Richard Ely, of Plymouth & Lyme

Richard Ely "of Plymouth" brought a tankard and a seal ring with him to Plymouth. On them are the coat of arms of the Ely family in England, but seem to originate in France.

There were three settlements of Elys in America between 1630 and 1690. In 1635 there was a Nathaniel Ely living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in 1636 he formed one of a band of pioneers who penetrated the wilderness and made the first settlement at Hartford; there was the settlement of Richard Ely at Lyme, Connecticut; and there was the settlement of Joshua Ely, which dates from 1683, at Trenton, New Jersey.

There is a tradition in the family that the maiden name of Richard Ely's first wife was Joane Phipps, and there is good reason to believe the tradition is correct. This theory strengthens the belief that Richard Ely was connected with the family at Wonston, for the family of Phipps were prominent residents of that place.

"Hon. Smith Ely, Jr., while Mayor of the City of New York, received a letter from Rev. H. Gilder, rector of St, Peter's Church, Sandwich, County of Kent, England, which enclosed a "Plea for the Restoration of St. Peter's Church, Sandwich," a structure built in the reign of King John. In this printed plea is the following statement " 'In this church are some very fine monuments. In the north aisle is one of elaborate design (circa 1320), supposed to belong to the St. Leger family. There are also recumbent effigies of Thomas Ely and Margaret, his wife (who were great benefactors to the church and town), upon a table tomb (A. D. 1400), originally under a canopy, which is now entirely destroyed.' "Then follows an appeal with a view to raise funds for the restoration of the church." "Now, if the old Elys in England who were buried nearly five hundred years ago have begun to look up distinguished and thrifty individuals of the name on this side of the ocean, I am sure such favored Elys will bend their steps to the old tomb, and ask of those recumbent effigies, with their armorial bearings, the missing genealogical link."

Charles Merivale, Dean of Ely, thus writes to Z. Stiles Ely "I have found the name of Ely but twice among 20,000 of our Episcopal clergy, and two other times have met with it among the general population, but it is now of rare occurrence among us. I am well pleased to see that it has flourished so luxuriantly in the new soil to which it has been transplanted."

After his arrival in America, between the years 1660 and 1670, Richard Ely married his second wife, a Mrs. Cullick, who was a sister of Colonel George Fenwick. George Fenwick belonged to an ancient and honorable family of Northumberland that traced its ancestry from a De Fenwyke, who was the lord of the manor and castle of Fenwyke, in Stamfordham, Northumberland, in the time of King Stephen. George Fenwick was the great-grandson of Sir John Fenwick, chief of the name and ancestor of the Fenwicks of Wallington, Brinkburn, Stanton, Whitton, etc. The Brinkburn family was founded by Tristam, a grandson of this Sir John, who received, in the reign of Edward VI., a grant of Brinkburn Priory, on the river Croquet, about twenty-five miles northwesterly from Newcastle. Sir John Fenwick of Wallington, son of Tristam, was created a baronet by Charles I. in 1628. It is not quite certain whether George Fenwick was a son or a nephew of Sir John Wallington, but there is evidence that he was a member of this branch of the family, and nearly related to the Sir John Fenwick who emigrated to New Jersey in 1675.

George Fenwick was the founder of Saybrook, Conn., where he settled in 1639, under a patent from Lords Say and Brook; and one of his sisters married, May 20, 1648, Captain John Cullick, an early proprietor and prominent citizen of Hartford, and Secretary of the Colony from 1648 to 1658. Captain Cullick removed to Boston, and died there, in January, 1663. His widow was Richard Ely's second wife. It was through his wife that Richard Ely acquired the property known as Six Mile Island Farm, where Ely Landing and Ferry were established. This property, first taken up by George Fenwick, and afterwards passing, through the marriage of his sister, to whom he had given it, into the possession of the Elys, constitutes one of the oldest titles in America. The name of Ely's Landing is yet preserved, and portions of the farm are still, after two hundred and twenty-five years, in possession of descendants of Richard Ely.
Those who would more fully inform themselves as to the family history will find much to interest them in a perusal of the works referred to. Agnew's Huguenot Exiles. Almanach de Gotha, 1895, page 494. Appleton's New American Biography. American Ancestry, III., p. 78, VII., p. 137. Barber's Hist. Coll, of Conn., 328, 9, 513, 536. British Names, their Origin and Meaning. Barber. Caulkins' His. of New London, 166-69. Chambers's Encyclopaedia.

