ David Scott was sued successfully for divorce by his wife, Mary Scott, on the grounds he had entered into a second, polygamous, marriage and willfully deserted her for more than three years. David Scott was neighbour to the Burts and Wallises at both Mamanasco hill — presumably, Scotts Ridge is named after him — and Ridgefield’s town plot, where his home lot lay immediately south of Benjamin Burt’s across what is today Catoonah St. David Scott’s stepson, Vivus Dauchy, became brother-in-law to John Wallis, when he married John’s sister Rachel Wallis.

“An Act against Poligamy & unchastity” was passed in the General Assembly of the Connecticut colony in 1717/18. The act forbid anyone already married, with a spouse still alive, to enter into another marriage. Exceptions included divorce, seven years of separation, three years of “willful desertion,” and marriage prior to the age of consent (14 for males, 12 for females). Otherwise, “Every Such offender Shall suffer and be punished as in Case of adultery and Such marriage Shall be, and Is hereby declared, to be Null and void.”

David Scott emigrated from Londonderry, Ireland, leaving behind a family — wife, Mary, and children, James and Elizabeth — only to have that family join him in Connecticut some years later, presumably unexpectedly, after he had married again. In Silvio Bedini’s Ridgefield in Review and Donald Lines Jacobus’s “The Scott Family of Ridgefield, Conn.,” we learn that on April 21, 1719, Mary Scott, formerly of Londonderry and now of Ridgefield, brought suit in Fairfield County Court against her husband, David Scott, who did not appear in court. Apparently, the judges awarded Mary Scott three acres and 72 rods of David Scott’s home lot.²

David Scott had become a Ridgefield proprietor on June 2, 1712, when for 45 pounds, he bought the 1/28 proprietor right of the deceased Jonathan Stevens from his mother, Mary Bouton, a Norwalk widow. David Scott was described in that deed as “of Late resident in ye Town of Fairfield,” but he was living in Ridgefield by the following spring. The lands laid out to Jonathan Stevens and transferred to David Scott are found in Ridgefield land records, dated March 16, 1716, and follow a series of quit claims from Mary Bouton’s other children (half-siblings to Jonathan Stevens).

The 10-acre, 3.5-rod home lot laid out to Jonathan Stevens in the first division of lands was No. 13, the northernmost lot on the west side of Town Street, which faced the home lot of Thomas Smith to the east and was bounded by the home lot of John Sturdevant to the south.

The three acres, 72 rods of David Scott’s home lot awarded Mary Scott by the Court is consistent with the dower’s right to one-third of her husband’s personal and real estate at his death for use throughout her natural life or as long as she remains his widow and does not remarry.

Also in Fairfield County Court, on April 22, 1722, the court executed the decision made in 1721 that Mary Scott would receive 60 pounds from David Scott “for bringing up two small children namely James and Elizabeth Scott.”

The children could not have been too small, however, since by this time, David Scott had deeded land rights to his and Mary’s son, James, who in turn deeded land to his sister, Elizabeth. On March 17, 1721 (double dating not provided, but based on sequence of records, likely year was 1720/21), for “Love and Fatherly affection,” David Scott transferred to his son, James Scott, of Ridgefield, one full and exact half of his Ridgefield proprietor’s right, though he reserved the whole of his home lot and several additional pieces of land, including two pieces near Blacksmith Ridge, for himself. On the same day, for “Love and Brotherly affections,” James Scott transferred 40 acres of land to his sister, Elizabeth Scott, also of Ridgefield: a tract of about 30 acres by Peespunk Brook and the balance of about 10 acres from his interest at Mamanasco.³

Mary Scott subsequently petitioned for divorce. Addressing the Superior Court justices in Fairfield on February 26, 1722/23, Mary Scott charged David Scott, her “Lawfull Wedded husband,” with committing “the sin of Poligamy” for having married Elisabeth Dacee about 11 years ago. Mary specified as grounds for divorce that David Scott had “Wilfully Absented himself for more than the space of three years.”

