connecticut

Middletown State of Connecticut
Middletown State of Connecticut. Houses and other buildings are located on a hill sloping up from what appears to be a cove on a river. A church with a steeple is at the left; a cemetery and a large building that appears to be a warehouse are at the far right. Sailing vessles are at docks along the waterfront. Two people are in a rowboat; a small ship under sail is approaching from the right. In the foreground, cows are in a pasture surrounded by a rail fence. There are many leafy trees and one partially dead tree in the right foreground.; On recto, lower center, in pencil, "Middletown State of Connecticut".; lower left, in brown ink, "Middletown Conn. between 1799 & 1801 / Painted by Miss M. Russell / daughter of William Russell / the friend of Dr. Priestley Presented by her nephew W. J. Russell F.R.S. / June 1889." Accession Number 1889.5.0 Connecticut Digital Archive. Thanks to Connecticut Historical Society.

Connecticut

From The Loyalists of New Brunswick by Esther Clark Wright

“… Philip Hierlihy  –  Former home Connecticut.  Sgt. Prince of Wales American Regiment.”

From Connecticut: A New Guide by William Bixby

Excerpt from Pages 17 and 18

“… Unfortunately for Connecticut, England would not permit manufacturing to develop in the colony.  The powerful guilds would not issue licenses to permit production of many essential items – so Connecticut had to buy finished goods from the Mother Country.  Relations with England became strained – but in times of crisis, Connecticut leaders pledged the colony’s allegiance while continuing on an increasingly independent course … until the Revolutionary war, Connecticut supplied men for various wars that England found herself engaged in on this continent.  All of them were against the French and whatever Indian allies the French had at the time … throughout the pre-Revolution years of the 18th century, Connecticut was growing.  In population it grew from 30,000 in 1701 to 197,842 in 1774.  England increased taxes and the hated Stamp act went into effect November 1765 … Other onerous taxes followed.  In July 1774, the Connecticut Assembly met and chose three delegates to the First Continental Congress.  The aim of the Congress was to protest the loss of liberty as Englishmen at hands of the English government and the onerous tax policy that was injuring the economy.  Connecticut, with all the other colonies, stood on the brink of war.  When the break with England came touched off by the Battle of Lexington and the ‘shot heard around the world’, Connecticut men who favoured independence literally dropped what they were doing on hearing the news and marched away to Boston.  During years of war Connecticut served primarily as a base and supplier of war materials.  Tory support for the Crown was widespread and inevitably there were clashes between neighbours, between groups of Whigs and groups of Tories.”

Excerpt from Page 181

“… Middletown (Middlesex County).  Halfway between Hartford and Old Saybrook got Middletown its name in 1653 … it was the wealthiest town in all New England during latter half of 18th century.  Middletown’s wealth during that period sprang from shipping.  It was a thriving port doing trade with the West Indies and, alas, in the slave trade, also.  Like Portland across the river, Middletown built ships. Lumber and farm produce were its outbound cargoes.  Colonists from Wethersfield and Hartford first settled the town and after a moribund hundred years of farming, the shipbuilding boom struck.”

From Kingston and the Loyalists of the ‘Spring Fleet’ of 1783 by Walter Bates

Excerpt from Pages 7 to 9

“… The Episcopal church increased mightily in Connecticut.  Several of the Presbyterian ministers went to England and obtained Episcopal ordination and soon after their return churches were built in almost every town in Connecticut, to the great annoyance of the old Puritans who cherished great jealousy against the Church of England inherited from their ancestors.  Mobs were assembled for persecuting the loyal element in Connecticut.  Rebellion raised her crest in Connecticut with more insolence than in other parts, so loyalty has there exhibited proofs of zeal and fortitude beyond example to be found elsewhere.  In particular the clergy by their steady adherence to their oaths and firmness under the assaults of their enemies were a conspicuous example of fidelity.  Not one among them all in their fiery trial have dishonoured the King or Church of England.  The suffering of some of them within my memory I cannot pass over in silence.  In carrying out their systematic plan of persecution, the doors of the prisons were opened, and prisoners became the leaders of mobs, composed largely of negroes, vagabonds and thieves. Reverend Messrs. Mansfield and Viels were cast into prison and tried for high treason for giving food to loyalists flying from drunken mobs … Everything but decency and order overran the colony and frequent eruption was made in which many loyalists were disarmed, plundered and made prisoners.  The clergy of the Episcopal Church were particularly obnoxious in New England during the Revolutionary War.  This fact was in some measure due to the old antagonism existing between the descendents of Puritans and Church of England.  Meanwhile, in Connecticut organized mobs continued their acts of violence and outrage, breaking windows in the houses of Loyalists and crying out, ‘No Bishops, Kings, Lords or Tyrants’!  The New Englanders felt that the authority of the government of England and the National church must be crushed or their Puritanism overthrown.  It was this spirit largely which originated the late rebellion in America.

From Hierlihy CB File New Brunswick Museum

“… Timothy Hierlihy, son of Cornelius, served in the British army in America, Europe and again in America and retired with the rank of Lieut. Col., settling in Middletown, Connecticut.”