Excerpt: The Ely Ancestry

__________________________________________________________________

Origins are speculative. Detached as son of Rev. Thomas Elye, of Southamptonshire and Elizabeth Elye

Notes

Richard Ely married first Joane Phipps in about 1646 in England, and second he married Elizabeth Fenwick, widow of Capt. John Cullick, in 1664 in Boston, Mass.

He was a merchant, involved in shipping, active in civil affairs, and the largest land owner in Lyme, Conn.

-courtesy of Nareen Lake

ID: I32027 Name: Richard Ely Surname: Ely Given Name: Richard Sex: M Birth: 1610 in Plymouth, Devonshire, England Death: 24 Nov 1684 in Lyme, New London Co., Connecticut Burial: Nov 1684 Lyme, New London Co., Connecticut

Note: Richard Ely came to America around 1660-1663 and settled in Lyme, New London County, Connecticut. His first two wives were born and had died in England. His third wife was Elizabeth Cullick, widow of Captain John Cullick. She married Richard Ely in Boston in 1664

Marriage 1 Elizabeth Fenwick b: in , England Married: in Plymouth, Devon, England Children Has No Children Samuel Ely b: in Plymouth, Devon, England

Marriage 2 Joanne Phipps b: in , England Married: 1642 in Plymouth, Devonshire, England Children Has Children William Ely b: Oct 1647 in Plymouth, Devonshire, England c: 15 Oct 1647 in Plymouth, Devonshire, England Has No Children Judith Ely b: in Plymouth, Devon, England Has Children Richard Ely b: 1656 in Plymouth, Devonshire, England c: 19 Jun 1657 in Plymouth, Devonshire, England Has No Children Daniel Ely b: in Plymouth, Devon, England

Marriage 3 Elizabeth Cullick Married: 1664 in Boston, Suffolk Co., Massachusetts

https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=mikemath...

Richard Ely Born 1610 in Basingstoke, Hampshire, Englandmap Son of Thomas Elye and Elizabeth Gore Brother of Thomas Elye and Thomas Ely Husband of Joane (Phipps) Ely — married about 1646 (to 1660) in St John Parish, Devon, Englandmap Husband of Elizabeth (Fenwick) Ely — married 1664 in Boston, Massachusettsmap Father of William Ely, Judith (Ely) Phipps, Richard Ely and Daniel Ely Died November 24, 1684 in Lyme, New London, Connecticut, USA

http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Ely-117

Photo in media: Richard Ely’s Six-Mile Plantation, Lyme, Connecticut. From Moses Beach, The Ely Ancestry (1902). LHSA.

VisitExhibitionsCollectionsShopLearnSupport BLOG History Blog FEBRUARY 27, 2013 Documents: Lyme Family Slaves, Part 1- Arabella’s Dwelling Place

by Carolyn Wakeman

Feature Image (above): Ellen Noyes Chadwick, Drawing of Lyme’s first parsonage, ca. 1870. LHSA

A Negro slave named Arabella, of unknown origin, served in Lyme’s first parsonage. There she attended Rev. Moses Noyes (1643–1729) and his family until she passed by will to his daughter Sarah. The original Noyes homestead has been demolished, but Arabella’s dwelling place can still be imagined from a sketch drawn by artist Ellen Noyes Chadwick (1824–1900), based on her father’s descriptions. Settling Lyme The early history of slavery in Lyme remains shadowy. Tradition has long held that the name Black Hall given to the large tract on the Connecticut River’s east bank where Matthew Griswold (1620–1698) settled derived from a black servant’s location there after 1640 to watch over farmed plots. Already in 1648 when the land on the east side of the “great Riuer” was set off from the original Saybrook settlement, the area “3 miles eastward and six milles northward [was] called blak hal quarter.” Two decades later a court summons establishes the first known Negro servant in the new “plantation” that was “for the future named Lyme.”[1]

Black-Hall-map-detail

Town of Old Lyme (detail showing Black Hall), F. W. Beers, 1868. LHSA

black-hall-book-cover

Black Hall: Traditions and Reminiscences, showing cover drawing by Charles Griswold Lane (1867–1896) that imagines the first Griswold slave’s dwelling. LHSA.

