New Fairfield Historical District

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The New Fairfield Historical District is in New Fairfield, Connecticut. In 2005, the newly created state-funded Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism awarded its first Endangered Properties Grant to the Town of New Fairfield. The $50,000 grant was used to relocate and preserve the Parsonage and the Gideon Hubbell House, two historically significant State Register properties threatened with demolition. Both properties were to be adapted for reuse as part of New Fairfield’s new community center, the first step in the creation of a living history village and town center.[1] The houses were moved to their new location on March 4, 2007.[2][3]


[edit] Gideon Hubbell House

The Gideon Hubbell house is of interest not only because it is one of the oldest buildings in the area and a good example of Greek Revival architecture, but also because when Gideon died in 1838 his probate left us a copy of his will and a complete inventory of his personal property, from the family cow down to the last pair of velvet trousers.[4] With this information the house could be restored as a typical homestead from the beginning of the 19th century. Also, in its historical context, we have a record of the optimistic dispersal of Gideon’s family, leaving an empty house at his death, which mirrored the vigorous westward expansion of his era.[5]

Gideon Hubbell (1761-April 11, 1838) was probably born in Danbury, Connecticut.[6] When British troops burned Danbury in April, 1777, Gideon’s father Parruck Hubbell (1730/31-1819) apparently withdrew his family to adjacent New Fairfield[7] and a few weeks later, Parruck age 46, enlisted there as an ensign in the revolutionary forces.[8][9] Gideon reportedly also enlisted with him (at age 16) as a private.[10][11] Parruck was the son of Andrew Hubbell (1706-1777) and Sarah Parruck (1709-1736) and a great-grandson of Richard Hubbell (1625–1699), who immigrated to Connecticut around 1640 from Worcestershire, England.[12] [13] Gideon’s mother was probably Parruck’s first wife, Sarah Barnum (c.1736–c.1780).[14] She was the daughter of Samuel Barnum Sr. (1697-1764) and Rebecca Cornell (c.1697–bef.1757), and a great-granddaughter[15] of Thomas Barnum (1625-1695), one of the original eight settlers of Danbury (in 1684) on land they purchased from the local Indians, which now includes all of Danbury, Bethel, New Fairfield, Redding, Ridgefield, and a portion of Derby.[16] She was also a distant relative of the circus showman P.T. Barnum (1810-1891), who at age 71 eloquently described historical details of life around 1820 in the Danbury area of his childhood.[17] After Sarah’s death sometime between 1757 and 1787(!), Parruck married Lydia Beardsley (c.1738–c.1794), who became either Gideon’s mother or stepmother. She was the daughter of John Beardsley Jr. (1704-1772) and Martha Odell (1708-1797). Parruck and Lydia were second cousins; their great-grandfather was Samuel Beardsley (c.1636–1706), son of William Beardsley (1605-1661) of Derbyshire, England who was a founder of Stratford, Connecticut.[18] After Lydia’s death, Parruck remarried again; his third wife Abigail was admitted to the New Fairfield Congregational church on January 3, 1796.[19] Both Parruck and Gideon were active in the Congregational church, serving on various committees over the years. Gideon had three brothers and a sister. His brother Ezra Hubbell (c.1758-1828) married Love Dibble and settled in North Egremont, Massachusetts. His brother Noah Hubbell (1767-1824) married Anna Hoyt Barnum (1764-1847) and they spent their life in Danbury, Connecticut except for a farming period around 1800 at Middlefield, New York. His sister Sarah Hubbell (1763-1823) married Pvt. Elijah Beardsley (1760-1826); they lived in New Fairfield until about 1797, then moved to Delhi, New York, farming there until the War of 1812 when they moved to Ohio. They had fourteen children and in their later years they were innkeepers on the historic National Road at Springfield, Ohio.[20][21] Gideon's youngest brother Elijah Hubbell (1770-1847) married Hannah Fields (1764-1837) in 1792 and moved to Middlefield, New York where they spent the rest of their life farming.[22]

Gideon married during the Revolutionary War and settled with his wife Ann in New Fairfield, where they had three children; Gilead, Billy, and Anna.[23] Ann apparently died when Anna was still very young. Gideon’s second marriage, at age 37, on January 27, 1799, to Cloe Diantha Barnum age 34, lasted until her death in 1834.[24] He was buried beside her four years later in the Town Center Cemetery.[25] They had no known children. Diantha was the daughter of David Barnum (1733-1822) and Amie Towner (1734/35-1767), and a great-great-granddaughter of Danbury co-founder Thomas Barnum.[26]


