The children of William and Ellen Ludington were seven in number. The first was Thomas, who was born (probably in England) in 1637. He removed to Newark, New Jersey, in 1666, and became a farmer—since when in 1689 he sold some land with a house and barn at New Haven he described himself in the deed as a husbandman. He was an assessor and a surveyor of highways at Newark, and left children whose descendants are now to be found in the northern part of New Jersey. His oldest child, John, remained at New Haven, married, and had issue, his first-born, James, being a soldier in the French and Indian war and being killed in battle on September 8, 1756. The second child of William and Ellen Ludington was John Ludington, who was born (probably at Charlestown, Massachusetts) in 1640. He was living at East Haven in 1664, and afterward, Mr. Patrick thinks, removed to Vermont. The third child was Mary, of whose birth various dates are given, as already noted. The fourth was Henry Ludington, the date of whose birth is not known, but who was killed in the war with King Philip, at the end of 1675 or beginning of 1676, as appears in the “New Haven Probate Records,” where is found an inventory of the estate of “Henry Luddington late of N. haven slayne in the warre taken & apprised by Mathew Moulthrop & John Potter Janry. 3, 1676.” The fifth child was Hannah, the dates of whose birth and death are unknown. The sixth child was William Ludington, 2nd, who was born about 1655 and died in February, 1737. His first wife was Martha Rose, daughter of his stepfather, John Rose, and his second was Mercy Whitehead. According to Dodd’s “East Haven Register” he was a man of means, of intelligence, of ability, and of important standing in the community. He had two sons and one daughter by his first wife, and two sons and six daughters by his second. His first-born, the son of Martha Rose, was Henry Ludington, who was born in 1679, was a carpenter, married Sarah, daughter of William Collins, on August 20, 1700, had eight sons and four daughters, and died in the summer of 1727—of whom, or of his descendants, we shall presently hear much more. Finally, the seventh child of William and Ellen Ludington was Matthew, who as already related was born at Malden and died in infancy. Despite the removal of Thomas Ludington to Newark, and that of John Ludington (probably) to Vermont, they appear to have retained much interest in the New Haven colony, since in the “Colony Record of Deeds” of Connecticut we find Thomas, John, and William Ludington enumerated among the proprietors of New Haven in 1685, who were, presumably, the above mentioned first, second, and sixth children of William and Ellen Ludington.
Recurring for a moment to the family of William Ludington, 2nd, and passing by for the time his first-born, Henry Ludington, it is to be observed that his second child, Eleanor, married Nathaniel Bailey, of Guilford, Connecticut, and had issue; his third, William Ludington, 3rd, married Anna Hodge, lived at Waterbury and Plymouth, Connecticut, and had issue, his sixth son, Samuel, serving in the French and Indian war, and his grandson, Timothy, son of William 3rd’s first-born, Matthew, also serving in that war and being killed in battle at East Haven in the War of the Revolution; the fourth, Mercy, married Ebenezer Deanes or Dains, of Norwich, Connecticut, and had issue; the fifth, Mary, married John Dawson, of East Haven, and had issue; the sixth, Hannah, married Isaac Penfield, of New Haven, and had issue; the seventh, John, married Elizabeth Potter, and had issue, his son Jude serving in the French and Indian war; the eighth, Eliphalet, married Abigail Collins, and had issue, his third son, Amos, serving in the French and Indian war; the ninth, Elizabeth, died in childhood; the tenth, Dorothy, married Benjamin Mallory and had issue; and the eleventh, Dorcas, married James Way and had issue.
Returning now to Henry Ludington, eldest son of William Ludington, 2nd, who was the sixth child of the original William Ludington, it is to be observed that his first child, Daniel, married first Hannah Payne, and second Susannah Clark, and had issue, his second child, Ezra, serving in the French and Indian war, and his ninth, Collins, in the War of the Revolution; his second, William Ludington, married first Mary Knowles, of Branford, and second Mary Wilkinson, of Branford, and had issue—of whom we shall hereafter hear much more; his third, Sarah, died in childhood; his fourth, Dinah, married Isaac Thorpe; his fifth, Lydia, married Moses Thorpe; his sixth, Nathaniel, married first Mary Chidsey, and second Eunice (Russell) Smith, and had issue; his seventh, Moses, married Eunice Chidsey; his eighth, Aaron, died at sea; his ninth, Elisha, died in infancy; his tenth, also named Elisha, settled in Phillipse Precinct, Dutchess County, New York, married, and had a daughter, Abigail, of whom more hereafter; his eleventh, Sarah, probably died unmarried, though Dodd’s “East Haven Register” says she married Daniel Mead; and his twelfth, Thomas, was drowned, unmarried.