From The Markham Scrapbook by G. H. Markham

Excerpt from Page 102

“… Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Hierlihy – A native of Ireland, he migrated to America in 1753 and eventually settled at Middletown Connecticut, a small town on the Connecticut River about 25 miles south of Hartford, where he was residing at the outbreak of the War of Independence.  Shortly after his arrival in America the French and Indian War broke out in 1754, two years before the commencement of hostilities in Europe known as the Seven Years War.  Hierlihy served throughout the American campaigns which ended with the capture of Quebec in 1759.  Eight years later he purchased 100 acres of land at Hartwood, Massachusetts, which he rented to others, and 70 acres at Middletown, Connecticut.  He also owned property in Florida.  He paid £8 or £9 per acre for his Middletown land and 20 shillings per acre for that in Massachusetts, and built a house and barn on each estate.  In religion he was an Anglican and was a communicant at Christ Church at Middletown.”

From Timothy Hierlihy and His Times – The Story of the Founder of Antigonish, N.S. by C. MacGillivray

Excerpt from Pages 8 to 11

“… Timothy Hierlihy was born Ireland 1734, a descendant of an old ecclesiastical family, the chief’s of which were the hereditary stewarts of St. Gobnait’s Church at Ballyvourney, County Cork. … in 1753, a boy of 19, Timothy Hierlihy, arrived in the colonies to seek his fortune.  He located in Connecticut, and no doubt secured employment as a clerk for he possessed some education and wrote a neat hand – a qualification for success more important in those days than it is now … On 26th April, 1755, Timothy Hierlihy began his long military career.  Enlisted in 2nd Connecticut Regiment, and was appointed clerk in No.1 Company (Hierlihy’s enlistment and various promotions in course of French and Indian War are catalogued in the Connecticut Colonial Records) … the following month, at age 21, Hierlihy … married at Christ Church, Middletown, May 10, 1755, to Miss Elizabeth Wetmore … his son Timothy William was born in July.  The Hierlihy’s in Ireland have the Catholic tradition, but Timothy seems to have left that communion when he came to America, if he ever belonged to it.  No doubt his co-religionists in Connecticut at that time were extremely few in numbers, and the means of attending to his religious duties altogether lacking.  At ant rate he was married in the Church of England, his children grew up in that faith, and Timothy himself became a pew holder and definitely associated with the Established Church. …

As head of the Antigonish colony Colonel Hierlihy must have perceived almost at once that his men could not build up the settlement as laid out on Town Point and at the same time clear and till their farms, some of which were as far as 6 miles away.  Accordingly, on October 17, 1784, he is found addressing the following formal note to his son Captain Hierlihy.  ‘Mr. Patterson having left several triangular small lots unsurveyed in the Town Plott which he did not deem sufficient of large enough for Town Lotts; yet notwithstanding, for the encouragement of Tradesmen and Maccanicks to settle among us, I am to request you will lay out the said Lotts – beginning with Lieut. John Wheaton, Philip Hierlihy and Jonathan Shepherd’.  Philip Hierlihy, mentioned above, was probably a brother of the Colonel’s, but there is no record of his having come to Antigonish, otherwise.  He was likely the progenitor of the Hierlihys of Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, for these trace their descent from a Philip Hierlihy, who, leaving a brother in Nova Scotia, settled at Black Brook, now called Loggieville, New Brunswick, and later moved to Tabusintac.  Counting generations from Philip in New Brunswick one finds that he was certainly a contemporary of Philip in Nova Scotia, and in all likelihood was the same person.”

From Letter Written by Janet Hierlihy Wishart October 1, 1947

Wishart Point, N. B.
October 1, 1947

Dear Will and Evelyn,

‘So many thanks for your letter and the interesting book … I have read and reread it, and to-day I have made a copy of the most interesting facts in it.  It seems we were not direct descendents from Timothy – the Lieut. Colonel.  He was our great grandfather’s brother … uncle Jim (our brother) seemed so like him.  I believe you will notice the resemblance too … I am so glad that Jeanie Lewis, our father’s mother did her duty and brought up stalwart protestants in her family …

Notes by Mary Lynn Smith:

  1. I believe the ‘interesting book’ mentioned in the foregoing note was probably Timothy Hierlihy and His Times – The Story of the Founder of Antigonish, Nova Scotia by C.J. MacGillivray.  The latter was a Paper read before the Nova Scotia Historical Society at Province House, Halifax, November 12, 1935.
  2. Janet Hierlihy Wishart’s great grandfather was Philip Hierlihy, who was a husband of Charlotte Taylor.  According to her letter Philip was the brother of Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Hierlihy.  This is also the supposition of C.J. MacGillivray.
  3. Philip was perhaps a cousin, or possibly a brother, of Lt. Colonel Timothy Hierlihy.  Philip, born on 14 May 1749 (Cork, Ireland), was a son of Giulemus ‘William’ Hierlihy and Marie ‘Mary’ Wall.  Corneliuis Hierlihy was the father of Lt. Colonel Timothy Hierlihy.  It’s possible that Cornelius and Giulemus Hierlihy were one and the same, and if so then Timothy and Philip were brothers.  There was a definite relationship.  
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