Gilead Hubbell (or Hubble), Gideon’s oldest child, was born about 1779. Apparently while still young and perhaps seeking adventure, he left the family, became a millwright’s apprentice, presumably found his way to Philadelphia and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, joined the pioneer traffic on the Great Wagon Road through the Shenandoah Valley, and continued south on the Carolina Wagon Road from present-day Roanoke, Virginia to Stokes County, North Carolina, where he married Sarah P. Boatright (1778-c.1855) on Feb 10, 1802.[27] The couple lived in nearby Wilkes County until about 1812,[28] when they traveled over the mountains to Rutherford County, Tennessee, near Nashville. Gilead was reported to be a Captain in the militia there in 1818.[29] The 1820 Rutherford County census listed him as engaged in manufacturing. Family tradition states that he was a millwright specializing in water wheels and that he died of pneumonia around 1822 while constructing a mill near Cape Girardeau, Missouri in bad weather.[30] He left a widow, five sons and a daughter.[31] His widow, Sarah Hubble, returned with her children from Missouri to Giles County in middle Tennessee where she settled near her mother Sally Boatright (c.1750-c.1825) and her brother James G. Boatright Sr. (1769-1839) who had a large family there. Coincidentally, living nearby in 1850 was another widow back from Missouri named Sarah L. Hubble, a distant relative, who was a great-grandmother of the astronomer Edwin Hubble, namesake of the space telescope.[32] For some reason, early Hubbells migrating south of the Mason-Dixon Line tended to change the spelling of their name to Hubble. Gilead did so also. (His sons eventually reverted to the original spelling.)

Gideon’s younger son, Billy B. Hubbell was born in 1786 in New Fairfield[33] and married Sarah Beers there around 1806.[34] They lived near his father Gideon and grandfather Parruck until about 1810 when they moved to New York, where they had two daughters (Almira and Lucy) and a son (Bishop). Billy became a farmer at Virgil, New York, in the Finger Lakes region, and lived there for the rest of his life. He was still listed in the Virgil census of 1880 at age 94. He had been named as a co-executor in Gideon’s will of 1830, but it is not known whether he was able to return from western New York to Connecticut to participate in the 1838 estate settlement.[35]

Gideon’s daughter, Anna Hubbell was born in 1792, sometime between June 4 and September 24.[36] She married Joseph T. Bearss, who was born sometime between 1785 and 1790.[37][38] He was probably the son of Sgt. Joseph Bearss 2nd of New Fairfield, who served in the Revolutionary War and who lived next door to the young married couple in 1810.[39] The two Josephs were descendants of Josiah Bearse Sr. who moved from Barnstable, Massachusetts to Greenwich, Connecticut in 1734 and then to New Fairfield in 1738, two years before the town was incorporated. He changed the spelling of his name to Bearss when he arrived in Connecticut. Josiah was a grandson of Augustine Bearse, who immigrated in 1638 at age 20 from Southampton, England to Plymouth aboard the “Confidence” and came to Barnstable with the first group in 1639.[40] A fanciful tale of the Bearss family ancestry involving Gypsies and Indian princesses was published in the 1930s, but was later discredited by a professional genealogist.[41] (Reasoned support for a kernel of truth in parts of the story still exists, however.)[42] Anna and Joseph T. Bearss had four sons (George H., Joseph T. Jr., David, and Orson L.) and two daughters (Mary E., and Lucinda), all born in Connecticut between 1813 and 1831.[43]


Gideon Hubbell’s will stipulated that the bulk of his estate was to be shared equally by his wife Diantha, son Billy, and daughter Anna. This led to an inventory of all his real and personal property after his death. As executor, it fell to Joseph T. Bearss to dispose of the assets and divide the proceeds among Billy, Anna, and “Diantha’s heirs”. He reportedly sold the house to Alpheus Martin Couch in 1841.[44]

In 1840/41, Anna and Joseph T. Bearss apparently moved from New Fairfield to Stamford in Delaware County, New York and were counted in the census at both locations. [The census was supposed to cover June 1, 1840, but it was actually extended for 18 months because of practical difficulties.] Joseph T. Bearss died in 1845, either in New York or Ohio.[45] At about that time Anna moved with her children to the “Fire Lands” of Ohio, so called because they were granted by the Connecticut legislature to war victims, or their heirs, of the 1777 burning of Danbury, the 1779 burning of Fairfield, etc.[46] She lived in the vicinity of her daughter Mary E. Bailey, whose husband George W. Bailey owned orchards at Catawba Island in Ottawa County on the edge of Lake Erie. Anna was still living there at age 87 as listed in the 1880 Ohio census.[47]]

