Isaac and Dorothy Case Pettibone

Date: 1746 to 1819
Location: Norwalk, Ct.
Surname/tag: Pettibone, Case, Seward

The first name of Dorathe Case was spelled Dorothy in the records of Norfolk, Connecticut, records, but it is spelled Dorathe in all the land records of Vermont in which she was personally involved; she was also often called Dolly. Both Isaac and Dorathe were offspring of men who were active in town and church affairs in Norfolk, Connecticut, but only a few records of their own lives have been discovered. One, found in the records of the Norfolk Church of Christ, records the baptism of eight children in the family, the oldest of whom is listed as Joseph Pettibone [Baptisms, Marriages, Burials taken from Church Records of Reverend Ammi Robbins, First Minister, Norfolk Connecticut, pp. 43, 44, 47, 48, 50]. However, a collection of family records, typed by Nancy Russell (Cordis) Carter and found in the Norfolk Public Library, states that before her marriage to Isaac Pettibone, Dorathe Case was Dorathe (Case) Seward, widow of Joseph Seward, whom she married 5 August 1773, and by whom she had one child, a son named Joseph [Carter, “Some Records of Norfolk, Connecticut Families"]. In this record it is therefore assumed that the "Joseph Pettibone" baptized in 1784 along with three Pettibone children, was born Joseph Seward. No further record of him has emerged. The U.S. Federal Census of 1790 lists the family of Isaac Pettibone as: 1 free white male 16 years & up, including heads of families; 3 free white males under 16 years; and 3 free white females, including heads of families. These age ranges fits Isaac’s family in 1790: Isaac, over 16; three sons Erastus, Isaac, and Roswell, under 16; and three white females, Dorathe, the mother, and two daughters Sarah and Nancy, no ages given.

By 1800 the family lived in the small village of New Haven, Addison County, Vermont. On paper, New Haven had existed since 1761, when Governor Wentworth of the Colony of New Hampshire granted to sixty-two colonial entrepreneurs who were interested in establishing a new settlement there a large area situated on the westernmost edge of the lands New Hampshire claimed west of the Connecticut River. One of the grantees was J14 Samuel Pettibone, the lawyer from Goshen, Connecticut, and many others were Connecticut men. But not until 1787 was the first town meeting called in New Haven [Harold Farnsworth, New Haven in Vermont, 1761-1963, pp. 5'-6, 12-16, 38]. New Hampshire Colony received fees ranging from 100 to 700 pounds from each grantee; unfortunately, the Colony of New York claimed all the of the same territory and was eager to collect fees of its own. Neither colony would give up its rights. Starting in 1754, Governor Wentworth granted lands for township after township in the mountainous wilderness both east and west of the river. New York challenged every New Hampshire grant, sending sheriffs and sometimes troops to force evacuation of New Hampshire grantees who had already settled their claims, some of whom banded together and fought back. Only the hardiest individuals settled their grants in the New Hampshire grants, but those who did proved to be absolutely determined to be free men. Those who prevailed became known as the Green Mountain Boys, who in the Revolution formed the core of the independent militia which held the British at bay in the “Hampshire grants” north of Massachusetts and west of New Hampshire all the way to the border of Canada during the Revolution. Bitter hostility continued between the two colonies and the citizens along their borders even after the Revolution started, but the war did force a lessening of actual combat between them, as both were forced by circumstances to redirect their energies toward defeating the British. On January 15, 1777, fifty-eight delegates representing thirty-five towns in the New Hampshire grants—twenty-five west of the Connecticut River and ten towns east of the river—declared their combined territory an independent state by proclamation, its title to be New Connecticut. This bold and totally unprecedented action, taken by a constituency which had as yet no formal government, aroused wild enthusiasm throughout the New Hampshire grants. A second convention held in June 1777 created a new name for the state, Vermont, because an area in Pennsylvania already used the name New Connecticut; and in July the convention produced a constitution for the state and elected a Council of Safety consisting of twelve men empowered to act as an executive body until the constitution could be passed and regular governmental bodies established. In rapid order laws were promulgated: for the first time slavery was forever prohibited, freedom in religious matters and freedom of speech and of the press were guaranteed, and the right to vote was given to every man over twenty-one years of age.

