Samuel Baldwin

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1690

Samuel married Lydia Sperry on 8 Jan 1713 in Branford, New Haven, Connecticut. Lydia (daughter of Nathaniel Sperry and Sarah Dickerman) was born before 27 May 1694; was christened on 27 May 1694 in New Haven, New Haven, Connecticut; died on 24 Jan 1735 in New Haven County, Connecticut; was buried in Milford Cemetery, Milford, New Haven, Connecticut. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Caleb Baldwin was born on 27 Jul 1724 in Branford, New Haven, Connecticut; died on 19 Jul 1797 in Danbury, Ridgefield, Fairfield, Connecticut.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Guilford, New Haven, Connecticut

Notes:

He was a blacksmith, and held in high repute.

Samuel married Abigail Baldwin. Abigail (daughter of John Baldwin and Mary Bruen) was born on 15 Nov 1658 in Milford, New Haven, Connecticut; died after Jun 1701. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: 16 Nov 1658, Milford, New Haven, Connecticut

Notes:

Came from England to Milford in about 1639; he was one of the first settlers there. He was a cooper;

Nathaniel married Joanna after Mar 1648. Joanna died in 1682. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

She was previously married to Richard Westcott of Fairfield, and after Nathaniel Baldwin's death, to Thomas Skidmore.

Notes:

He came to Connecticut with the other Milford Baldwins, but his exact connection to them is unknown. Savage shows him as a son of Sylvester, son of Richard Baldwin of Cholesbury. Without naming his father, Charles Henry Cory gives him as a grandson of the Sylvester Baldwin who died at sea in 1638. Later researchers have found these suggestions implausible.

John Baldwin (1619-1681) = Mary Bruen (1630-1670)
Josiah Baldwin (1642-1683) = Mercy Camp (b. 1652)
Josiah Baldwin (b. 1677) = Mary Pierson (d. 1726)
Eleazer Baldwin (b. 1717) = Experience Buell (b. 1724)
Mary Baldwin (1760-1842) = John Spofford (1752-1823)
Horatio Gates Spofford (1778 1832) = Hannah Bristol (1779-1837)
Mary Spofford (d. 1845) = Matthew Leffingwell (1801-1841)
Mary Leffingwell (1833-1880) = Jonas Bowman (b. 1824)
Adelaide Mesiah Bowman (b. 1859) = Charles Henry Berger (b. 1850)
Hazel Dawn Berger (1883-1950) = Lloyd Groff Copeman (1881-1956)
Ruth Mary Copeman (1914-1982) = Gilbert Ronstadt (1911-1995)
Linda Maria Ronstadt (b. 1946)

John married Mary Bruen. Mary (daughter of Obadiah Bruen and Sarah Seeley) was born before 12 Jun 1634; was christened on 12 Jun 1634 in St. Julian's, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England; died on 2 Sep 1670. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 23 May 1630, Cholesbury, Buckinghamshire, England

Notes:

He was a weaver. He may have been the Richard Baldwin baptised 18 Jun 1570 in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, son of Thomas Baldwin. It seems plausible simply from geographical proximity that he was related in some way to the emigrant Sylvester Baldwin who died at sea in 1638 just before reaching New England and whose descendants were at Milford, Connecticut, but nothing has been conclusively established.

Richard married Isabel Harding on 31 May 1598 in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

She may have been the Isabel Harding baptised 15 Feb 1568 in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, daughter of Richard Harding.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Abt 1681, Newark, Essex, New Jersey

Notes:

One of TSW’s eight proven “gateway ancestors”, and one of LD's five. He was a member of the drapers’ guild in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, although this does not prove that he actually worked as a draper.

“He and his family emigrated to New England in 1640, where they lived successively at Marshfield and Gloucester, Massachusetts, and New London, Connecticut. He served as Deputy Judge for New London, 1660, Judge for New London, 1662-6, Patentee of the Royal Charter, 1662, Deputy for New London to the Connecticut Legislature, 1665-6, and Clerk for New London County Court in 1666. In 1667 he and his wife, Sarah, removed to Newark, New Jersey.” [Royal Ancestry, citation details below.]

“Obadiah Bruen was born in Bruen Stapleford, England, and immigrated to New England with his wife Sarah in 1640. He settled first at Plymouth Colony, and then at Gloucester, Massachusetts (1642), where he was town selectman (1643) and a representative to the Connecticut General Court (1643-1651). He was one of the early settlers at Pequot (later New London), Connecticut, and served as the town clerk (1651-1666) and as a representative from New London in the Connecticut General Court (1652-1666). His name is the only name from New London to appear on the royal charter for the colony of Connecticut. In 1666, he joined an association to found a colony on the Passaic River called Milford (later Newark, New Jersey). He was one of the signers of the deed to purchase land from the Indians along the Passaic River (July 11, 1667).” [Yale Indian Papers Project.]

In 1889 his remains were re-interred in the Founders’ Vault at Fairmount Cemetery.

Obadiah married Sarah Seeley on 7 May 1633 in St. Martin's, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England. Sarah (daughter of William Seeley and Alice Byssell) was born before 22 Oct 1609; was christened on 22 Oct 1609 in St. Giles, Sheldon, Warwickshire, England; died after 1696. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate death: Aft 1679, Newark, Essex, New Jersey

Notes:

Her baptismal record says she was baptized at St. Giles, Sheldon, Warwickshire, daugter of William Seeley "of Birmingham".

Notes:

He was a Puritan whose piety and iconoclasm (he personally destroyed a great deal of church art and stained glass) was celebrated in a hagiographic biography of him written by William Hinde, husband of Margaret Fox, sister to Bruen's second wife Anne Fox.