Turning back, once more, to the William Ludington last mentioned, who was the second son of Henry Ludington, we find that he was born at Branford, Connecticut, on September 6, 1702. He married Mary Knowles, of Branford, on November 5, 1730. She died on April 16, 1759, and on April 17, 1760,—just a day after the year of mourning had elapsed!—he married for his second wife Mary Wilkinson, also of Branford. His eight children, all of his first wife, were as follows: First, Submit, who married Stephen Johnson, of Branford; second, Mary; third, Henry, of whom we shall hear more, since he forms the chief subject of this book; fourth, Lydia, who married William (or, according to Dodd, Aaron) Buckley, of Branford; fifth, Samuel; sixth, Rebecca; seventh, Anne; and eighth, Stephen. On the night of Monday, May 20, 1754, part of William Ludington’s house at Branford was destroyed by fire, and his sixth and seventh children, Rebecca and Anne, aged seven and four years, respectively, perished in the flames.
Attention is thus finally centered upon the second Henry Ludington, who was the third child of William Ludington, who was the second child of the first Henry Ludington, who was the first child of the second William Ludington, who was the sixth child of the first William Ludington, who was the founder of the Ludington family in America. The sources of information concerning him and his career, which have been mentioned in the preface to this volume, are varied and numerous rather than copious or comprehensive; but they are sufficient to indicate that he was a man of more than ordinary force of character and of more than average importance and influence in his time and place, and that he is entitled to remembrance and to enrolment among those who contributed materially, and with no little sacrifice of self, to the making of the State of New York and of the United States of America.
CHAPTER II
BEFORE THE REVOLUTION
Henry Ludington, the third child of William and Mary (Knowles) Ludington, was born at Branford, Connecticut, on May 25, 1739. Some records give the date as 1738, but the weight of authority indicates the later year. Branford, originally called Totoket, was a part of the second purchase at New Haven in 1638, but was not successfully settled until two years later, when a dissatisfied company from Wethersfield, headed by William Swayne, secured a grant of it. Together with Milford, Guilford, Stamford, Southold (Long Island), and New Haven, it made up the separate jurisdiction of New Haven, under an ecclesiastical government, until 1665, when all were merged into the greater Colony of Connecticut, Branford being erected into an organized town with representation in the General Court, in 1651. The place won lasting distinction in 1700, when it was the scene of the practical founding of Yale College; ten ministers, who had been named as trustees of “The School of the Church,” each laying upon the table in their meeting-room a number of books, with the words, “I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony.” The next year the college was chartered and was formally opened at Saybrook, and in 1716-17 it was permanently removed to New Haven. At the time of Henry Ludington’s birth, therefore, New Haven had become fully established as the metropolis of that part of the colony, and Branford, which had at first been its peer and rival, had become reconciled to the status of a suburban town. The educational facilities of Branford were similar to those of other colonial towns; to wit, primitive in character and chiefly under church control. To what extent young Ludington availed himself of them does not appear, but so far as may be judged from his letters and other papers in after years he was an indifferent scholar, probably thinking more of action than of study.
Such as his schooling was, however, it was ended at an early date and the school-boy became a man of action when only half-way through his teens. The epoch-making struggle commonly known as the French and Indian War, which was really a part of the Seven Years’ War in Europe, and which secured for the English absolute dominance in North America and transformed the maps of two continents, began when he was fifteen years old, and made a strong appeal to his adventurous and daring disposition; and at an early date, probably in 1755, though the meager records now in existence are not conclusive on that point, he enlisted in those Colonial levies which formed so invaluable an adjunct to the regular British Army in all the campaigns of that war. No complete roster of the Connecticut troops is now in existence, but the “East Haven Register” tells us that many men from East Haven and Branford were enlisted for service with the British Army near the Great Lakes, of whom the greater part were lost through sickness and in battle. In these levies were several members of the Ludington family, beside Henry Ludington. Our genealogical review has already indicated the service in that war of James, Ezra, Timothy, Samuel, Jude, and Amos Ludington, uncles and cousins of Henry Ludington. As some of the Ludingtons had, years before the war, removed from Connecticut to Dutchess County, New York, some members of the family were also among the troops from the latter region. Old records tell that in Captain Richard Rea’s Dutchess County regiment were two young farmers, Comfort Loudinton and Asa Loudinton—obviously meaning Ludington—respectively 19 and 17 years old; the former with brown eyes and dark complexion, the latter with brown eyes and fresh complexion.