Thus Vermont became essentially a small independent republic, since it was formed under its own cognizance. Several crucial victories won in the Revolution by the Vermont militia gained respect from its neighbors, and after the war Vermont negotiated its borders with Massachusetts and New York peacefully, giving up several small areas but retaining all of the original thirty-five towns whose representatives met in its founding convention in 1777. In 1791 Vermont became the fourteenth state of the union after fourteen years of the most nearly pure democratic government in the nation [Encyclopedia Americana, 1932, s.v. Vermont, 28:24-28]. Meanwhile, western Connecticut was suffering a long period of devastating disasters, perhaps the worst in its history. One Abiel Brown, of West Simsbury, kept a record of the events:

1779 an early spring followed by a killing frost that ruined the fruit crop

1779-1780 a very severe winter causing great suffering

1788 wet, cold, unfruitful summer, grain of all kinds very poor, and a great hurricane in August which flattened the com and destroyed great groves of trees, entirely destroying some buildings

1789 an uncommon scarcity of bread and almost a famine was occasioned by the events of the previous year.

Many families were living on bran or rye and many were troubled to find even that coarse fare. . .It was a time of extreme suffering among the people until the last of July. . . the summer was fruitful.

. . in October appeared among us the epidemic called influenza. It proved destructive to many. . . and appeared again in April and May 1790

1793 a year of much sickness among children and youth, the disease was canker rash or scarlet fever, which sent mourning among many families

1794 spring was uncommonly early and forward, apple blossoms were seen in April and vegetation progressed rapidly and were followed by the young fruit. . . on the night of the 17th of May, there came a destructive frost that killed fruit and vegetation, which was so forward that even rye was killed, and garden production, all that could be hurt by a frost, was destroyed. . . [Brown, Early Settlers of West Simsbury, pp. 144-146]

During that period Reuben Munger, who had married a sister of Dorathe (Case) Pettibone, moved with his family from Norfolk to Middlebury, Vermont, where they became some of the earliest settlers of the town. The date of the Mungers’s arrival in Vermont is not known, but Isaac and Dorathe’s family later moved to Middlebury from Norfolk at some time before 1795 [H. Perry Smith, History of Addison County, Vermont, p. 392], when they bought their land and built a house in New Haven a few miles north of Middlebury. During the decade 1790-1800, the number of children living in the Isaac Pettibone home naturally changed considerably, but several calculations show that the data given in the U.S. Census of Vermont, 1800, again fits the sparse data available from other sources. The figures are as follows: 1 free white males under 10; 2 free white males 10 under 16; 1 free white male 16 under 26 including heads of families; 0 free white males 26 under 45 including heads of families; and 1 free white male 45 up [sic]; 1 free white female under 10, 0 free white females 10 under 16; l free white female 16 under 26; 1 free white female 26 under 45; and 0 free white female 45 up. To assign these ages to each person in Isaac’s family, Loren would be the one boy under 10; Truman and Roswell would be the two boys 10 and under 16; if Isaac was born before the census was taken in 1800, he would have been 16 and under 26; Erastus could have been old enough to be working on his own and out of the household; and Isaac the father would have been over 45; of the females, Lucy was under 10, Nancy was married early in 1800 probably before the census was taken, and the whereabouts of Sarah is unknown; she may have married young or died after 1790.