Slaves were widely viewed as an economic necessity in colonial New England. A letter to John Winthrop (1588–1649), governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, from his brother-in-law Emmanuel Downing (1594–1676) advised in 1645: “I doe not see how wee can thrive untill we get into a stock of slaves suffitient to doe all our buisines.” Two of the governor’s sons became West Indies’ planters, but John Winthrop, Jr. (1606–1676), followed his father to New England, oversaw the building of a fort at Saybrook, founded a settlement at New London, and performed a marriage beside a stream now in East Lyme called Bride’s Brook.[2]

Barbados-map-1657

Illustrated Map of Barbados, from Richard Ligon, A True and Exact History of Barbados,1657. Bryn Mawr Library

ship-Arabella

The younger Winthrop also received advice about the economic benefits of slavery. A cousin wrote from Barbados in 1645: “they have bought this year no lesse than a thousand Negroes and the more they buie, the better able they are to buye. For in a yeare and a halfe they will earne (with gods blessing) as much as they cost.” By then a few slaves already contributed to the labor force in Connecticut, appearing first in Hartford in 1639 and later in New Haven in 1644.[3] The Negro servant at the Lyme parsonage was likely named after the ship Arabella that carried the elder John Winthrop to New England in 1630. Whether the slave Arabella came directly from Barbados or landed first in Boston is not known. Rev. Moses Noyes had grown up in Newbury, Massachusetts, where his father was a prominent clergyman, and graduated from Harvard at age 16. His youthful sermons in Boston had already established his reputation for learning and eloquence when he reached the settlement at the mouth of the Connecticut River that then numbered thirty families. Rev. Noyes began preaching at age 23 in a small Meetinghouse built from rough-hewn clapboards on the crest of a hill. He was over thirty when he married Ruth Pickett (1653–1690), daughter of a wealthy New London merchant who died at sea on a passage from Barbados. The town granted him an expanse of salt meadow and a 60-acre home lot to secure his settlement in Lyme, and he later added substantially to his properties. A local church historian, inquiring what terms would have “induced the young minister to leave his comfortable home in Newbury to become the Pastor in Lyme,” concluded that “land seemed to be the main consideration.”[4]

Whether other servants besides Arabella assisted in the Noyes household, harvested salt hay from the acreage on Great Island, or helped maintain the 90-acre parsonage farm during his 63-year ministry is not known. His brother Thomas Noyes (1648–1730), who inherited their father’s house in Newbury, owned two slaves.[5] Early Slavery in Lyme Slavery in seventeenth-century Lyme is sparsely documented, but Arabella and other early servants left traces. The New London County Court case confirms that Richard Ely (1625–1684) had already purchased at least one Negro to work on his 3,000-acre estate before 1670. The court summons that year required that he and his wife, along with “ye negro servant Moses,” answer a complaint from the town constable about the “prophanation of the Sabath.”

In 1675 Ely owned at least two slaves when he deeded to Richard Lord (1647–1727) “all my lands in the east side of the River, of Connecticut with all the housing fenceing cattle horses household goods and my tow Negers excepting and still reserving my wifes interest in my estate aforesaid.” It is thought that his eldest son William, before joining his father in Lyme, spent two years in Barbados entrusted to his uncle James Ely (–1688).[6]

Marrat-plantation1

West Indies sugar-cane plantation, from Jabez Marrat,In the tropics: or, Scenes and incidents of West Indian life. New York Public Library Digital Collection

Trade between the Lyme region and the West Indies began two years after Saybrook’s “outlands” were divided. Captain Greenfield Larrabee (1620–1661), an early proprietor who chose property on the east side of the river, carried local barrel staves to the islands on the shipTryall in 1650, presumably in exchange for sugar and rum.[7] Horses, needed for transport and the operation of heavy sugar presses, proved another valuable commodity in the early coastal trade. Richard Ely’s kinsman John Ely, a Boston merchant living temporarily in Saybrook, sent a shipload of horses raised by local landowners to Barbados soon after Rev. Noyes settled in Lyme. Each sorrel or roan was described by color, identifying features, and the owner’s specific ear mark. Ely sent a horse of his own with Captain John Chester on the ketch Dilligent in 1666 and stated his preference for payment in rum: “…in case my roan horse which I send by you as an adventure should come safe alive—at Barbadus that then you will use your utmost to dispose the same to sale for me for my utmost advantage for good Rum or else part rum and part sugar and to consign it to myself in Boston in the first vessel bound thither.”[8] Whether local mariners returned from Barbados with slaves as well as sugar and rum is not known. In a detailed history of Lyme families published in 1892, Edward and Evelyn McCurdy Salisbury offer only anecdote: “It is said that, in early times, cargoes of negro slaves were brought up the Connecticut River, and sold out from place to place.”[9] Slavery’s Traces As the coastal trade increased, barrel staves and livestock left Lyme in growing quantities, along with farm products that provisioned island plantations and barreled shad, considered the cheapest food for slaves. Growing commerce required new roads, bridges, wharves, warehouses, mills, fisheries, and shipyards. In 1710 the population numbered 750, and more slaves left traces in town.