Continuing in the tradition of Gideon Hubbell’s three children, his descendants continued to multiply and migrate across America from that time onward.[48]



[edit] The Parsonage

Abel F. Beardsley took residence of The Parsonage as a manufacturer of lightning rods. Most of the town's records burned in a fire at the town clerk's home in 1867, so the exact date of the Beardsley house is unknown. Experts can place it somewhere around 1840 with parts of it being perhaps earlier. The property went through successive owners until Lavenia Jennings sold it to the Congregational Church of New Fairfield in 1903 for $1,000. It was then used as the pastor's home, The Parsonage, until the 1950s - half a century![citation needed]

The Parsonage was also used as a meeting place for educational, charity and social events. According to the Danbury Evening News in September 9, 1908, "A number of ladies met at the Parsonage yesterday afternoon for the purpose of organizing a Ladies Aid Society." In the early 1900s, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) met in the parlor of The Parsonage. Years later, a woodworking club for boys was offered there with the pastor serving as instructor and shop steward. Girls in town would attend the Hobby Club. The building also served as an informal teen center in the 1940s and 1950s.[citation needed]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ http://www.cultureandtourism.org, accessed February 7, 2008.
  2. ^ Office of the State Historian, Univ. of Connecticut, 1800 Asylum Ave• West Hartford, CT, http://web.mac.com/w_woodward/iWeb/Site/Blog/2C84ABA2-208E-4F6E-B766-B460C65AF346.html Report, March 22, 2007, accessed February 7, 2008.
  3. ^ “Historic Houses Moved”, News Channel 8's Kent Pierce, Posted March 5, 2007, http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=6180827PM, accessed February 9, 2008.
  4. ^ Transcript of will and copies of original images of will & inventory in the library at The Hubbell Center, Des Moines, Iowa. http://www.hubbell.org/hubcent.htm
  5. ^ Unfortunately, a continuous history of the house is unavailable because a fire in 1867 destroyed all of the town records. [Early records from the New Fairfield Congregational Church have been preserved, but published transcripts of them should be rechecked against original images for possible errors.]
  6. ^ One anonymous source at http://www.familysearch.org of the LDS church (accessed February 19, 2008) has a specific date of June 26, 1761 for Gideon’s birth in Danbury, but this seems unreliable without further documentation[citation needed].
  7. ^ Parruck’s granddaughter and heir Anna Hubbell Bearss eventually settled in the “Fire Lands” of Ohio where plots were given by the Connecticut Legislature to heirs of victims of the 1777 Danbury burning. It is unlikely that she would have acquired this property as a Bearss heir because the Bearss ancestral family settled in New Fairfield, not Danbury. It is most likely that Parruck was the compensated victim. Of course it is also possible that she bought the land from an original settler.
  8. ^ DAR Patriot Lookup, Parrach Hubbell, http://www.dar.org/natsociety/content.cfm?ID=146&hd=n&FO=Y
  9. ^ New Fairfield South Congregational Church Births, Baptisms, Marriages and Meetings, 1742-1870 (records microfilmed 1954), LDS Church, Family Historical Library (FHL), Salt Lake City, Utah, Film 0005351, “Hubbel, Ens. Parroch his wife Abigail admitted Jan 3 1796”.
  10. ^ Agnes Trimpert & Linda Decker, www.preservenewfairfield.org Last modified: July 9, 2007.[citation needed]
  11. ^ Harold B. Hubbell & Roscoe L. Hubbell, Additions & Revisions to History & Genealogy of the Hubbell Family, Publ. The Hubbell Family Historical Society, 1995, p.7, 37, 995. [Note possible confusion since there were several Gideon Hubbells in the area at the time of the Revolutionary War.]
  12. ^ Harold B. Hubbell & Roscoe L. Hubbell, Additions & Revisions to History & Genealogy of the Hubbell Family, Publ. The Hubbell Family Historical Society, 1995, p.2, 6, 12, 32.
  13. ^ Parruck is also called Parnach Hubbell by Walter Hubbell, History of the Hubbell Family, 1881, Google Books, p.68, 69.