In her testimony, Mary Scott noted that the previous February, David Scott had failed to appear in Superior Court to answer the charge of polygamy “but made default & forfeited his Recognizance as Appears of Record.”

Indeed, the Superior Court record shows that despite being bound on November 21, 1721 in a recognizance of 50 pounds for his appearance at the court held February 1721/22 “to answer to a Complaint made against him for his being Guilty of the sin of Polygamy,” David Scott “being three times called to come forth & Save himself and his Bail, he appeared not.”

And Joseph Keeler and Benjamin Stebbins, both of Ridgefield, who were bound in a recognizance of 25 pounds each to deliver David Scott to that court, despite being called three times, had failed to do so. The Court ordered Keeler and Stebbins to appear before the Superior Court in Fairfield the following August to show cause why their bond should not be forfeited.

However, David Scott had taken steps to indemnify his bondsmen, perhaps because he had no intention of travelling to Fairfield on the last Tuesday of February 1721/22 to answer Mary Scott’s complaint.

On November 21, 1721, the total bond of 50 pounds advanced by Joseph Keeler and Benjamin Stebbins was secured by Scott’s one full half of a proprietor’s right (i.e., 1/60th part of right in all divided and undivided lands) shared equally by Keeler and Stebbins (the other half having already been transferred to his son, James Scott). On December 23, 1721, David Scott transferred the one full half of his proprietor’s right securing the bond paid by Keeler and Stebbins to Alexander Resseguie for 200 pounds. A June 1722 land record notes that after Scott failed to appear in court, Mr. Alexander Resseguie of Norwalk, attorney for David Scott of Ridgefield, reimbursed Keeler and Stebbins the 50 pounds and paid 11 shillings for their travel from Ridgefield to Fairfield and half the charge of recording their mortgage with Scott. So by August 1722, Joseph Keeler and Benjamin Stebbins had already been made whole. (In May 1729, Keeler and Stebbins recognized having been indemnified by Scott and relinquished any claim to property.) In October 1722, for 200 pounds, Alexander Resseguie received a quit claim from David Scott for all his rights and interest in land and commonage in Ridgefield.

It was a different story for David Scott. Not only had Scott signed over his proprietor rights to Alexander Resseguie, he was in jail on February 26, 1722/23 when Mary Scott’s petition for divorce was heard in Superior Court at Fairfield. Elizabeth Scott testified on behalf of herself and her husband, David Scott, both of Ridgefield. On November 8th, the Scotts had been arrested “at the Suit of Mary Scott of Ridgefield.” Elizabeth had obtained bail so that she could appear in court to answer the complaint, but David remained a prisoner “in the Comon Goal.”

In her testimony, Elizabeth Scott recognized the facts as laid out in the the case. David Scott had failed to appear in court the previous February to answer the charge of polygamy, despite his bond of 50 pounds, and in doing so, in the eyes of the court, this was sufficient to establish his guilt: “That by making default he Confess himself Guilty of y^e S^d Polygamy.” Nevertheless, David and Elizabeth “Since y^e Feb. Court have at Sundry times Continued to live together as husband and wife.” This was against Mary Scott’s wishes for “the Law to reclaim them from their Wickedness,” record their marriage as “null & void,” and forbid Elizabeth from living with David.

Elizabeth asked on David’s and her own behalf that the Court call the action against them so they would either proceed to trial or be discharged without trial during the current session. Should their case be carried over yet another session, David faced a “Miserable lying in Goal half a year longer.”

On March 2, 1722/23, the Superior Court issued its decision and granted Mary Scott the divorce she sought, ruling that “by the Laws of this Colony,” she ought to be “discharged from her Bonds of Marriage.”

The Court commented on David Scott’s failure to appear in court the previous year to answer the petition brought against him by Mary Scott and that he continued to live with Elizabeth Dauce “in the sin of Adultery and Poligamy.”