Rook-Bradburys-Mill

Edward Rook, Bradbury’s Mill,ca. 1915. Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company

Edward DeWolfe (1646–1712), a skilled carpenter and millwright who built houses, repaired bridges, and furnished shingles and clapboards for a second Meetinghouse, owned at least one slave. His gristmill ground corn for the town three times a week, while his saw mill on Mill Brook produced boards and barrel staves. A court document in 1704 details an accusation from John Rayner in Lyme that Mingo, DeWolfe’s servant, had tried to kill him. Twenty-seven men from Lyme signed a petition attesting to Mingo’s good character that stated: “wee do nott Know of any Wronge that hee hath Dun to any person . . . Since hee Came to This Town.”[10] Trial records have not survived so Mingo’s verdict is unknown, but town meeting minutes document the rapid growth of barrel stave exports. In 1709 the town authorized Captain John Clark of Saybrook “to transporte Thirteen Thousands of Hogsed Staves which nine thousand of Them are upon Edward Dewolfes account.” At the same meeting it granted liberty to Richard Ely’s son William (1647–1717) “to tranceport from Lyme thirty three thousand of hogsed and barril stavs.”[11] DeWolfe’s eldest son Charles, also a carpenter, assisted with the work of the sawmill, but his grandson Charles, born in Lyme in 1695, sought new opportunity. At age 22 he left home to settle permanently as a trader and millwright on the French island of Guadeloupe. The DeWolfe family later became the primary importers of slaves to Rhode Island.[12] A year after the younger Charles DeWolfe reached Guadeloupe, an account book kept by Joseph Peck, Jr. (1680–1757), recorded receipts for hired Negro labor in Lyme. Peck itemized charges in 1718 of one shilling for a “black boy one day” and three shillings for a “black boy one day [with] harro.” By then, Peck had inherited his father’s warehouse and dwelling (now demolished), which stood to the south of Rev. Noyes’ parsonage and served as a tavern or “ordinary.”[13]

William-E-Coults-book-with-arrow

William E. Coult’s Book, showing mathematics lesson about wine measurements, ca. 1823. LHSA

Black-boy-one-day-1718-Peck-account-book

Joseph Peck, Account book, 1718, showing receipt for hired Negro labor. Connecticut State Library Manuscript Collection

Peck-account-book-1715

Joseph Peck, Account book, 1715, showing sales of sugar and rum. Connecticut State Library Manuscript Collection

In 1715 the younger Peck was already selling large quantities of rum by the pint and the quart as well as sugar by the pound. In addition to hiring out his plow, harrow, and ox team, he delivered wood by the sled load, provided hay storage in his barn, and sold wheat, oats, and beef. On at least two occasions he also sold slaves. In 1726 “For the consideration of the sum of Sixty pounds in Bills of Publick credit of the coloney of Conecticut to me in hand paid by Richard Lord Jun,” Peck sold: “A Certain molato Negro Girl named Temperance after the maner of a negro slave to Serve the sd Richard Lord his heirs and Assignes. . .during the Term of her natural Life.” Declaring that he was “the sole proprieter and Lawfull owner of the sd negro girl,” Peck stated his “good right & Lawfull authority [to] alieneate and Sell the sd negro girl.”[14]

IMG_0521_highlighted

Slave Deed of Sale, January 13, 1726, Lyme Land Records

Temperance, age 20, consented to her purchase: “I Temperence the above sd molato negro Girl doe freely consent to the above sd sale & further being come to [my] years of discretion doe freely so far as I have power put and binde my self and my heirs to the sd Lord and his heirs for the term of our naturall Lives in testimony here of I doe here by set my hand & affix my seal.” Below Joseph Peck’s signature “Temperance negro molato” marked an X.[15]

