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| Movement of Buell Family in Connecticut |
We were really quite surprised when we began our research on our Buell family ancestry to discover that there was an extensive book about this family that was written by Marian Buell Dye and titled
"The Forebearer's and Descendants of George Buell". Her book was published in 1968. What really fascinated us, at least at first, was that Ms. Dye had traced her Buell ancestry all of the way back to a man named Robert de Bauvill who was born in England sometime before the year 1154 and died on or after 1189. Even more exciting was that this man was believed to have been descended from a Robert Beauville who came over to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. In her book she traces her Buell ancestry down to and past a man named
William Buell (abt 1605-1681) who is both my 9th great grandfather as well as the first of our Buell ancestors to emigrate to America. He is also, at least according to Ms Dye, the 17th great grandson of Robert de Bauvill. What a family tree, although . . . . to bad as we soon discovered, that it is probably not accurate or at least there is no clear evidence that it is. In any case, our first known "for sure" Buell ancestor is our William Buell and we will begin by exploring what is known about his and his family's life in America.
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| Founders Monument in Windsor, Connecticut |
While it is not known for certain when and on what ship William Buell sailed on his voyage to America, some sources suggest he may have been aboard the
Mary and John which arrived in what is now Dorchester, Massachusetts on March 20, 1630. While William's name appears on a listing of "
Possible" passengers onboard
Mary and John as opposed to a listing of the
"Certain" or
"Probable" passengers, what we find very interesting is that around twelve of the
Certain and
Probable passengers were my great grandparents. Combine this observation with the fact that all of these great grandparents are listed as being amoung the earliest settlers of Windsor, Connecticut, as was my 9th great grandfather, William Buell, this makes us believe that he too was likely onboard the
Mary and John in 1630. Whether a fact or not, William Buell's name appears on the Founders Monument in Windsor that was built in 1930 and lists the names of 125 of Windsor's earliest settlers. Windsor as it turns out, is the first community settled in the future State of Connecticut with immigrants arriving in the year 1633, followed by the settlement of Wethersfield in 1634, and Hartford around the year 1635. Like the other early settlers of Windsor and so many of our other early ancestors in America, our William Buell was a Puritan who had left England to escape religious persecution.
Life was not easy for these early settlers of Connecticut for in the year 1636 they were forced to organize groups of soldiers to defend themselves against the Pequot Indian warriors who were attacking these new white settlers in numerous raids against their communities. Apparently the leaders of Windsor gathered together a group of around thirty soldiers to help battle the Pequots and it is believed that William Buell was one of these soldiers. While his name does not appear in any listing of the soldiers and the list is incomplete in any case, following the war around 1638, William Buell was one of the recipients of free land grants from his town most likely because of his service in the Pequot War. As a young single man at the time, his involvement in the war makes a lot of sense.
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| Book listing Woodworker William Buell |
In November of 1640 William Buell married in Windsor a young girl by the name of Mary, my 9th great grandmother. Her maiden name is often listed as
Mary Post although considering that nowhere could we find any of the early settlers in Windsor with a surname of Post, we have to wonder as to the accuracy of her surname. On the other hand, one of the early settlers in nearby Hartford, Connecticut was a man by the name of Stephen Post who some of the family trees on Ancestry.com claim was a brother of our Mary. Whether this is an accurate fact or not is unknown. There are also other stories that claim that Mary and her parents were accidently placed on two separate ships in England, with Mary on the ship
"Mary and John" and her parents placed on a different ship. Unfortunately the second ship is said to have been destroyed and then sunk due to a major storm and her parents were drowned. Who knows if this is accurate and frankly it seems unlikely. In any case, William and Mary are known following their marriage ten years later, to have had at least seven children including my 8th great grandfather and their oldest child,
Samuel Buell (1641-1720) who was born on 2 September 1641. As far as we could determine our great grandfather William Buell was not a major leader in Windsor although his role as a carpenter, or a
"Woodworker", made him a valuable person as he helped build a lot of the much needed furniture for all of his neighbors for many years. William died in November of 1681 and Mary died three years later in September 1684. Based on both of their wills, they were fairly well off especially considering that William was able to leave both land, and
"My Tools" to his two sons and of course other items including money to his daughters and land and money to his wife.