"According to Hinde, it was the death of Bruen's father in 1587 that prompted a radical transformation in Bruen's lifestyle. Whether because of a spiritual crisis or because of the financial constraints imposed by his new responsibilities towards eleven siblings, including his sister Katherine Bruen (to become famous in 1601 because of her putative deathbed loss of faith), Bruen imposed a strict code of piety on the household. He began by disparking the estate and suppressing hunting and gaming, and subsequently enforced a culture of discipline on family, servants, and tenants alike. This not only involved prayers seven times daily but also attendance at both morning and evening sermons on Sundays, usually without departing from the church in between. The knowledge of scripture among even his illiterate household servants became legendary: Hinde drew particular attention to 'Old Robert', Robert Pashfield (fl. c. 1600), servant, whose familiarity with the Bible was such that he could cite chapter and verse of almost any scriptural text, despite his inability to read. Bruen also suppressed the drinking, dancing, and sport associated with the annual festivities of the St Andrew's day wakes that he (and Hinde) regarded as popish and profane." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

"BRUEN, JOHN (1560-1625), puritan layman, was the son of a Cheshire squire whose family had long been settled at Bruen Stapleford, and is believed to have given its name to the township. There had been a succession from the middle of the thirteenth century. The elder John Bruen of Bruen Stapleford was thrice married. His union with Anne, the sister of Sir John Done, was childless, but his second wife brought him fourteen children, of whom Katharine, afterwards the wife of William Brettargh, and John, who, although not the eldest born, became by survivorship his heir, were remarkable for the fervour of their puritanism. John was in his tender years sent to his uncle Dutton of Dutton, where for three years he was taught by the school-master James Roe. The Dutton family had by charter the control of the minstrels of the county. Young Bruen became an expert dancer. 'At that time,' he said, 'the holy Sabbaths of the Lord were wholly spent, in all places about us, in May-games and May-poles, pipings and dancings, for it was a rare thing to hear of a preacher, or to have one sermon in a year.' When about seventeen he and his brother Thomas were sent as gentlemen-commoners to St. Alban Hall, Oxford, where they remained about two years. He left the university in 1579, and in the following year was married by his parents to a daughter of Mr. Hardware, who had been twice mayor of Chester. Bruen at this time keenly enjoyed the pleasures of the chase, and, in conjunction with Ralph Done, 'kept fourteen couple of great mouthed dogs.' On the death of his father in 1587 his means were reduced; he cast off his dogs, killed the game, and disparked the land. His children were brought up strictly, and his choice of servants fell upon the sober and pious. One of these, Robert Pashfield, or 'Old Robert,' though unable to read or write, had acquired so exact a knowledge of the Bible, that he could 'almost always' tell the book and chapter where any particular sentence was to be found. The old man had a leathern girdle, which served him as a memoria technica, and was marked into portions for the several books of the Bible, and with points and knots for the smaller divisions. Bruen in summer rose between three and four, and in winter at five, and read prayers twice a day. His own seasons for prayer were seven times daily. He removed the stained glass in Tarvin Church, and defaced the sculptured images. On the Sunday he walked from his house, a mile distant, to the church, and was followed by the greater part of his servants, and called upon such of his tenants as lived on the way, so that when he reached the church it was at the head of a goodly procession. He rarely went home to dinner after morning prayers, but continued in the church till after the evening service. He maintained a preacher at his own house, and afterwards for the parish. Bruen's house became celebrated, and a number of 'gentlemen of rank became desirous of sojourning under his roof for their better information in the way of God, and the more effectual reclaiming of themselves and their families.' Perkins, the puritan divine, called Bruen Stapleford, 'for the practice and power of religion, the very topsail of all England.' His wife died suddenly, and after a time he married the 'very amiable and beautiful' Ann Fox, whom he first met at a religious meeting in Manchester. For a year they dwelt at her mother's house at Rhodes, near Manchester. He then returned to Stapleford, and again his house became the abode of many scions of gentility. Bruen's second wife died after ten years of married life, and the widower broke up his household with its twenty-one boarders and retired to Chester, where he cleared the debt of his estate, saw some of his children settled, and maintained the poor of his parish by the produce of two mills in Stapleford, whither he returned with his third wife, Margaret. He had an implicit belief in special providences, 'judgments,' witchcraft, &c. He kept a hospitable house, and was kind and charitable to the poor of his neighbourhood and of Chester. He refused to drink healths even at the high sheriff's feast. Towards the end of his life his prayers were twice accompanied by 'ravishing sights.' He died after an illness, which was seen to be mortal, in 1625, at the age of 65. There is a portrait of him in Clark's 'Marrow of Ecclesiastical History.' This has been re-engraved by Richardson. Among the Harleian MSS. is a compilation by him entitled 'A godly profitable collection of divers sentences out of Holy Scripture, and variety of matter out of several divine authors.' These are commonly called his cards, and are fifty-two in number. The same collection contains the petition of his son, Calvin Bruen, of Chester, mercer, respecting the treatment he received for visiting Prynne when he was taken through Chester to imprisonment at Carnarvon Castle. The life of John Bruen was not eventful, and he is chiefly notable as an embodiment of the puritan ideal of a pious layman." [William Edward Armytage Axon, Dictionary of National Biography 1885-1900]

John married Anne Fox after Jan 1597. Anne (daughter of William Fox and Margaret Orrell) was born about 1581; died before 29 Dec 1606; was buried on 29 Dec 1606. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

William married Alice Byssell on 5 Nov 1608 in St. Edburgha, Yardley, Worcestershire, England. Alice died before 24 Feb 1616; was buried on 24 Feb 1616 in St. Martin, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Also called John Bruyn.

John married Dorothy Holford. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Comptroller of the household of the Earl of Derby.

William married Margaret Orrell. Margaret (daughter of Henry Orrell) died after 7 Dec 1595. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]