Elizabeth Scott was called “Elizabeth Dacee” in the record of Mary Scott’s testimony and as “Elizabeth Dauce” in the record of the Superior Court’s judgement. This is Elizabeth Dauchy, widowed mother of Mary Dauchy, who married Gamaliel Northrup in January 1723/24, and Vivus Dauchy, who married Rachel Wallis — John Wallis’s sister — in November 1732. In land records, David Scott referred to Vivus Dauchy and Gamaliel Northrup as “son in law,” an expression that at this time meant, in today’s sense, both stepson and son-in-law. A December 1733 allocation of land from the proprietors to Vivus Dauchy attributed Dauchy’s entitlement to “a Deed obtained of his father Scott.” Who was Elizabeth Dauchy Scott? Who was Dauchy, Elizabeth’s first husband and father of Mary Dauchy Northrup and Vivus Dauchy?

“Vivus” is an unusual name. Denis Fromentin alias Dauchy married Mary Vivers of Banbury, Oxfordshire, England at St Peter in Kineton, Warwickshire, England in 1671. A son of theirs named Vivers Dauchy was buried in Banbury in 1714 at about age 22. However, they had another son, Richard Dauchy, born in 1678, and a Richard Dauchy was living in Flushing on Long Island in 1705, when with permission of his wife, Elizabeth, he sold land in Huntington consisting of “two lotts which was sould to me by my Grandfather Bayley the one which he bought of Edward Higby and ye other of Nicholas Ellis.”

Grandfather Bayley is Captain Joseph Bayley of Huntington, married to Alice (last name unknown). These were Elizabeth’s grandparents. In a November 1689 deed, Joseph Bayley of Huntington and wife Alice out of “ye Grate Love” for their grandson Joseph Udall gifted him their dwelling house, home lot, and other lands under an agreement that his parents, Phillip Udall and Mary (Bayley) Udall, place “ye whole tuission & government” of Joseph in his grandparents’ hands until age 21. Granddaughter Elizabeth Udall was also mentioned in the deed: she was to receive a legacy, and if Joseph died without heirs, she was to share the whole estate equally with her sister Frances Udall.

Phillip Udall’s will, written December 2, 1714, confirms that Elizabeth Udall married Richard Dauchy, as his daughter Elizabeth’s share of movables was assigned to her son Beynes Docee’s use when he became 21. “Beynes” is similar enough to “Vivus” that this could be him.

Note too that Phillip Udall “gave” his daughter Deborah “one Indian boy named Jop During his Indentures” — this fellow human being listed among movables alongside such items as a black leather trunk, a silver spoon, and Phillip’s best horse and side saddle.

According to Mary’s Scott’s testimony in court, David Scott and Elizabeth Udall Dauchy married around 1712. In 1712, when he bought Jonathan Stephens’ proprietor right, Scott was living in Fairfield. Richard Dauchy was alive in 1705 and living in Flushing on Long Island, when he and Elizabeth sold land she had obtained from her grandfather. Vivus Dauchy’s gravestone reads “In Memory of Capt. Vivus Dauchey who died Dec. 16, 1795: aged 88 years.” So he was likely born in 1707. Richard Dauchy must have died sometime between 1706 and 1712. Elizabeth Udall Dauchy and David Scott could have met after Richard Dauchy’s death in either Flushing or Fairfield.

David Scott maintained close relationships with Elizabeth’s children, as evidenced by his transfers of property to them. On May 14, 1725, David Scott’s one full half of a proprietor’s right was restored with a payment of 200 pounds to Alexander Resseguie, by then of Ridgefield. The following day, again for 200 pounds, Scott sold Resseguie one-quarter of a proprietor’s right in undivided lands, his entire one-half proprietor’s right in the New Purchase, and several additional pieces of land. In January 1731/32, David Scott, for 50 pounds, sold Vivus Dauchy one-half of his remaining quarter right as a proprietor in all common and undivided land. David Scott also gradually sold his home lot to Vivus Dauchy: in March 1729 [1729/30?], three acres and 31 poles off the lot’s upper end; an additional adjoining two acres as part of the January 1731/32 deed; and in February 1740/41, the dwelling house, barn, and remaining six acres of the home lot.