Their son,
Samuel Buell, married my 8th great grandmother,
Deborah Griswold (1646-1719) in November of 1662. Deborah's father and my 9th great grandfather,
Edward Griswold (1607-1691) was also an early founder of Windsor as well as being a very prominent citizen including being the First Deputy to the General Court, a Justice of the Peace, and the First Deacon of the first church in Windsor and noted as a powerful preacher of the Puritan faith. Deborah is believed to have been the youngest daughter of her parents who had somewhere around fourteen children following their marriage around 1630. Samuel Buell undoubtedly had great respect for his father-in-law for less than a year following his marriage to his father-in-law's daughter, he joined Edward Griswold and around 28 other families when they departed Windsor in 1663 and moved southward around 50 miles to what many years later would be known as Clinton, Connecticut (or earlier known as Kenilworth and then Killingworth) located only a few miles north of the Long Island Sound. The land had only a few years earlier been purchased from the local Indians.
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| Buell Tool Museum, Clinton, Connecticut |
Despite the fairly young age of Samuel Buell when he moved southward, he is still credited with being one of the original founders of
"Killingworth" (Killingworth later was divided into two separate communities and where our Buell family lived is now known as Clinton). He also as he aged became a very prominent and wealthy individual. He was both a member of the General Court and a Justice of the Peace as well as other public offices for many years during the late 1600s and early 1700s. He is also recorded as being an
"extensive land owner" and like his father he was in the lumber and tool business, a business that he obviously passed along to his descendants for we discovered, today in Clinton, Connecticut there exists a museum containing a lot of old tools known as the
Buell Tool Museum.
We also noticed in several different documents online that Samuel Buell was listed as having
military service. We could not find any details regarding his possible service although local communities having local part time soldiers was very common during this period of history and our great grandfather was undoubtedly one of their local military officers. It is also very possible that Samuel Buell was one of the many Connecticut soldiers who fought in the King Philip's War which took place between the years 1675 and 1678. The King Philip's War was one of the largest of the many Indian Wars that took place following the arrival of the white men in America and in this case during the war as many as 3,000 Indians were killed and around a 1,000 white men. Furthermore more than half of the New England villages were attacked during the two plus years of fighting. Unfortunately for the Indians whose total population in New England only numbered around 10,000 at the time (many Indians had previously died as a result of diseases brought to America by the white men) as compared to a population of almost 80,000 whites, they had no hope of victory and the war pretty much ended with the death of their Indian leader, a man known as Metacomet who was also known as King Philip. At least 1,000 men from Connecticut are believed to have engaged in battles and it is very, very likely that our great grandfather, Samuel Buell, was one of these men and one of their military leaders.
My great grandparents Samuel and Deborah Griswold Buell also raised a large family during their long lives in Clinton as they had around twelve children, eight boys and four girls including their sixth child and my 7th great grandfather,
William Buell (1676-1763) who was born on 18 October 1676. [
Not surprisingly their next child, a son named David, was not born until 1679 as Samuel may very well have been away from home for awhile battling against Indians.]
My great grandmother Deborah died three years before Samuel in the year 1717. She was around 71 years old. Samuel died on the 11th day of July in the year 1720 at the age of 78. Despite his old age, only two months before his death he had again been reelected by the General Court as a Justice of the Peace, clearly showing that he was, despite his older age, a highly respected individual in his community. One other interesting occurrence that took place in Clinton during Samuel's lifetime is worth mentioning. We would have to believe that our great grandfather Samuel Buell as a public leader was a friend of the Rev. Abraham Pierson who both lived in Clinton having moved there in 1694, and was the head of their local Congregational Church. In 1701, the Rev. Pierson along with others helped organize a small school at his home in Clinton where he then functioned as its teacher with the intent of training future Congregational leaders. The school was later to be known as the
Collegiate School. Unfortunately the Reverend died in 1707 but his school by then was so well respected that they moved it first to nearby Old Saybrook and then to New Haven located about 25 miles west of Clinton. In 1718 they renamed the school the
Yale College and of course years later in 1887, it was to be known as Yale University. We now have to wonder if some of the sons of our Samuel Buell might have studied in the future Yale University under their father's friend the Rev. Abraham Pierson.
