[18] He was a soldier in the French and Indian War, enlisted at the age of 19, April 10, 1760, under Captain Jonathan Baker, in Suffolk County, “from Brandford, New England, wheelwright.” He served in Captain David Mulford’s company. On returning from the war he settled in Stratford, where his children were born.
[19] On May 5, 1770, he, with John Smith, also of Branford, bought of Joseph Pickett forty acres of land in Litchfield, for which they paid £45. Soon after this he removed to Litchfield, and on July 13 following the land was divided, and he took the north half. Here he seems to have lived and reared his family.
[20] He removed to Litchfield, Connecticut, about 1772, the occasion for which was as follows: On June 26, 1734, his grandfather, John2 Plant, bought of Josiah Rogers, of Branford, a tract of one hundred acres of land in Litchfield on the west side of the Waterbury River. This land remained undivided at the settlement of John2 Plant’s estate, and passed in this manner to his six sons. Of these, Timothy3 Plant sold his share of one sixth to his son Timothy,4 October 7, 1772, for £17. A little later, January 13, 1773, Timothy4 Plant, Jr., bought also the share of his uncle James, which had been previously sold to David Wooster. Then, May 23, 1774, he bought of Asa and Harris Hopkins two thirds of another tract of one hundred acres. He afterward sold both of these tracts at a considerable advance on their cost. But having made his home in Litchfield, the family remained there.
In the Revolutionary War he entered the army, March 2, 1777, in the Fifth regiment, Connecticut line, Captain J. A. Wright’s company, and was reported missing at Germantown, October 4, 1777. Tradition says that he was drafted, and that in the battle he was taken prisoner and confined in “the old sugar house” at New York, or in “the prison ship,” and died there, no word having ever come from him to his family. The births of his children are registered in Litchfield, except of the youngest, who must have been born after he went to the war.
[21] Elias5 Hall was the eldest child of John4 and Abigail (Russell) Hall; (John,3 John,2 John1). Ruhamah was the only child of his second wife, who died at her daughter’s birth. He served in the French and Indian War in Colonel Whiting’s regiment, under Lord Amherst, and was on duty at Ticonderoga and Crown Point until 1759. He settled in Cheshire, Connecticut; removed in 1784 to Pittsford, Vermont, and died October 30, 1821, at the house of his son Elias, at Williston, Vermont.
[22] “He prepared himself for college at the Cheshire Academy, and was graduated at Yale College in 1804, after which he studied law at the Litchfield Law School. He was a classmate and friend of John C. Calhoun, who was not only with him in college but also studied law at Litchfield. In 1819 and 1820 Mr. Plant was Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives, and in 1821 was elected to the Senate, after which he was twice re-elected. He was Lieutenant-Governor from 1823 to 1827, and from 1827 to 1829 was a member of the United States Congress. In politics he was a staunch Whig. Calhoun when Secretary of State offered him, for friendship’s sake, any position within his gift, but he declined to hold office under the dominant party. He was one of the most influential men of his day in political circles of the State of Connecticut.”
[23] For several years of his early life he was in mercantile business in New York City. At the age of twenty he removed to Marcellus, New York, and engaged in farming until 1872, when he made his home in Syracuse, where he became a prominent member of the Brown Memorial M. E. Church.
“He was a man of strong character, honorable and upright, with clear intellect and much originality, fond of books, and well informed on the events transpiring in his country and throughout the world.”
There were six children by his first marriage, two of whom were Charles H.7 Plant and Mrs. W. R. Knowles, who died before him. The four others are Dr. William T.7 Plant, Alfred D.7 Plant, and Miss Ailda7 Plant, of Syracuse, and Mrs. I. W. Davey, of Marcellus.
William Tomlinson7 Plant, the eldest of these, was graduated from the University of Michigan in 1860, and began practice as a physician in Ithaca, New York. Early in the war he entered the United States Navy as surgeon, and continued till October, 1865, when he resigned, and in 1866 began the practice of medicine in Syracuse. This he followed till about 1894, when paralysis compelled him to retire from active life. He has filled many positions of honor and responsibility; has been on the medical staff of a large hospital, doing duty there four months in the year; was one of the founders of the Medical College of Syracuse, in which he held the chair of Jurisprudence and Pediatrics, and has contributed much to medical journals, having been the editor of one such periodical.