David Scott was a slaveholder. Property transactions with his stepchildren included enslaved human beings as well as real estate. In his 1927 The History of Ridgefield, Connecticut, George Rockwell uses a transaction between David Scott and Vivus Dauchy to establish the fact there was slavery in Ridgefield during colonial times. In February 1740, David Scott sold an enslaved woman named Dinah and an enslaved boy named Peter to Vivus Dauchy for 200 pounds:

In September 1746, “for & in Consideration of y^e Love and Good will y^t I have for, and do bear unto my Son in Law Gamaliel Northrup & Mary Northrup,” David Scott gave “for Ever my negro Child named Lidia, being About a year old” to his stepdaughter and her husband and their heirs and assigns to “Have Hold, Use & Peaceably Enjoy y^e S^d negro Child.”

Gamaliel Northrup was already a slaveholder; in Ridgefield land records, we find a record of the July 21, 1739 birth of “Ishmael a Servant negro boy of Gamaliel Northrups.”

It may be that Lidia, the one-year-old girl David Scott referred to as “my negro Child,” whom he separated from her enslaved mother to gift her to Gamaliel Northrup and Mary Dauchy Northrup, really was his child and not merely a child he owned.

There was also a man named Quash held as a slave in the household of David Scott. In 1748, Scott gave notice to the town that “my Negro man Quash” would be freed upon his death. According to Ridgefield historian Jack Sanders, this may be the same “Negro man named Quash” who appeared again in town records in March 1780, having been found dead of exposure on the highway at Blacksmith Ridge.

David Scott died on February 3, 1760. He died intestate, without a wife or children surviving him. His son, James Scott, died about 1750 (James’s widow, Hannah Hyatt Scott, remarried Samuel Saint John Jr., who had been widowed by the death of Sarah Wallis Saint John, sister of John Wallis.) David Scott’s grandson James Scott was appointed administrator on April 14, 1760, and inventory of the estate was taken April 28, 1760.

Included in the inventory of David Scott’s estate was “a Negro Girl Named Ann,” who was valued at 37 pounds, 10 shillings and listed among such mundane items as a “bear” cask, several iron cart hoops, and a churn. The enslaved Ann was by far David Scott’s most valuable possession — next most valuable was 3 acres and 8 rods of land at Chestnut Ridge worth 12 pounds, 5 shillings.

The Ridgefield Historical Society is located in the house built by David Scott around 1714 and added onto by Vivus Dauchy after he took possession in 1741.

The Scott house originally stood on Main Street at the corner of Catoonah Street, but was moved a short way down Catoonah Street in 1922 to make room for modern buildings. Plans to demolish the Scott house in 1999 were headed off by an effort led by the Ridgefield Preservation Trust. The Scott house was rebuilt on Sunset Lane to house the new Ridgefield Historical Society, founded in 2001, complete with a climate-controlled basement vault for archival storage. The whole story can be found on the Society’s website.

It is fitting that the Scott house, preserved across more than three centuries, houses, in its new basement, archival records concerning Ridgefield and its history, some of which have been preserved across more than three centuries as well. The Scott house was built on one of the original home lots lining Town Street (later Main Street) assigned to Ridgefield’s early proprietors on land wrested from the region’s Indigenous people. The Scott house is a site that held people who were enslaved for their labour and where children were born into slavery. The terms of the British colonial project and the various forms of servitude and enslavement instituted to support that project contributed greatly to the wealth that David Scott and his two Ridgefield families and their families — the family of his son James Scott, the family of his stepson Vivus Dauchy, and the family of his stepdaughter Mary Dauchy Northrup — were able to accumulate and pass on to their descendants.

Much more needs to be said about the lives of Dinah, Peter, Lidia, Ann, Ishmael, Quash, and all others who were enslaved during the first 100 years of Ridgefield’s history.⁴ It is unfortunate that archival records disproportionately favour historical reconstructions of the lives of the wealthy and powerful — whether one’s historical interests are genealogical or academic, local or national, regional or global. What can be done is to investigate the history of slavery in Connecticut, the dynamics of the construction of racial difference in 18th-century New England, and how race and slavery shaped social and economic relations among Ridgefield families, which having been transmitted across generations exercise their legacies today. These are topics of future posts.