To be honest, we are still a little confused about the life of my 7th great grandfather,
William Buell, despite having spent more than a few hours trying to learn about his life. Based on his father's will and being his parents' sixth child, we can understand why he did not inherit much in the way of money and land following his parents' deaths. Perhaps for this reason he moved away from his home in Clinton sometime in the late 1690s. He may very well have traveled with his older brother John Buell, who is known to have moved around the same time to Hartford, Connecticut. In 1695, my great uncle John Buell married a young girl in nearby Windsor named Mary Loomis. Mary Loomis as it turns out, was the granddaughter of my 10th great grandfather
Joseph Loomis (1590-1658) who was an early settler of Windsor and whose ancestral story is told in Chapter 55 in this blog. Mary Loomis' father, John Loomis, is believed by some family historians to have been one of the earliest settlers of Lebanon, Connecticut and if so, it makes sense that his daughter and her new husband John Buell might very well have followed her father and mother to this only recently settled community. Our great grandfather William Buell is believed to have married
Elizabeth Collier (1675-1729), my 7th great grandmother, sometime around 1705 in Hartford and since they are also known to have moved to the new community of Lebanon, it make a lot of sense that William and his new wife may very well have traveled to Lebanon with or shortly following his older brother John and his new wife.
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| Gravestone of William Buell |
While we do not know much about the life of William Buell in Lebanon we did find one historian noting that written on William's gravestone are the words
"One of the Fathers of the Town" which certainly implies that he was not an unknown man of his time, at least in Lebanon. While we have no reason to doubt what is on his gravestone, the photograph of his gravestone shown to the right, leaves us wondering how anything can be read on this over 250 year old gravestone. Anyway, William and Elizabeth Collier Buell were to have seven children including my 6th great grandfather and their second child,
Samuel Buell (1708-1759), before Elizabeth's rather early death in 1729 at the age of only 54 years old. At the time of her death her youngest child had already passed away but her other children ranged in age between 9 years old and 23 years old. Not surprisingly considering their many young children, William remarried in the year following my great grandmother's death, but his second wife also died in 1751. Again not surprisingly in this time period where living alone was very uncommon, William again remarried for a third time within months of the death of his second wife. Unfortunately for our William, his third wife also died within a year of their marriage and William was again left alone. Most likely no more woman were interested in marrying him at this point as he was now in his mid-70s. He did survive however, for twelve more years probably living with one of his children and then finally dying on 7 April 1763 at the age of 86 years old. At the time of his death only four of his seven children were still alive. His son and my 6th great grandfather, Samuel Buell, died almost four years before his dad.
My 6th great grandfather,
Samuel Buell (1708-1759)
, married
Ann Wright (1709-1748), my 6th great grandmother, in Lebanon in the year 1727. Ann's parents and my 7th great grandparents,
Abel Wright (1664-1745) and
Rebecca Terry (1673-1745) had moved to Lebanon in the year 1700 and it is highly likely considering the small size of Lebanon that their daughter Ann had known her future husband Samuel from the time that they were young children. Ann was only 18 years old when she married 19 year old Samuel Buell. They are believed to have had six children at their home in Hebron, Connecticut, located about ten miles west of Lebanon, before they made the unusual decision around the year 1739 or 1740 to move to the new community of Kent (in present day Litchfield County), located at the western end of Connecticut and about 75 miles west of Hebron. Kent had been founded only a few years earlier and considering that at the time they moved Samuel and Ann had at least four young children alive at the time. This fact alone would seem to make their move highly unusual. Another thing that is unusual or perhaps confusing is that in a book titled
The History of Kent published in 1897, they failed to mention our Buell family ancestors among the early settlers. On the other hand, they did mention a man named Abel Wright who arrived in 1638 and who was likely Ann Wright's brother and my 6th great uncle. He was about fourteen years older than his sister Ann and might very well have convinced her and her husband to make the move to this new community where land was inexpensive and perfect for farming. Despite this error in this old history book, it is very clear that Samuel and Ann had moved and had three more children who were born in Kent including my 5th great grandfather,
Ephraim Buell (1741-1821) who was born on 21 August 1741.
