Ives Family History Blog

Hamden Historical Society

The Hamden Historical Society is a very useful resource for the area and the study of the Ives family and those related to it. As their site says, "The Hamden Historical Society sponsors our room known as the Hamden History Room. The collection in the room is known as the Hamden Historical Society Library. Its purpose is to collect, preserve, and make available historical materials relating directly and significantly to Hamden. This Historical Society Library, inaugurated in 1984, provides a safe, central place to research Hamden’s past. It is the only facility in Hamden dedicated for these purposes. The Library’s holdings are listed on reQuest, a statewide database catalogue of materials in over 130 Connecticut Libraries, and in the National Union Catalogue of Manuscript Collections. The Library is staffed by one part-time professional archivist and assisted by trained volunteer catalogue specialists."

They will do some specific searches for you, as well as let you use their archives.

The Gradual Beginnings of North Haven and Hamden Part Three

It took several years to actually build the meeting house and services were held in the house of Joseph Ives and Ebenezer Blakeslee. Proper behavior on church meeting days was very important and the General Court in Hartford decreed in 1721 (Thrope, 1892)

“That each town at their annual meetings in December shall choose two or more tythingmen in each parish or society for divine worship within said town, who shall forthwidth be sworn to a faithful discharge of work hereby allotted to them; or if they neglect or refuse to take said oath shall pay a fine of forty shillings into treasury of said town.” Their duties were “to carefully inspect the behavior of all persons on the Sabbath …” to determine if they make any “prophanation of worship.”

The fine for offenses was five shillings and if the payment was not made the offender was publicly whipped. John Barnes and Joseph Cooper (see Cooper family) were the first appointees. A second, and larger, meeting house was built in 1739 (as shown on the previous page).

The Congregational Church was the early center of the colony and the minister’s salary was voted by the New Haven town meeting until 1667 and church attendance was mandatory. Unlike the Connecticut Colony, where every male could vote, in New Haven only church members could vote. This changed when New Haven had to join Connecticut in 1662. Other churches began and by 1708 everyone could worship as they wanted but they still had to pay a tax toward the Congregational Church. In 1726, members of other denominations could form their own churches.

In 1727 members of the Anglican Church were free from paying taxes to the Congregational Church and could collect their own. This right was extended to the Baptists and Quakers in 1729. For those living in Hamden, attendance at the New Haven church was a hardship due to travel. They received the right to attend the North Haven or Cheshire churches in 1739 and Jonathan Ives, while living in Hamden, was on the North Haven church rolls in 1760. The first church in Hamden was completed in 1761. In 1767 Jonathan Ives, Stephen Goodyear and Alvin Bradley were chosen to read the palms before musical instruments were added to the service. Jonathan was also on the first Hamden school committee in 1758. Classes were held in Samuel Bellamy’s home until the first school in Hamden was built in 1770. North Haven officially became a separate town from New Haven in 1784 and Hamden, originally called Mount Carmel, was granted this independent status in 1786 after several unsuccessful attempts. Around 1795 Jeremiah Ives took his family from Hamden to West Springfield, MA.

The Gradual Beginnings of North Haven and Hamden Part Two

The fence viewers, discussed earlier were appointed to help keep the domestic animals from the crops. To protect the animals, beginning in 1639, New Haven offered a bounty of 15 shillings on wolves and 2 shillings, 6 pence on foxes (Hartley, 1959). In 1650 the Indians were paid 5 shillings for each wolf’s head, without inquiry as to where it had been killed. The town also hired several local residents to kill wolves.

Later the blackbirds became a problem and in 1708 every male person between ages sixteen and seventy was ordered to kill at least a dozen during the year and there was a penalty of one pence per bird for failing to reach this quota and a similar reward for each bird over it. Much later the crows became the problem and the town in 1752 rewarded a shilling for each old crow killed and six pence for each young one.

A group of North Haven families meet in 1716 to organize the first church and then petition Hartford for approval as a separate parish. Joseph Ives’ son, also Joseph, was part of the committee that organized the first church and another son, Samuel was the first deacon, along with David Yale. Land was donated and the building committee included Joseph Ives. The families voted to tax themselves 3 pence to the pound as Thorpe (1892) quotes, “To be laid out upon building a meeting house, to be paid in money, or provisions, or labor, at money prices.” The meeting house was to be 30 by 40 feet.

The Gradual Beginnings of North Haven and Hamden Part One

Unlike Wallingford, North Haven and Hamden were closer to New Haven and most likely settled gradually and remained a part of New Haven until the 1780s. Joseph Ives returned to North Haven in 1673 to be near his wife’s family (Thomas & Mary Yale). His son, Samuel, lived in North Haven and his grandson, Jonathan, moved from North Haven to Hamden in 1735 and lived there until his death in 1792, so the next Ives generations are linked to these towns rather than New Haven proper. Ives (1928, p. 76) notes that the minutes of the New Haven town meetings in 1650 indicated that there were “more in towne then can well subsist together,” and there was a “neccessitie that some should remove.” The first settler was likely, William Bradley who was an officer in Cromwell’s army.