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Footnotes

1. The double-dating of years (e.g., 1722/23) reflects movement from the Julian calendar (introduced in 46 BCE by Julius Caesar) to the Gregorian calendar (introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII). The change occurred at different times in different places, largely a reflection of whether the population was Catholic (adopted earlier) or Protestant (adopted later). England and its colonies did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752. Since the first day of the year was January 1st on the Gregorian calendar adopted elsewhere in Europe and March 25th on England’s version of the Julian calendar, to avoid confusion, “double dating” was often used January 1st and March 25th. More details are provided at this link. ↩︎
2. This judgement awarding land to Mary Scott is not mentioned in Ridgefield land records. However, David Scott’s stepson, Vivus Dauchy, who purchased Scott’s home lot, subsequently received transfers and quit claims from David Scott and Mary Scott’s son, James Scott, and James Scott’s children. In May 1746, James Scott, then of Bethlehem, Hunterdon Co., New Jersey, provided a quit claim for two acres of land lying on the south side of “y^e Lane Commonly Called & known by y^e Name of Burts Lane,” bounded east by Town Street and south and west by Vivus Dauchy’s land. James Scott died around 1750, and in April 1753, for 3 pounds, 10 shillings, his sons James Scott and David Scott Jr. of Ridgefield deeded Vivus Dauchy 48 rods of land “in ye Easterly part of ye Lott Originally our Grandfather David Scotts,” bounded east by Town Street, north and west by Dauchy’s land, and south by “ye Land of Joseph Parkers heirs.” Joseph Parker married David Scott and Mary Scott’s daughter, Elizabeth Scott, so his heirs were also David Scott’s grandchildren. ↩︎
3. However, in November 1726, Elizabeth Scott alias Parker, of New Castle, Philadelphia, was forced to appoint as attorney her husband, Joseph Parker, to recover land from her brother. In January 1726/27, Joseph Parker signed off on having received 26.5 acres at Peespunk Brook and 27 pounds for the remaining 13.5 acres (Elizabeth not having got land at Mamanasco) from James Scott. ↩︎
4. Jack Sanders’ forthcoming Uncle Ned’s Mountain attempts to recover as much of that history as possible. ↩︎

References

Books and articles:

Bedini, Silvio A. 1958. Ridgefield in Review, The Ridgefield 250th Anniversary Committee, Inc., Ridgefield, CT; https://archive.org/details/ridgefieldinrevi00bedi

Jacobus, Donald Lines. 1968. “The Scott Family of Ridgefield, Conn.” The American Genealogist 44 (1): 9–14.

Rockwell, George L. 1927. The History of Ridgefield, Connecticut; https://archive.org/details/TheHistoryOfRidgefieldConnecticut/

Sanders, Jack. forthcoming. Uncle Ned’s Mountain: Three centuries of African-American farmers, slaves, soldiers, and saviors in a small New England town. Expanded edition.

Street, Charles R., editor. 1888. Huntington Town Records, including Babylon, Long Island, N.Y. Huntington and Babylon, NY; https://archive.org/details/huntingtontownre02hunt_0

Archival materials:

Divorce Papers, 1720-1799 (Fairfield Superior Court) – Connecticut State Archives / Genealogical Society of Utah (available on FamilySearch)

Connecticut Archives Series, Crimes & Misdemeanors,
First Series, Vol. 2 (available on FamilySearch)

Land Records, Ridgefield Town Clerk (available on Family Search)

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Susan Bigelow, librarian at the Connecticut State Library, for help locating sources.

Thanks to the Dartmouth Family History Centre, and for help from Ann Smith, for access to historical and archival records reproduced by the Latter Day Saints.

Thanks to historian Jack Sanders for sharing his work and providing feedback and advice based on his extensive knowledge of Ridgefield, past and present. Jack’s books can be found here.

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Copyright, December 2024, by Lisa Gannett — no reproduction or commercial use without permission of author