104
 

NORWALK.
 

respected colonial occupations. Besides this, he was probabl}- the head of the iron-ware
establishment of the period. The Holmes' of America ma}- be proud of their Norwalk
kinsman. He was a brother of the founders of the Stamford and Bedford' Holmes families,
and Col. James Holmes of the Revolution was his grand-nephew.^    He left no male issue.
 

HOME-LOT     V.

Edward Nash, who succeeded Joseph Fitch and Mark St. John as proprietor of
Lot No. 5, was the fore-parent of the large Norwalk Nash family. He was a son, it is
claimed, of Edward Nash '^^' who was born in Lancashire, England, in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, in 1592, and reported to have had two sons, Edw-ard-''■ and John. Edward
Nash •"''-came earl}- to Norw-alk, and immediately followed Mark St. John as owner of
one of the eligible house-sites (directl}- south of the East Norwalk school of 1896) in the
new- plantation, and as Jos. Fitch was unmarried while he remained in Norwalk, and Mark
St. John \\ as possessed of tw-o additional lots, it seems probable that Mr. Nash was the
earliest heartstone occupant of the spot. There appears to be no mention of the first Mrs.
Nash. B}- her was a son John, born 1652, who, so runs the family tradition, was the
first English child born in Norwalk. iVnother child of Edward Nash, bv his first wife, was
Hannah, who married, Dec. 3, 1678, Deliverance, son of Henr}- Wakele}- of Stratford, and
an earl}- Hartford law}-er.3 Here is a possible hint as to the locality-antecedents of the
original Mrs. Nash. The second Mrs. Edward Nash was the wife, first, of Thomas Rumble
of (as the record shows) the ancient town of Stratford, and second, of Thomas Barlow
of Fairfield.^     Mrs. Nash had no children, it is probable, by her last marriage.     She was
 

'Two Holmes sisters lived in Bedford (south part
of town on road leadiuL; east) some seventy or so years
ago, one of whom. Amy, married as his third wife,
Nathan Selleck, and was the inother of Jesse Selleck,
I ite of Norwalk.

^John Holmes, nephew perchance of Richard,
was killed by the fall of the first church bell that was
raised in Stamford.    See Huntington's Stamford.

.l.\n interesting genealogical fact is divulged
through a clause in the inventory, jVug. 2, 1699, of
the Norwalk estate of Edw-ard Nash,2d- .Allusion is
there made to " Deliverance Wakeley, son-in-law " of
said Nash. This establishes the claim thatthe " Han¬
nah Nash " who married Deliverance, son of Henry
Wakeley, the noted colonial lawyer of Hartford, was
a daughter of Edward Nash of Norwalk, rather than
of Ser-t. Joseph Nash of New 1 laven; and as Nathaniel
Ketchuin, who married June 12, 1710, Sarah, born
Dee. I, 16S3, daughter of Deliverance and Hannah
( Nash) Ketchum, was the probable ancestor of .Amos
and Hiram and Morris Ketchum as well as of Maria
Ketchum  Averill,  wife of Chancellor  Reuben  Hvde
 

Wiilworth of Saratoga Springs, it gives to these kins¬
folk an additional Norwalk lineage.

tThomas Barlow is believed to have been a near
relative of John Barlow^ 'st, both early settlei-s of
Fairfield. The six acres granted him in 1653 by the
Fairfield fathers are to-day a coveted portion of that
handsome and historic town. He appointed in his
will the celebrated Thomas Pell, of King Charles I.
staff and lord of the Manor of Pelham, overseer of
his three children, two of whom, Phoebe and Mary,
married in Norwalk. Phoebe (Mrs. James Olmsted)
had a son Nathan, born, .April 27, 1678, who married,
Dec. 17, 1702, Sarah, daughter of Ralph Keeler. By
this union there was evidently a son, Nathan 2nd,
(afterward of New Fairfield, Conn.,) but this Nathan's
half brothers, Samuel and James, and his half sisters,
Mercy and Lydia, were the issue, it seems, of his
father's second marriage to Mercy, daughter of
Christopher Comstock. Mercy Olmsted, daughter
of Nathan, married .Moses St. John, who is well
represented in Norwalk to-day, and Lydia Olmsted,
through her marnage to Matthew Fitch, becameafore-