[Cabossed means cut off short so as not to show the neck; attired denotes the horns; canton ermine, means the black spots upon the white field in the left-hand corner. In the picture the artist has not given the shell upon the dolphin.]
Motto.—"Quod Vult, Valde Vult,"—What he wills, he wills cordially and without stint.
Arms are hereditary, but the mottoes are not, and may be changed to suit the taste or fancy of any family. There are other Arms of the Horton family, varying somewhat from the above. The date of the grant of the arms I have not found—probably many centuries ago.
[PREFACE—INTRODUCTION.]
We give Barnabas Horton as the Preface and Introduction to this little volume of Chronicles. He was probably the son of Joseph Horton, of Leicestershire, England, and born in the little hamlet of Mousely of that shire. Of his history before he came to America very little is known. He came over in the ship "Swallow" in 1633–38. He landed at Hampton, Mass. How long he remained at Hampton is not known. But in 1640 we find him with his wife and two children in New Haven, Conn., in company with the Rev. John Youngs, William Welles, Esq., Peter Hallock, John Tuthill, Richard Terry, Thomas Mapes, Matthias Corwin, Robert Ackerly, Jacob Corey, John Conklin, Isaac Arnold, and John Budd, and on the 21st day of Oct., 1640, assisted by the venerable Rev. John Davenport and Gov. Eaton, they organized themselves into a Congregational Church, and sailed to the east end of Long Island, now Southold. They had all been members of Puritan churches in England, and all had families with them except Peter Hallock. They doubtless had been on the island previous to this time and looked out their homes. On nearing the shore they cast lots to decide who should first set foot on the land. The lot fell on Peter Hallock, and the place where he stepped upon the land has ever since been known as Hallock's Landing.
On coming ashore, they all knelt down and engaged in prayer, Peter Hallock leading, as had been determined by the lot. These were the first persons of any civilized nation that had ever attempted to settle on the east end of Long Island. See Griffin's Journal.
Barnabas Horton was a man of deep-toned piety, and a warm advocate of civil and religious freedom. He was one of the most prominent and influential men of Southold. He was for many years a magistrate, and several times a member of the General Court at New Haven and Harford. He built the first framed dwelling-house ever erected on the east of Long Island, and that house is still (1875) standing and occupied. It is a shingle-house, that is, shingles are used for weather-boards, and the sides have never been reshingled, and the roof but once, according to the statement of Jonathan Goldsmith Horton, the last Horton occupant of the old house.