The only other documented items of information about the family are found in land, town, and church records of New Haven and Middlebury, Vermont, starting in 1795. On April 28 of that year 40 acres of land (1191/3 x 57 rods) were sold for 60£ by Ebenezer and Anne Field to "Dorothe Pettibone, New Haven, wife of Isaac Pettibone, and Nanse, Erastus, Isaac, Roswell, and Truman, and Loran, children of the above named Dorathe. . ." [New Haven Town Records 2:222]. It was unusual for a wife of a man still alive to be the sole buyer of the family property, and even more unusual for the children to be listed as owners in a deed; no explanation of this event has been found. Eight years later, on 11 May 1803, the same tract was sold for $45 by "Isaac and Dorathe Pettibone” to one Jacob Hoyt, but on 23 December 1803, six months later, Jacob Hoyt sold the same tract back to "Dorathe Pettibone, the wife of Isaac Pettibone and children Nancy, Erastus, Isaac, Roswell, Truman, and Loren" [ibid., 4:407]. Apparently such a transaction was, in the days before the existence of local banks, the equivalent of taking out a short term loan in today’s economic climate. A variant of this transaction occurred 25 Aug 1808 when Isaac Pettibone, Dorathe Pettibone, and Roswell Pettibone 2"‘ (J 4745 Roswell, Isaac and Dorathe’s son), transferred for $85 the same 40-acre tract to Isaac’s brother, J4710 Roswell Pettibone. This sale was subject to the following condition:

. . .it is expressly understood that if the said Isaac Pettibone, Dorathe Pettibone, and Roswell Pettibone 2"‘, their heirs, executors, or administrators, shall well and truly pay or cause to be paid to the said Roswell Pettibone . . . a certain note of hand bearing even date herewith signed by the said Isaac Pettibone and Roswell Pettibone 2"‘ for the sum of $100 currant money of the United States in one year from the Date, then this deed is to be null and void and of no effect, otherwise to be and remain in full force, virtue, and effect [ibid., 5:474-475].

The note must have been repaid, as the 40 acres was in the possession of Isaac and Dorothe when Isaac died in New Haven 10 March 1811. On 29 March 1813, Dorgtha Pettibone, “late of New Haven, now of Middlebury, released to her son-in-law, Charles Hooker, for $50.00, her interest in a certain 40 acre lot lying near where Jesse Hanfm now lives in New Haven . . . being the same 40 acres that I together with my late husband Isaac Pettibone executed a deed of to Jacob Hoyt 11 May 1803,” [ibid., 7:235]. And finally, on 18 Mar 1815, Laurin Pettibone of Middlebury, for payment of $10 from his brother-in-law, Charles Hooker, "releases his interest in land in New Haven . . . deeded originally by Ebenezer and Anna Field, of 40 acres" [New Haven Town Records 7:234]. By that year Dorothe’s sons Truman and Roswell had left Vermont for Ohio, her daughters Nancy and Lucy were married and living in Middlebury, and her son Isaac lived in Bridport, near New Haven. [One more town record referring to Erastus needs to be researched before closing this file KSP].

A Congregational Society was formed in New Haven soon after it became a town, but the first efforts of the selectmen to organize a church and hire a minister failed. In 1788 the town meeting debated whether to unite at one place for public worship and voted by a slim majority in the affirmative; but on further thought the vote was reconsidered and it was voted to meet at three places. The second vote was also called back for reconsideration and the clerk of the meeting reported: "Voted that they would not raise money in this town for support of the Gospel." A goodly number of dedicated people continued to meet privately as The Congregational Society, however, and in 1797 thirteen people who lived in the vicinity of Munger Street, one of the main streets of New Haven, formally organized the first Congregational church in New Haven. Dorothe Pettibone was one of the founders who signed the Confession of Faith, Covenant, and Articles of Discipline and Practice of the church [Robert H. Rogers, ed. Records of the New Haven Congregational Church, New Haven, Vermont, 1797-1904,” in NEHGS, Jan 1969, pp. 46-47]. In November that year another fifteen people who lived on or near the other main street of town, Lanesboro Road, formed a separate Congregational Church. Dorothe Pettibone is listed as one of twenty-six people who on 29 September 1800 joined the New Haven Congregational Church comprising the congregations of both the small churches already in existence. As always, Dorathe added “wife of Isaac Pettibone" when she signed both covenants, but in neither case does Isaac's name appear [Rogers, ibid.]. Dorothe (Case) (Seward) Pettibone died in Middlebury in 1819 at the age 64. She and Isaac Pettibone are buried side by side in Munger Cemetery, a lovely rural burial ground graced with tall trees and marble gravestones a few miles south of New Haven on Munger Street