Temperance

Slave signature consenting to sale, January 9, 1729, Lyme Land Records

One of the elderly minister’s last official acts was to marry two slaves. A week after Temperance was sold: “Oxford negro man & Temprance molato girl the two servants of Richard Lord of Lyme were married together by ye Revd Moses Noyes the 21 day of January.” The town paid a bounty of four shillings to “Oxford negro man” for bringing in two fox heads in 1728. By then the servant couple had heirs. Zachery and Luke were born in 1726 and 1728 followed by Jordan in 1732.The birth date of a daughter Abiah is not known, but her baptism in 1731 appears in church records.[16] The four children remained legally bound in servitude to Judge Richard Lord (1690–1776) for the term of their natural lives.

Slave-marriage

Record of slave marriage, January 26, 1726, Lyme Land Records

Besides Temperance, “Joseph Peck Junr of Lyme” sold at least one other slave, a child. “In consideration of the sum of twenty five pounds…payed by Benjamin Reed of Lyme,” he made over in 1729 “one certain molato girl of about three years old: called Jane, To Have and to hold possess & injoy as his own proper estate free and clear…for ever during her naturall Life.” Jane’s parents are not known, nor is the date that Peck acquired a slave named Jack. Church records note only that “Jack man servant of Joseph Peck” died in 1738.[17]

Jane

Deed of Sale, January 9, 1729, Lyme Land Records

Judge Lord retained the slave couple for nine years. In 1735 he sold Temperance, age 29, Oxford, age 29, and their infant son Joell, age seven months, “all sound and in good health to ye best of my knowledge,” to Judge John Bulkley (1704–1753) of Colchester for 180 pounds. The deed of sale stated Richard Lord’s “good Right, full power and Lawfull authority to Sell said Man, Woman and Child, as Servants, during the Term of their naturall Lives,” and he obligated himself and his heirs forever to defend them as Bulkley’s slaves “against all…Endeavours of sd Slaves to free themselves.”[18] Whether Judge Lord also sold Abiah, or Zachery, Luke, and Jordan who were nine, seven, and three when their parents were purchased and removed from Lyme, is not known. The Salisbury family histories describe him as a genial man who “had a large household, with many slaves.”[19] Noyes Bequests Perhaps twenty adults and children remained in servitude in Lyme, along with Arabella, during Rev. Noyes’ ministry. When she passed by will to his daughter Sarah Noyes Mather (1683–1756) in 1729,[20] his sons had also acquired slaves. Whether any were Arabella’s children or grandchildren has not been documented, but the Negro woman in the minister’s household, like Temperance, would probably have produced heirs. When Sarah’s younger brother Dr. John Noyes (1687–1733) died at age 45, he left to his wife Mary Hudson Noyes (1705–1773): “negro boy called ‘Caesar’ negro girl called ‘Grace.’” His estate inventory lists: “one Negro youth called Warrick and one negro Girl calld Grace,” valued at 200 pounds. Two years later when “ye widow Noyes” remarried, her slaves became the property of her second husband William Ely, Jr. (1683–1759). His gravestone inscription states: “He was amongst the first who gave Freedom to his slaves, Therein doing as he would be done by,” but how many slaves he freed is uncertain. Grace died in 1734, but according to the terms of his will, Warrick and Caesar passed again to the twice-widowed Mary Noyes Ely.[21] By the time Sarah’s older brother Moses Noyes 2nd (1678–1743) wrote his will at age 75, he also had three slaves to distribute. Called Squire Noyes, he lived with his family and his slaves in a house built about 1726 on the site of the present Florence Griswold Museum. His will left to his “dear and loving wife” Mary Ely Noyes (1689–1764), a slave youth, “Richard Jimie (by name) until he comes of age.” To his son Moses 3rd, in addition to the homestead, Squire Noyes gave his “Negro man Jube, reserving half his time for six years which I give to Willm after he comes of age.” His unnamed “negro woman” passed to his wife and two daughters. The estate inventory valued “one Negro Man Servant named Jube” at 35 pounds.[22]

Mather-House-Lyme-st-photo-no_155

Old Mather house (now demolished) near the ferry on what was called Mather’s Neck. LHSA