Not surprisingly we know very few details about the life of our Samuel Buell in part we suppose because he lived in a small rural town where the primary occupation was that of a farmer and also because this small town did not maintain a lot of records of their early residents, at least records that have survived to the present day. While the town was noted at one time in the past to be
"a thriving iron ore producer" it is doubtful that Samuel had anything to do with this business at least from a leadership position. He was we believe, a small farmer who grew crops and perhaps raised sheep and cattle. The land was hilly and rocky such that work as a farmer was probably not easy. Unfortunately we know that my great grandmother Ann Wright Buell died in 1748 at the fairly young age of only 39 years old. She had given birth to ten child over a 19 year period and combining that with being a mother was not easy work. Her youngest child had died at only 7 months old, only four months before Ann saw the end of her own life. Their two deaths were no doubt related. Samuel Buell married a woman named Mary Judd less than a year following my great grandmother's death, but she too died in 1754 after giving birth to two children. Perhaps it was just Samuel's personality or just his good looks, but he married for a third time shortly following Mary Judd's death, but his time Samuel Buell takes responsible for ending his 3rd marriage by his own death on the 4th of May in 1759. He was only 50 years old at the time. His five living children at the time of his death were ages 15 to 23 and my 5th great grandfather Ephraim Buell was just 18 years old.
Their son,
Ephraim Buell, married my 5th great grandmother,
Priscilla Holmes (1744-1820) on the 22nd day of February in the year 1764. Priscilla was the daughter of
Israel Holmes (1713-1807) and
Priscilla Cushman (1719-1763), both my 6th great grandparents, and she was born in Plympton, Massachusetts near Boston. Priscilla Holmes' mother died less than a year before her daughter married and at the time their family had moved from Plympton and were now living in the village of Warren in Litchfield County located around 8 miles or so west of the village of Kent where the Buell family lived. We found it quite interesting to learn that Israel Holmes was a great grandson of
Edward Doty who was a Mayflower passenger and whose family history is told in Chapter 42 of this blog. Also Priscilla Cushman's ancestry is told in Chapter 43 of this blog, and she too is a descendant of another Plymouth passenger,
Isaac Allerton. We have to wonder if Priscilla was aware of her descendance of these later to be very famous Mayflower passengers.
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Map showing locations of Fort Ticonderoga,
Fort Edward, and Village of Castleton
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Apparently Ephraim and Priscilla Holmes Buell moved away from their home in Litchfield County, Connecticut shortly following their marriage for all of their nine children are believed to have been born in Fort Edward, now in Washington County, New York. Fort Edward is located on the Hudson River around 130 miles north of Litchfield County and it had originated back in 1755 when a fort was built there during the French and Indian War fought between 1754 and 1763. Ephraim having moved his family there makes us wonder if perhaps he had been to this area in the past. According to one of the records that we found, in 1761 there was a soldier who fought in the French and Indian War whose name was Ephraim Buell. He was a soldier with the 4th Company in the 2nd Connecticut Regiment under a Col. Nathan Whiting. Our Ephraim Buell was 17 years old in 1761 and it is very likely that it was he who was this soldier especially considering that his name Ephraim Buell was not that common. Fortunately for Ephraim, the French and Indian War in America had pretty well ended by 1760 so while he may have volunteered and is credited with being a soldier, he did not in fact face a lot of risks. Incidentally, there are some family historians that report that Ephraim and Priscilla actually moved to Castleton in present day Vermont rather than to Fort Edward. Which location is accurate we could not determine although the fact that the two villages were only 36 miles apart might mean that they had lived at some point in both locations or perhaps somewhere between the two villages.