  14. ^ As of April 4, 1781, the “John Cornell estate owed money to Parruck” [heir of Sarah Barnum, who was an heir of her mother Rebecca Cornell, who was the wife of Samuel Barnum Sr. and daughter of John Cornell Jr.]. Notes by Ruth Ryan, in library of Hubbell Center, Des Moines, Iowa, cited LDS Church, Salt Lake City, Utah, FHL microfilm 0004025, Danbury Probate Records 1775-1790, Vol. 4, p. 197-98.
  15. ^ Donald Lines Jacobus, The Families of Old Fairfield, Publ 1930-32, Vol. 1, p. 32, 33, Vol. 2, p. 485. Gives ancestry of Sarah and mentions husband Parruck, but does not mention children.[citation needed] [Book does not include sources.]
  16. ^ Barnum, Patrick, Barnum Family Genealogy, http://www.barnum.org, accessed February 17, 2008.
  17. ^ For complete text of P.T. Barnum’s speech at Bethel, Connecticut, fountain dedication, see: Barnum, Patrick, Barnum Family Genealogy, http://www.barnum.org/intro.html Accessed February 13, 2008.
  18. ^ Nellie Beardsley Holt, Beardsley Genealogy, The Family of William Beardsley, privately published 1951, p. 32. (Digital copy). [Book does not include sources, but appears to reference original documents.]
  19. ^ LDS Church, Salt Lake City, Utah, FHL microfilm 0005351
  20. ^ Ohio History, Journal of the Ohio Historical Society, 1998, Vol. 37, p. 92.
  21. ^ http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/OHROOTS/2003-08/1059789955 accessed May 8, 2008.
  22. ^ Harold B. Hubbell & Roscoe L. Hubbell, Additions & Revisions to History & Genealogy of the Hubbell Family, Publ. The Hubbell Family Historical Society, 1995, p.32.
  23. ^ Notes by Ruth Ryan, in library of Hubbell Center, Des Moines, Iowa, “2511 Parrock of New Fairfield … February 11, 1819”, copied from Connecticut State Records (Folio 332 cited): “Parruck Hubbell's will dated March 28, 1788 provides to wife Lydia and daughter-in-law Ann, wife of Gideon.” Codicil dated Feb 2 or 12, 1791 names "my wife Lydia" and "dau-in-law Anne, wife to my son Gideon".
  24. ^ New Fairfield South Congregational Church Births, Baptisms, Marriages and Meetings, 1742-1870 (records microfilmed 1954), LDS Church, Family Historical Library (FHL), Salt Lake City, Utah, Film 0005351,
  25. ^ Epitaphs of New Fairfield Connecticut, Compiled by Joan L. Sudol, New Fairfield CT. “Tombstone missing, information filled in from other source … Ct. Library records, Hartford, Ct.” cited at http://www.newfairfieldlibrary.org/townctrao.html accessed February 10, 2008.
  26. ^ Barnum, Patrick, Barnum Family Genealogy, http://www.barnum.org/fam03802.htm, accessed February 17, 2008.
  27. ^ Harold B. Hubbell & Roscoe L. Hubbell, Additions & Revisions to History & Genealogy of the Hubbell Family, Publ. The Hubbell Family Historical Society, 1995, p.158, 159.
  28. ^ 1810 census, Wilkes County, North Carolina.
  29. ^ The Goodspeed Publishing Co., History of Tennessee, 1887, Rutherford County, Part I, pages 810-825, transcribed by Fred Smoot, at http://www.tngenweb.org/records/rutherford/history/goodspeed/index.html Accessed February 8, 2008.
  30. ^ Letter dated June 23, 1983 to Harold B. Hubbell from Jessie Hubbell Scaggs relating information her father Clarence Hubbell (1880-1973) gave her about his grandfather James B. Hubbell (who was a son of Gilead) and about the brothers of James, as well as their father Gilead himself. Copy in library at The Hubbell Center, Des Moines, Iowa. http://www.hubbell.org/hubcent.htm
  31. ^ Gilead’s children were: Parruck/Park (April 30, 1805 – January 27, 1883), Daniel (December 30, 1807 – c.1886), William (August 4, 1810 – October 13, 1896), Sarah (c. December, 1813 – c. 1875), Napoleon (July 22, 1815 – March 21, 1888), and James (May 22, 1822 – June 16, 1902). Gilead’s daughter Sarah married Henry Gibson and was living next door to her mother in 1840. Park, Daniel, and William were born in North Carolina, Sarah and Napoleon in Tennessee, and James in Missouri. All died in Tennessee except Daniel, who moved to Frankfort, Kentucky around 1870.