Church records show that Arabella was baptized in 1734. Referred to as “Bella, (Sev’t of T. Mather),”[23] she had moved by then from the parsonage to Sarah Mather’s house above Lyme’s ferry landing. Sarah’s husband Timothy Mather, Jr. (1681–1755), a nephew of the renowned Boston minister Cotton Mather, was elected to several town offices and had continuing contact with Lyme’s early slaves. While serving as town constable in 1740, he boarded for eight months a negro man belonging to Thomas Clements. And when he appraised the estate of Daniel Sterling in 1747, he valued a Negro manservant at 250 pounds.[24] At age 74 Mather drafted his own will. To his wife Sarah he left one-third part of his farm “& the negro woman during the natural life of her mistress. If the negro woman outlives the widow she can live with either of my children which she shall choose but if the sd negro woman be not able to maintain herself then it is my will that my son Joseph maintain her at his own cost during her natural life.”[25] Sarah Mather died in 1756, a year after her husband. The date of Arabella’s death has not been found.

Warehouses-along-Lieutenant-River

Remains of warehouses along Lieutenant River, ca. 1900. LHSA

Although the Noyes family kept multiple servants, they were hardly alone in their slaveholding. As the town grew and prospered, governors, judges, military officers, ministers, deacons, doctors, merchants, mill owners, tavern keepers, and well-to-do farmers all owned slaves. Sea captains, shipyard owners, ship’s joiners, deckhands, coopers, blacksmiths, carpenters, mill workers, farmhands, shad fishermen, and day laborers benefited, in turn, from Lyme’s coastal trade.

[1] Special thanks to Bruce Stark, former Assistant Connecticut State Archivist; Betsey Webster, historian of the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme; Linda Winzer, Town Clerk of Lyme; and Carolyn Bacdayan, archivist at the Lyme Public Hall, for generous assistance in documenting the history of slavery in Lyme. Cited in Bruce Stark, Lyme, Connecticut: From Founding to Independence (Lyme Tercentenary Committee, 1976), p. 1.In Black Hall: Traditions and Reminiscences (Hartford, 1908), pp. 9-10, Adeline Bartlett Allyn notes that the name Black Hall could also be an adaptation of an English place name, like Black Friars Hall near Kenilworth or Black Hall Farm in Kent. See also New London County Court records, 1670, III:21.

[2] Downing suggested that a “just war” with the Narragansetts could provide captives and those men, women, and children could then be exchanged for “Moors.” Emmanuel Downing to John Winthrop, August 1645, in Winthrop Papers, 1645-1649 (Massachusetts Historical Society, 1947), V:38. The governor’s son Henry Winthrop had tried unsuccessfully to establish a tobacco plantation in Barbados from 1627 to 1629, but his son Samuel Winthrop settled permanently in 1647 as a planter in Antigua and served for three years as its Deputy Governor. When he died in 1674, his estate included 1,100 acres and 64 Negroes. See Richard S. Dunn, Sugar & Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624-1713 (Durham, N.C. 1972), pp. 50, 125-6. See also D. Hamilton Hurd, History of New London, Connecticut (Philadelphia, 1882), pp. 137-8; Frances Manwaring Caulkins, “Bride Brook,” in The History of New London, Connecticut (Hartford, 1852)

[3] Rev. George Downing to John Winthrop, Jr., August 26, 1645, cited in Dunn, p. 68. Winthrop’s cousin had served as a ship’s chaplain on his passage to Barbados.

[4] The ship was named for one of the wealthiest of the Puritan emigrants on that voyage, Lady Arabella Johnson (–1630), who died a few months after arriving in Salem. See Charles Ripley Damon, The American Dictionary of Dates (Boston, 1921), p. 26. A biographical sketch of Rev. James Noyes (1608–1656) appears in Charles Phelps Noyes and Emily H. Gilman, Noyes-Gilman Ancestry (St. Paul, 1907), pp. 5-12. See also Willis H. Umberger, ed., History of the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, Connecticut, 1665–1993 (Old Lyme, 1995), pp. 9-36; 24.

[5] Noyes and Gilman, p. 16.

[6] New London County Court records, 1670, III:21; Lyme Land Records (LLR) 1:37; Moses S. Beach and Rev. William Ely, The Ely Ancestry (New York, 1902), p. 38.

[7] Thomas A. Steeves, “Old Lyme: A Town Inexorably Linked to the Sea,” (Old Lyme, 1959), pp. 7-8.

[8] John Ely in Boston and James Ely in Barbados may have been Richard Ely’s brothers. LLR, 1:65.

