Josiah Lyman DEWEY

Other Events and Attributes:

• Occupation: A farmer at Lebanon, Connecticut

Josiah married Mehitable MILLER on 15 Jan 1690/1. Mehitable was born on 10 Jul 1666 in Northampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Dea. Josiah DEWEY, III was born on 1 Mar 1696/7 in Westfield, Hampden Co., Massachusetts; died on 30 Oct 1771 in Lebanon, New London Co., Connecticut; was buried in Old Yard Cemetery, Columbia, Tolland Co., Connecticut.

Notes:

Name:
The son of Thomas "The Settler" Dewey & his wife Frances, later the wife of George Phelps. Dewey married on 6 Nov 1662 at Northampton, MA to Hepzibah Lyman the daughter of Richard & Hepzibah Ford Lyman. The Deweys located at Northampton, MA about 1663 where Josiah learned the carpenter's trade and became a freeman in 1666. During King Philip's War he was a Sargent of the Guard at Westfield, MA.

He was a Quaker and in his religious discovery he says; "When I was entred into a married state I saw myself now under former ingagemnts of attending heart-searching & hearing Mr. Mather on the hearts hardness assert that there was no plague like unto that, I was affrighted there at & soon after hearing Mr. Eliot (now of Gilford) on a lecture sermon was so awakened as to resolve no longer to delay but to fall to search my own heart. But I found it hard & difficult work to keep my mind to it & sometimes I found that my heart would slip from ye work almost as soon as I was at it. So that I could find little rest."

He seems to have found that rest as he became a Deacon in the church at Westfield. In 1696 he moved to Lebanon, CT where he helped found the town, and where his name appears often in the early records.




The "Brief Notes of the Early History of the Dewey Family in America" states that Hepzibah had died about 1670/1 and that Josiah married as a 2d wife, Experience. However, the inscription on Hepzibah Lyman Dewey's headstone states she died in 1732. So I will will using that as Hepzibah's death and will removing be removing Josiah's 2d wife, Experience.

Josiah married Hepzibah LYMAN on 6 Nov 1662 in Northampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts. Hepzibah (daughter of Richard LYMAN and Hepzibah FORD) was born about 1644 in Windsor, Hartford Co., Connecticut; died on 4 Jun 1732 in Lebanon, New London Co., Connecticut. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Daughter of Richard Lyman and Hepzibah Ford

Notes:

Name:
Inscription:
Here lies ye body of ye worthy Mrs Hepzibah ye wife of Den Josiah Dewey She was the daughter of Mr Richard Lyman of Hartford She was one that feared ye Lord & slept in Jesus June ye 4, 1732 in ye 89 year of har age.

Notes:

Name:
THOMAS DEWEY, the Settler (spelled also in the Dorchester records, Duee), came to Dorchester, Mass., in 1633, from Sandwich, Kent, England, near the ancient town of Dover, and was enrolled as a freeman there, may 14, 1634. He removed about 1638 to Windsor, Ct., and m. there, march 22, 1638/9, widow Frances Clarke, by whom he had 5 children. He was cornet of the town troop of soldiers. he d. at Windsor, April 27, 1648. he was frequently juror and deputy to the General Court. His widow m. for a 3d husband, Nov. 30 1648, George Phelps, and soon afterwards removed to Westfield, Mass., with all the Dewey children except Israel, who remained in Windsor and d. there at an advanced age, leaving no issue. Thomas Dewey and all his descendants for several generations are believed to have been farmers.

Thomas married Frances ? on 22 Mar 1638/9 in Windsor, Connecticut. Frances was born in 1611 in England; died on 27 Sep 1690 in Westfield, Hampden Co., Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Son of Richard Lyman and Sarah Osborne
• Baptism: 24 Feb 1618

Notes:

Name:
Migrated to New England on the 'Lyon' arriving at Nantasket 23 August 1631 at age 13 with his parents and siblings Phillips, 20, Sarah 11, John, 8, and Robert, 2. Settled at Charlestown, Massachusetts, Hartford, Connecticut and Northampton, Massachusetts.

Richard married Hepzibah FORD before 1644 in Windsor, Hartford Co., Connecticut. Hepzibah was born on 15 May 1625 in Dorchester, Dorset, England; was christened on 15 May 1625 in Holy Trinity Church, Dorchester, Dorset, England; died on 11 Apr 1683 in Northampton, Hampshire Co., Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Daughter of Thomas Ford and Elizabeth (Charde) Cooke

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Son of Henry and Phyllis Lyman

Notes:

Name:
Born and bapt. at High Ongar, Co. Kent, son of Henry Lyman and his wife Phillis - this Henry was buried at Nairstoke in Essex April 15, 1587. Richard Lyman sold in 1629 to John Gower two messuages (?), a garden, orchard and divers lands arable, also a meadow and pasture at Norton, Mandeville, in the parish of Ongar. Came with Eliot in the "Lion" 1631; settled at Roxbury; freeman Mass June 11, 1633; the Church record at Roxbury tells how he went to Conn 'when the great removal was made' and suffered greatly in the loss of his cattle. He was one of the original proprietors of Hartford and in 1639 his home lot was on the south side of the 'road from George Steele's to the South Meadow'. Will dated April 22, 1640; inv. Sept. 6, 1641; will mentions his wife but she died before Jane 27, 1642/3.

An entry in the first volume of the records of Eliot's church in Roxbury, made probably by Eliot himself, speaks of him as "an ancient Christian but weake, yet after some time of tryal and quickening he joyned the church." This "time of tryal" delayed his admission as freeman until June 11, 1633, for none but church membrs wee entitled to this privilege. In 1636, near the beginning of June, in the company fo Revs. Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone, though one account speaks of his not going until "towards winter," he made the journey from Boston to Hartford, more than one hundred miles through a trackless wilderness. Richard Butler, another ancestor, was of the company. With no guide but the compass, and no cover but the trees, liable at any moment to attack from hostile Indians, they made their way over mountains and across rivers, through swamps and thickets, passable only with the greatest difficulty, driving with them one hundred and sixty head of cattle and subsisting by the way on the milk of the cows. They were but two weeks upon the journey, so that they must have travelled from eight to ten miles a day, a speed quite incredible except on the supposition that the forests were far more open than we find them today. This was probably the case, for the Indian practice of burning the fallen leaves every autumn must in a great degree have kept down the underbrush and destroyed the lower limbs of the trees, leaving the woods as in some old English park or the oak openings of the West. Through such woods it might have been possible to have made the journey in this brief space, but it would have taken Hooker and his company with all their impediments twice two weeks to have penetrated the tickets and tangles which are growing up today over much of their route. It is true there was an Indian trail known as the old Connecticut road, which started from Cambridge, ran to Marlborough, thence to Grafton and Woodstock and so on to Springfield and Albany, which possibly Hooker may have followed for some portion of the way, but even then, narrow as such trails were, he could not have made very rapid progress. Both Lyman and Butler were original proprietors of Hartford and owned land there in 1639. The Indians had called the home of the new colony "Suckiage," but the Colonists soon dropped it for the less suggestive and more euphonious name of Hartford. The first winter was one of unusual severity, against which the settlers were poorly provided, particularly Lyman, whose health soon gave way under the hardships of a new country, and he died in 1640. His wife did not long survive him.

Richard married Sarah OSBORNE. Sarah was born in England; died before 27 Jan 1642/3. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Daughter of Roger Osborne of Halstead, Co. Kent, England