Hamden was named after John Hampden, the English statesman and cousin of Oliver Cromwell, who was killed in a battle of the civil war. He was a popular hero of the Puritan founders of the New Haven Colony, the forebears of the majority of Hamden residents in 1786. See the Hamden Historical Society site.

The next inhabitants included Issac Thrope, Ebenezer Blakeslee, and Joseph Ives. Until a meeting house was built in North Haven, people met at the house of Joseph and Mary Ives for Sabbath worship. Mr. Ives was also captain of the first train-band in the place. His sons, Joseph and Samuel, would go on to play important roles as the town began to become more formal.

The settlers in the New Haven area had hoped to make a living as merchants as that was their background. However, they were generally forced to depend on agriculture to survive. This was especially true in the more inland settlements of North Haven and Hamden. They had to protect their crops from their animals and, in turn, protect their animals from the wolves.

There were few domestic animals and a good cow was worth between twenty five and thirty pounds, the amount required to be a freeman. Coffee and tea were available and beer was first used until the apple trees matured and cider became the principal drink. There was little sugar or molasses, and what molasses was available was distilled into rum as soon as it was available. Corn was the main staple and Thorpe (1892) writes that “bean porridge, hasty pudding, Johnny cake, and samp were articles of daily consumption.” Most bread was made from rye flour.

Wallingford Agreement and Early Wallingford

Thirty years after New Haven’s founding, it was becoming crowded. In the early days of New England, the settlers tended to group themselves in deliberately planned towns to provide protection and support rather than striking out on their own. Ives (1928, p.29-31) quotes that the New Haven group “voted to erect a village upon our lands lieing above ye great plaine,” and also that General Court in Hartford granted on Oct. 19, 1667 “the towne of New Haven libetie to make a village on ye East River provide they setle a village there within fower years from May next.”

Meetings were held in New Haven planning the new community and thirty nine people signed a covenant that “we doe engage personally to settle upon ye place by May next, commencing next, come twelve month, if God’s Providence inevitably hinder not.” This agreement stated that “the s’d company and all others admitted planters among them, shall enjoy their accommodations and lands, without payment of purchase money to New Haven, to themselves, their heirs, successors and assigns, forever, so far as concerns New Haven town’s purchase within the village bounds.”

The Wallingford Agreement was signed on Jan. 31, 1668. Signers included the following ancestors: Joseph Ives and Samuel Street (son of Nicholas, the minister – see Street family). The signers also included several relatives of direct ancestors: John Ives (brother of Joseph Ives), Thomas Yale (brother of Mary Yale who married Joseph Ives), and John Peck (uncle of Ruth Peck, wife of Jonathan Atwater and mother of Ruth Atwater, wife of Samuel Ives), The Hartford court, now in control, fixed the first bounds of Wallingford on May 12, 1670 and the first settlement was made that year. The court fixed the bounds as “from the little Brook at the south end of the great plain to ye Northward Ten Miles, and from the said brook southward to Branford Bounds and on each side of the River five miles,” providing that “said village do not prejudice any Bounds formerly granted to any plantation or particular person or do not extend to ye north any further than to reach the old road to New Haven that goeth over Pilgrims Harbor.”

Ives (1928) (see resources) reports that bitter disputes resulted from the overlapping boundary lines. He adds (p. 31) that the village was laid out along a “Long Highway” extending north and south and a “Cross Highway” running east from Colony Road. Within the village, “house lotts” were plotted and around it was land designated “common field,” “wilderness,” “planting field,” “burying ground,” and “land laid out for purposes other than building or house lotts.” Joseph Ives was granted village lot 10 with 8 acres. His brother John did not take an allotment since he most likely had already established land.

Ives (1928, p. 32) adds that the planters owned everything in common and “cast lotts” to determine the spot where specific homes were built. Each planter declared the amount he was willing to “pay rates” and this determined his “rank” and share in the division of lands. The letter “H” indicated the highest rank and those received eighty acres, “M” the middle rank and an interest is sixty acres and “L” the lowest. Joseph Ives was designated with an “M” and he would have had to pay “rates on 75 pounds.” Like New Haven, each of the original planters was required to take an active part in the community and each shared in the appreciation of land values. Those who came later as “inhabitants” did not have a share in this appreciation. Initially, there were no fences and the domestic animals or “beasts” as they were called often destroyed the crops. To contain this problem, committees were formed, as in New Haven, to decide “whatt Hoggs shall be yoked and ringed, and what hoggs have no need soe to be.”