[9] Edward and Evelyn McCurdy Salisbury, Family Histories and Genealogies (New Haven, 1892), I:138 .

[10]Bruce P. Stark, The New London County African American and People of Color Collection, 1701–1854. Connecticut State Library (2008). John Rayner (1667–) seems to have left Lyme in about 1717 when he sold his property to his brother Josiah.

[11] Edward DeWolfe’s Lyme properties and authorizations from the town are variously documented in land records and town meeting records. See Jean Chandler Burr, ed., Lyme Records, 1667–1730 (Stonington, 1968), p. 121.

[12] The slave trading of Mark Antony DeWolfe and his son James DeWolfe, who became a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island, are documented in George Howe, Mount Hope: A New England Chronicle (New York, 1959), Calbraith Bourn Perry, Charles DeWolf of Guadaloupe [sic]: his ancestors and descendants (New York, 1902).

[13] See Joseph Peck account book, Connecticut State Library Manuscript Collection. Forty years earlier the New London County Court had given permission to his father Ensign Joseph Peck to sell “cyder by retail during the want of an ordinary,” since there was no “house of common entertainment” in town. Cited in Ely-Plimpton Papers, Box 2, LHSA. Joseph Peck, Sr., relinquished his position as ordinary keeper in 1702, and the town voted “that Thomas Anderson shall have liberty to sell about one hundred gallons of Rume: out of Jares by the gallon or quart.” See Burr, p. 93.

[14] LLR 4:170.

[15] Ibid.

[16] Ibid.; Burr, p. 173; Umberger, p. 241.

[17] LLR 4:79; Umberger, p. 307.

[18] Cited in Salisbury, I: 293-4.

[19] Ibid., p. 138.

[20] Photocopy in Ely-Plimpton Papers, Box 6, LHSA.

[21] New London Probate Record 1733, #3840, Connecticut State Library; Beach and Ely, p. 34; Umberger p. 306; New London Probate Record 1759, #1945: “I do hereby Give and bequeath to my beloved wife Mary my two Slaves (viz) Warrick and Teazor [Caesar] to be at her own Disposall for Ever,” Connecticut State Library. Also see Barbara W. Brown and James M. Rose, eds., Black Roots in Southeastern Connecticut, 1650–1900 (Detroit, 1980), p. 586, and John Pfeiffer, “Slavery in Southeastern Connecticut: A View from Lyme” (unpublished ms, 2009), p. 4.

[22] New London County Probate Record, 1743, #3846, Connecticut State Library.

[23] Umberger, p. 242.

[24] See Timothy Mather v. Thomas Peck, in Stark, The New London County African American and People of Color Collection; and Mary Sterling Bakke, A Sampler of Lifestyles: Womanhood & Youth in Colonial Lyme (New Haven, 1976), p. 63.

[25] Timothy Mather’s will, dated September 22, 1750, and proved on August 26, 1755, is transcribed in Ely-Plimpton Papers, Box 5, LHSA.

https://florencegriswoldmuseum.org/documents-lyme-family-slaves-par... ___________________________________________________________________________________________

Descendant

The front gate of Ely Cemetery, a burying ground specifically for the descendants of Richard Ely. Photo Mandy Prue

The Ely family genealogy traces back eight generations to the beginning of the Lyme settlement. By the time Daphne was born November 11, 1891 in La Grange, Illinois, the family had dispersed. According to census records, in 1900 Daphne was still living in Illinois with her mother Emma, father Edward, and two brothers Ernest and Palmer. Sometime in the next few years, Daphne and her family moved to Connecticut, the home of their ancestors. The scrapbook encompasses the years when she was 20 – 24 years old and living in Hartford, where her grandfather Zebulon Stiles Ely was a prominent businessman. At some point, she must have moved back to the Ely family’s original home in Lyme because many letters addressed to her in Hartford have been redirected there. A 1911 invitation to the Boxwood Luncheon from the Boxwood Alumnae Association indicates that as a young girl, Daphne attended the Boxwood School, a boarding academy in Old Lyme where young ladies received an education in the French language, art, music, and etiquette. Daphne’s time at the Boxwood School was evident, according to her nephew Morgan Ely, who said she was the ideal lady, always dressed up and never wore slacks.

https://florencegriswoldmuseum.org/profiles-daphne-ely-1891-1981/

___________________

https://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=mikemather63&op...