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| Present day photo of Fort Ticonderoga |
The fact that Ephraim Buell was later to be a Captain in the Vermont militia during the American Revolution would lead us to believe that his home was, at least at some point, in Vermont. Vermont of course, was not technically in existence as a separate "state" prior to the Revolution and the fact that Ephraim might actually have lived in New York "State" would not have precluded him from commanding a militia based in Castleton, Vermont. Furthermore, Ephraim was for a period of the Revolutionary War, a member of Vermont's
"Green Mountain Boys" under the command of Brigadier General Ethan Allen. Ethan Allen was a resident of Litchfield, Connecticut prior to the war and he may very well have been acquainted at a younger age with Ephraim and the Buell family. Allen also fought in the French and Indian War and most likely would have known Ephraim during this period. Castleton as it turns out played an eventful part in the American Revolution in that in May of 1775, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold planned their attack on Fort Ticonderoga in Castleton. Fort Ticonderoga was only 30 miles to the southwest of Castleton or just to the north of Fort Edward. Ephraim Buell is referenced in "Wikipedia" as being part of a committee that considered the
"advisability of taking control of Fort Ticonderoga" and no doubt he was part of the forces that attack and took control of Fort Ticonderoga from the British on 10 May 1775. According to the few Revolutionary War payroll records that we reviewed, Ephraim served in the Vermont militia from 1775 until 1781 although not on a full time basis. The role of Ephraim's regiment was listed in one source as
"scouting for security of the frontiers". Whether or not Ephraim Buell played a role in Ethan Allen's attempt to take control of Quebec in September of 1775 is not known. His name does appear in military payroll records in three subsequent periods, in June 1777, December 1779, and October 1781 and undoubtedly there were more time periods where the records may have been lost. Also he may not have always been a member of the Green Mountain Boys as it is noted in records that this regiment was disbanded as early as 1776. What is also known is that Ethan Allen along with some of his troops were captured by the British during a failed attempt to take control of Montreal in August of 1775. It would seem unlikely that our Captain Ephraim Buell would have been a part of Allen's troops at this point.
Ephraim and Priscilla's fourth child was a girl named
Elizabeth "Betsy" Buell (1774-1825), my 4th great grandmother who was likely born in Fort Edward, New York in 1774. After the end of the Revolutionary War and sometime by the mid-1780s, Ephraim Buell moved his entire family to a new settlement in the Finger Lakes region in the future New York State. His family by that point consisted of his wife and his seven children including his oldest son Salmon who had only recently married. Their new home was near the present day city of Ithaca, New York. It was here at their new home that Ephraim and Priscilla had two more children including their last child, a daughter, who was born in 1787. What we find truly amazing is that sometime in the early 1800s they moved again, this time to the future state of Ohio. Their daughter and my great grandmother, Elizabeth Buell, did not join her parents in their move to Ohio as in June of 1790 in Ithaca, she married my 4th great grandfather,
Silas Hutchinson (1758-1836). It might very well be that Elizabeth never again saw her parents as they both died in Crosby, Ohio, her mom Priscilla on 5 January 1820 and her dad, Ephraim, only a year later on 4 January 1821. Why they moved while in their early 60s to what was probably at that point a total wilderness area, is a complete unknown. Apparently these ancestors of ours were just true adventurists of strong stock.
My 4th great grandparents,
Elizabeth Buell and
Silas Hutchinson had ten children together including my 3rd great grandfather,
Mosely Hutchinson (1795-1836) all of whom were born in Ithaca, New York. From my Buell and Hutchinson family down to the present time our ancestral tree is as follows:
Elizabeth Buell m Silas Hutchinson
(1774-1825) (1758-1836)
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Mosley Hutchinson m Elizabeth Hall
(1795-1861) (1801-1877)
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Mary Hutchinson m David Ferree
(1825-1901) (1826-1869)
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Eugene Ferree m Marian Coapman
(1866-1952) (1867-1895)
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Florence Ferree m Douglas Patterson
(1891-1938) (1888-1979)
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Marian Patterson m Charles Baker
(1916-1973) (1916-2000_
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Charles Baker Jr
Anne Baker Fanton
Joan Baker
And so ends another ancestral story . . . . .
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