Surname Saturday ~ Willet of Connecticut

Image of New London County from CTGenWeb

The first Willet that I know of is John Willet, found in a Groton, Connecticut marriage record and referenced in a 1985 Willet / Willett Genealogy that I found at Archive.org. This book gives me some information, but it would be helpful to find additional primary source info about this ancestor.

Albert James Willett, The Willett families of North America: being a comprehensive guide encompassing Willett, Willet, Willette, Willit, Willot, Willets, Willetts, Willits and other variations and early spellings of the Willett surname (Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, Inc. (1985), digital images, 2015), Internet Archive, www.archive.org, page 59. John Willett of Stonington, Connecticut.

This author acknowledges that family tradition says that John descends from a John Willett of Wales and others claim that he is descended from Captain Thomas Willett of Plymouth and Swansea, but there is no proof to support either of these claims.

Some of thie information in the 1985 genealogy seems to come from an earlier 1906 genealogy, written by Jacob Edgar Bookstäver, which can be found at FamilySearch.org.

John's wife was Mary Clark and the Barbour Collection of Vital Records has a marriage record for them in Groton, New London, Connecticut, on November 19, 1719, as well as record of the births of their eldest three children:

Connecticut Vital Records to 1870 (The Barbour Collection), From original typescripts, Lucius Barnes Barbour Collection, 1928, (Online Database: AmericanAncestors.org, NEHGS), Groton Vital Records. p. 164 (Willis - Woodbridge)

Altogether, they had six children born between 1721 and 1735: Mary, John (who died young), John, Hannah, Mercy, and Abigail.

John Willet is believe to have died about 1750, and I have not found a record of his wife's death.

I descend from their son John, their eldest surviving son.

Generation 2: John Willet (or Willett) was born on May 1, 1727, in Groton, Connecticut (Barbour Collection). He married Elizabeth Leffingwell in 1748 and had eight children with her between 1749 and 1771: Eunice, Judith, Philura, Elizabeth, John, Mary, Jedidiah, and Hannah.

John owned a major shipyard in Norwich, Connecticut, up the Thames River from New London. (See the map at the top, where I underlined the towns where I find the Willet family.) He is considered a Revolutionary War Patriot as a prominent shipbuilder in Norwich, Connecticut and I wrote about him at John Willett, Patriot.

I descend from their youngest son Jedidiah.

Sunday's Obituary ~ Mary Stanton Willet, 1834

In doing additional research on my fourth great-grandfather, Jedidiah Willet, I came across a couple of brief death notices for his second wife, my fourth great-grandmother.

The first is from a newspaper in Georgia:

November 13, 1834, Macon Weekly Telegraph, from GenealogyBank.com

In this county on Thursday the 6th inst. Mrs. Mary
Willet, consort of Jedediah Willet, aged 63 years.
Mrs. Willet was a native of Rhode Island, a member
of the Baptist Church. She died strong in the faith
with assurance of a blessed immortality beyond the
grave.

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There's A Way - Jedidiah Willet - 52 Ancestors #19

For this week's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks writing challenge from blogger Amy Crow Johnson of No Story Too Small, the theme is There’s a Way. I am using this to explore the migration of a fourth great-grandfather from Connecticut to Georgia in the early 19th century.

My curiosity about my fourth great-grandfather, Jedidiah Willet, father of Frances Stanton Willet, whom I wrote about last week, comes from the fact that he has two FindAGrave memorials. One is in the city of his birth, Norwich, New London County, Connecticut, (memorial number 17478111, as Jedediah Willet) and the other is in the county of his death: Macon, Bibb County, Georgia (memorial number 124656608, as Jedidiah Willet). I know he was born in Norwich and his first wife died there, but I'm still trying to find out why he moved to Georgia when he was in his 50s.

So far, I have been able to find more about his early life than his later life in Georgia. According to Vital Records of Norwich Connecticut, 1659-1848, (Hartford, Society of colonial wars in the state of Connecticut, 1913) New England Historic Genealogical Society AmericanAncestors.org, Jedidiah was born on March 9, 1768, in Norwich, Connecticut, "as he sayeth." The transcribed and printed Vital Records of Norwich also names his wife, Frances Rogers, and their nine children, the eldest of whom was named for his father, along with their birth dates (and death dates of the two who died young).

Vital Records of Norwich, Conn., page 590 (partial)

The next page of these printed vital records show that on September 19, 1805, their youngest child was born, and Frances died.

Vital Records of Norwich, Conn., page 591

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As I noted last week, I haven't found a primary source record stating Jedidiah's second marriage to Mary Stanton in January 1806, but there is a newspaper notice (see Wedding Wednesday) and I'm still looking to see if Jedidiah and Mary had any more children other than my third great-grandmother, Frances Stanton Willet, who was born in January 1807.

Jedidiah (or Jedediah) is not a common name in this time period, so I believe I have found him in those tricky U.S. Censuses between 1790 and 1840, when there were not many household details provided.

In 1790, I find Jedediah Willet in New London County, Connecticut. 1800 and 1810 find him in Norwich. In 1820, he is in Montville, a town next to Norwich.

At GenealogyBank.com, I find newspaper references to the fact that Jedidiah was a ship builder in Norwich. One 1799 article includes wonderful descriptions of the launch of the Trumbull "sloop of war" from Jedediah Willet's Ship Yard.

Another source at Ancestry.com, Biographical Souvenir of the States of Georgia and Florida (Chicago, F. A. Battey & Company, 1889), includes a biographical sketch of one of Jedidiah's grandsons, which includes a description of Jedidiah that noted that he was a ship builder at Norwich, Connecticut, and that "He repaired the English ship "Macedonian," which had been captured by the United States man-of-war the "United States," on board of which was his son Jedidiah." (I need to figure out how to confirm that, as well as the claim that this Willet line descends from Thomas Willet who arrived in Boston in 1630!)

In 1830, there is a Jedidiah Willet in New York City. I still have to explore New York City directories for these years to see exactly which years he lived in New York. This explains how his daughter (my third great-grandmother, Frances) may have met and married Joseph Rose in 1827!

In the U.S. Censuses for 1840 and 1850, I find him in Macon, Bibb County, Georgia, living next to or in the same household as his son (from his first marriage), Joseph Willet.

Jedidiah Willet died on July 3, 1850, in Bibb County, Georgia. I just found this death notice from the Macon Weekly Telegraph which states that he was 82 years old (confirming a birth year of 1768), that he was formerly of Norwich, Connecticut (yep - that's my Jedidiah), and for the last 19 or 20 years a resident of Georgia.

July 9, 1850, issue of Macon Weekly Telegraph from GenealogyBank.com

Unfortunately, the death notice still doesn't explain WHY he went to Georgia. I'm still working on that! Going back to the fact that he has two Find A Grave memorials, I don't know if he was buried in Georgia, and has a memorial in Norwich, or if his body was moved at some point back to his birthplace to be buried next to his first wife.