_____________

Ely family Richard Ely 1610-1684 He came from England 1660

Ioane Phipps

— 1660

Judge William Ely

1647-1717

Elizabeth Smith

1662-1750

Much of interest concerning the Ely family,

prior to the coming to America of the Richard Ely

mentioned in this genealogy, may be found in a

book entitled "The Ely Ancestry," published in NewYork in the year 1902. The origin of the name, the

traditions, as well as the facts relating to those who

bore it, the coat-of-arms, etc., are treated at con-

siderable length therein.

Richard Ely left his home in Plymouth, Devon-

shire County, England, and came to America in

1660. He resided first in Boston and later settled in

Lyme, Connecticut, which at that time was a part of

Saybrook. Mr. Ely was a widower when he came to

America, his first wife, Joane Phipps, having died

in Plymouth, January 7, 1660. She is supposed tohave been a sister of Constantine John Phipps

(Baron Mulgrave), the great navigator and Com-

missioner of the Admiralty. A younger brother,

Viscount Normandy, was an officer of the British

Army. She had four children, the eldest of whom,

William (afterwards Judge Ely), was in the line

here followed.

Richard Ely's second wife, Elizabeth Cullick, was

the widow of Captain Cullick, one of the most noted

107

men in the colony of Connecticut. She was the sisterof Colonel Fenwick, a member of Parliament.

Richard Ely had three thousand acres of land,

including what is now called Ely's Ferry. Later the

town of Lyme set off to his sons, William and

Richard, thirteen hundred acres adjoining their

father's land for three hundred pounds, making an

estate of over four thousand acres in the posses-

sion of the Elys of Lyme. This was spoken of as the

"Great Meadows" or "Ely Meadows."

There are two family relics of peculiar interest

which belonged to Richard Ely — a tankard and a ring, both bearing the shield exhibiting the fleur-de-

lis. There is also a "chest and drawers of oak, carved

by hand, with ornaments of ebony — of baronial type

and of massive strength." This was a piece of his

household furniture, brought from England in 1660.

The Ely Reunion, held in Lyme, Connecticut, in

July, 1878, brought together about six hundred of

the descendants of the original Elys — among them

some who now bear other names and live, perhaps,

far removed from the New England homes of their

ancestors but are still Ely at heart.Olcott

Thomas Olcott of Hartford, Connecticut, an

original proprietor, whose lot in 1640 is exhibited on

108

the ground plan, with his name written Alcock (often

it appears Alcot), was a merchant who died late in

1654 or early in 1655 — the inventory of his estate

(large for that day) being of date of February 13,

1655. His widow, Abigail, died May 26, 1693, aged

seventy-two years.

Thomas (son of Thomas and Abigail Olcott) of

Olcott

Thomas Olcott of Hartford, Connecticut, an

original proprietor, whose lot in 1640 is exhibited on

108

the ground plan, with his name written Alcock (often

it appears Alcot), was a merchant who died late in

1654 or early in 1655 — the inventory of his estate

(large for that day) being of date of February 13,

1655. His widow, Abigail, died May 26, 1693, aged

seventy-two years.

Thomas (son of Thomas and Abigail Olcott) of

Hartford, Connecticut: born perhaps in England: Hartford, Connecticut: born perhaps in England:

freeman in 1658. Died in advanced years. His

widow, Mary, died May 3, 1721.

Thomas (son of Thomas and Mary Olcott) of

Hartford, Connecticut: married Sarah Foote of

Hatfield, Massachusetts. She was the daughter of

Nathaniel Foote, the third of this name (born Jan-

uary 10, 1647: died January 12, 1703). Sarah

Foote's mother was Margaret Bliss (born Novem-

ber 12, 1649: died April 3, 1745).

Margaret (daughter of Thomas Olcott and

Sarah Foote) was born April 12, 1705. Married

Captain Richard Ely in 1730.

https://www.readanybook.com/ebook/recollections-of-adriel-ely-and-e...

References

1. The Ely ancestry : lineage of Richard Ely of Plymouth, England, who came to Boston, Mass., about 1655, & settled at Lyme, Conn. in 1660 (1902).  Page 32
2. Find A Grave Memorial# 28721090
3. http://allenfamilyancestors.com/tngfiles811/getperson.php?personID=...
4. http://www.iheartcharms.com/genealogy/getperson.php?personID=I2705&...
5. http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/k/i/r/Kay-Kirkman-MO/WEB...
6. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/KLYB-HHZ