  32. ^ Harold B. Hubbell & Roscoe L. Hubbell, Additions & Revisions to History & Genealogy of the Hubbell Family, Publ. The Hubbell Family Historical Society, 1995, p.137, 576.
  33. ^ 1850 and 1880 census of Cortland County, NY.
  34. ^ Harold B. Hubbell & Roscoe L. Hubbell, Additions & Revisions to History & Genealogy of the Hubbell Family, Publ. The Hubbell Family Historical Society, 1995, p.159
  35. ^ Joseph T. Bearss signed for Billy in the Probate settlement document.
  36. ^ Anna “Barse” age 58, listed on September 24, 1850 as head of household in Ottawa County, Ohio census; son David and daughter Lucinda living with her. Anna Bearss age 87, listed on June 4, 1880 in Ottawa County, Ohio census.
  37. ^ New Fairfield Congregational Church Marriages: 1700-1800, transcribed by Barbara Andersen, 1999, from an earlier source gives a marriage date of October 6, 1807 (Sarah age 15). http://www.rootsweb.com/~ctfairfi/pages/newfairfield/ffchurch_mg.htm , accessed February 8, 2008. But this does not appear in the 1954 microfilm FHL 0005351 (LDS Church).
  38. ^ Joseph T. Bearss was listed as age 16-25 in the 1810 New Fairfield, Connecticut census. He was also listed as age 50-59 in the 1840 New Fairfield census. The earlier census indicates he was born after 1785 and the later census indicates he was born before 1790.
  39. ^ The 1810 New Fairfield census also lists Joseph Bearss 3rd [age 22] living next door to the other two Josephs. His relationship is uncertain. Also living nearby was Thomas Bearss [age 72], who was the son of Josiah Bearse and the father of Joseph Bearss 2nd. Farther away was Joseph Bearss 1st [age 76], another son of Josiah. (Joseph Bearss 3rd became Joseph Bearss Jr. in the 1820 census and he is listed with his wife Caroline at Crawford County, Pennsylvania in the 1850 census.)
  40. ^ “Austin Bearse and His Alleged Indian Connections, By Donald Lines Jacobus, M.A., of New Haven, Conn, The American Genealogist, Vol. XV (1938-39)”, accessed February 16, 2008 at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~bearse/Jacobus.doc
  41. ^ ibid
  42. ^ Lee Murrah at http://www.murrah.com/gen/bearse.htm accessed February 17, 2008
  43. ^ “Barse” listings, 1850 census, Ottawa County, Ohio.
  44. ^ Agnes Trimpert & Linda Decker, www.preservenewfairfield.org Last modified: July 9, 2007[citation needed]
  45. ^ Lake Erie Islands, editor Michael Gora, Trafford Publ. 2004, page 356. Google Books.
  46. ^ “During the War of 1812 General Harrison had men stationed on Catawba Island to prevent a possible English invasion, and some of these may have settled down as permanent residents. Most of the American settlers, however, came from Connecticut to take up land given them as compensation for houses and barns burned by the English during the Revolution. In 1792 the State of Connecticut granted about 500,000 acres (2,000 km²) of land at the western end of Connecticut Western Reserve to these people, and the area came to be known as the ‘Fire Lands”. The “Fire Lands” could not be settled immediately: the claimants or their heirs had to be found, the amount of damage they suffered verified, the land had to be surveyed, purchased from the Indians (1805), and was finally granted to individuals in 1807 by means of a complicated lottery.” http://www.catawbaislandtownship.com/CatI2-Historical.htm
  47. ^ From "Lake Erie Islands", editor Michael Gora, Trafford Publ. 2004, page 356: Google Books. "Catawba Island -- Additional biographies, 1881: ... -- "George W. Bailey was born in CT Feb 11, 1811, came to this county [Ottawa] 1844, died Mar 19, 1848. His father was William W. Bailey, who died in CT. His mother, Anna Boughton died Jan 1, 1875. His wife Mary E. Bearss, -- whose father, Joseph T. Bearss, died in 1845, and whose mother, Anna Hubbell, is still living here [in 1881], at the age of eighty-eight years, -- was born in CT May 16, 1813 in which state they married on Jan 12, 1835. Their children were: Thomas W. [Bailey], living in Iowa, born May 13, 1837, Lorenzo Star [Bailey], born Dec 24, 1838, Ann Agusta [Bailey], born Aug 12, 1840, and George O. [Bailey], of Lucas County, OH, born Oct 29,1843."
  48. ^ http://www.hubbell.org , accessed February 18, 2008.