Anne TAYLOR

Anne married Rev Benjamin LORD on 14 Jun 1720. Benjamin (son of Benjamin LORD and Elizabeth PRATT) was born on 31 May 1694 in Saybrook, Middlesex County, Connecticut; died on 31 Mar 1784 in Norwich, New London, Connecticut, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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The Rev. Mr. Taylor who married Elizabeth Fitch and settled in the ministry at Westfield, Mass., had been a theological student in the family of rev. Mr. Fitch and through this connection developed an affection for the daughter of his teacher.

A curious love letter that Elizabeth fitch received from Mr. Taylor before their marriage has been preserved, (if not the original, at least a careful copy), which Miss Caulkins appropriately says, "displays in a striking manner the quaint and metaphorical taste of the age, - a taste, the decline of which can not be lamented, since it seems better adapted to the display of an elaborate fancy, than to express genuine feeling."

The address was accompanied with a crude sketch of a carrier dove with an olive branch in its mouth. Rev. Dr. Taylor then proceeds to show "that conjugal love should exceed all other love" but in illustrating this point he forgets the role of lover for that of the theologian and tunes into the style of a sermon which would not prove popular as a present-day love-letter. the drawing of the dove and olive branch, however, prove without doubt that the Rev. Dr. Taylor was pressing an ardent love suit in which he was successful. He was a man of great erudition and left a large number of MSS. to perpetuate his memory. After the death of his first wife, Elizabeth (Fitch) Taylor, whose daughter Hepzibah married Hon. Jon Pynchon, Rev. Mr.Taylor married Ruth Wyllis of Hartford. One of their daughters, by this marriage, was mother of President Stiles of Yale University, while their only surviving son Eldred, was the progenitor of a numerous and distinguished family.

Edward married Elizabeth FITCH on 05 Sep 1674 in Westfield, Hampden Co., Massachusetts. Elizabeth (daughter of Rev James FITCH and Abigail WHITFIELD) was born in Jan 1651/2 in Old Saybrook, Middlesex, Connecticut, USA; died on 07 Jul 1689 in Norwich, New London, Connecticut, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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Rev. Mr. James Fitch arrived in this country in 1638, aged sixteen years, as stated by the inscription on his gravestone in the old cemetery at Lebanon, Conn. He was born at Bocking, County Essex, England on December 24, 1622, son of Thomas and Anne (Reeve) Fitch.

Rev. Mr. Fitch finished his theological training at Hartford, Conn., under the direction of the Rev. Mr. Thomas Hooker, who is named as a friend in the ill of Thomas Fitch of Bocking, and of Rev. Samuel Stone whose daughter married Joseph Fitch I.

The Rev. Mr. James Fitch is placed by Cotton Mather in his "second Classis" of New England ministers, consisting of "young scholars, whose education for their designed ministry not being finished, came over from England with their friends, and had their education perfected in this country before the college was come into maturity enough to bestow its laurels." (See Magnalia, I, 215, Hart. Edition).

In 1646, a church was organized at Saybrook, Conn., and the Rev. Mr. James Fitch was ordained as its first minister. This ceremony, a Congregational ordination in the strictest sense of the term, was graced by the presence of the Rev. Mr. Hooker, and Rev. Mr. Stone, and probably of Rev. Mr. Henry Whitfield, first minister of Guilford, Conn.

In the year 1701, the Rev. Mr. Fitch retired to Lebanon to spend the few remaining days of his eventful life. A Brief summer he passed inits quiet, secluded shades while death gently approached. Truly the inscription on his gravestone say, "he fell asleep in Jesus, Nov. 18, 1720, in the 80th year of his age."

James married Abigail WHITFIELD on 1 Oct 1648 in Connecticut. Abigail died on 09 Sep 1659 in Old Saybrook, Middlesex, Connecticut, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]