In 1712, the town voted that the proprietors of Wallingford were the original signers of the Wallingford Agreement, their heirs and those that purchased their allotments. Only these people would share in the later divisions of land. The four sons of John Ives (1644-1681/2) were eligible at the time but the sons of Joseph Ives (1647-1694), who lived in North Haven then, were not since Joseph had sold his allotment. The early settlers of Wallingford were actually poor and it took them five years from 1676, when they first meet to establish a church, to actually create a small building. Then they had trouble paying for the services of a minister, only affording one to lead the meeting once a quarter, a designated lay person led meetings “as far as proper” the rest of the time.

New Haven's Merger with Connecticut Part Two

The land grant to the Duke of York for land west of the Connecticut River caused New York and New Hampshire to have a similar dispute over what is now Vermont that was still under some contention in the late 1700s. Vermont was more fortunate than New Haven as it became an independent state rather than part of New York or New Hampshire. This dispute did result in some land grants within the present Vermont borders being unclear until the Republic of Vermont was admitted to the Union in 1791, the last of the original colonies (see History of Dover, VT by Kull).

About twenty of the New Haven freemen went to Hartford in May 1665 to be admitted to the Connecticut court but they “were sent home as repudiated, after they had suffered the difficulties and hazards of an uncomfortable and unsafe journey in that wet season.” (Davenport’s letter to Winthrop quoted in Atwater, 1902). In 1666 there were still only ten freemen from New Haven who had taken the oath to Connecticut and were sworn in as freemen of Connecticut, thus able to vote. One was Thomas Yale (see Yale family). Another was David Atwater (see Atwater family) William had died by then and his sons were still minors. The officials of the town were allowed to continue in their roles even though they had not been yet been sworn in as Connecticut freemen, a requirement for town officials in Connecticut.

It was not until 1669 that most, if not all, the freemen of New Haven had become freemen of Connecticut. By then Davenport, the spiritual leader and main founder of New Haven Colony, had given up. Refusing to take the oath of allegiance to Connecticut, he left New Haven for Boston on Sept. 27, 1667 and Nicholas Street, took over as the minister until his death in 1674. (Conclusion)

New Haven's Merger with Connecticut Part One

Primarily taken from Atwater’s History of the City of New Haven, 1902 and Levermore’s Republic of New Haven, 1886. (see sources)

New Haven was concerned from the start about losing its independence. In 1640, it appointed Capt. Nathaniel Turner to purchase the territory that is now Stamford, CT from the Indians, in part, to counter the expansion of the Connecticut Colony, centered in Hartford, along the Sound. In the same year, Capt. Turner purchased a large tract of land from the Indians for New Haven’s expansion on what is now the southwest coast of New Jersey on Delaware Bay, as well as land on the eventual site of Philadelphia. However, the venture became a financial disaster for the merchants in New Haven and was eventually abandoned.

The nearby Dutch burned the English trading settlement in 1642 and then the Swedes harassed it. The governor of New Sweden was instructed to “handle tenderly the English families…and to win them to our government by underhanded means,” but he choose a tougher approach and extracted tolls and imprisoned some of the leaders. In a trial, the Swedish court ruled that the Swedes had actually bought the land from the same Indians three days before the English and concluded the English were trespassers. Most of them went back to New Haven.

Under mounting pressures, in 1646, the merchants of New Haven, in an effort to ensure the independence of the colony, sent a ship with a cargo of 5,000 pds. to London to secure an official colonial charter from Parliament, the king having been deposed as a result of the English Civil War. Nathaniel Turner went on the trip but the ship sank in route and Nathaniel died at sea, along with all the others and the cargo was lost. In 1651, about fifty men, largely from New Haven tried to start a plantation in their New Jersey land but the Dutch Governor in New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, imprisoned them and only let them go with the promise that they go immediately back to New Haven. He said if they ever came back he would send them to Holland as prisoners.

In 1660 the Stuart king was restored which did not sit well with New Haven. It was the last colony to recognize him in August 1661. In 1664, the Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the Duke of York and the subsequent Royal grant to the Duke of York made the Connecticut River the eastern boundary of that colony. Now both New York and Connecticut claimed the land New Haven was located on, putting New Haven in a bad situation. The charter for Connecticut gave it the present boundary with New York. New Haven had bought the land from the Indians and had not sought a grant from the English king because they did not recognize his authority for this transaction.

This lack of title from the English king and the presence of two other colonies with Royal grants claiming their land, meant they would have to go under one of these larger colonies. Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts represented Connecticut in the negotiations and won almost all the claims. New York only got Long Island, also claimed by Connecticut. The last court of New Haven was held on December 13, 1664. They voted, “if thereby it shall appear to our committee that we are by his Majesty’s authority now put under Connecticut patent, we shall submit; as from a necessity brought upon us by the means of Connecticut aforesaid, but with a salve jure of our former right and claim, as a people who have not yet been heard in a point of plea.” (Continued)