NORWALK.                                                       353
 

HO ME-L O T   XXIX.

WALTER   HOYT.

Simon Hoyt, born in England in 1595, and who, company-led by Gov. John En¬
dicott, embarked at the age of three-and-thirty, for America, reached his desired western
haven Sept. 6, 1628. Two children had, up to this time, been born to him, Walter and
Nicholas. Walter was an English boy of ten, and Nicholas of eight, when the family set
foot on the New World soil. Their father, two years after arrival, is found in 1630 as a
Dorchester, Mass., settler. He there remained a few years and thence departed to Scitu¬
ate, in the same colony. He here found his second wife, Susanna Smith, with whoi-n, in
April, 1635, he "joined the Church of that place". He then went to Windsor, where, in
1640, he had definite registration. The family had now increased to four children, all boys
and all living : Walter, Nicholas, John and Moses. Walter was of age, and several
Windsor land grants were made to him. He seems to have Windsor-remained thirteen
years, and then, about 1653, aged thirty-five, came to Norwalk, his father having for a
few years already resided in Fairfield.

The residence-center home-lots had, probably, been pretty well disposed of when
Walter Hoyt appeared in Norwalk. His apportionment adjoined, on the west, that of John
Bouton, and was near the shore terminus of the path from Fairfield. John, the oldest son,
was about ten years old when he came with his father to Norwalk, and his brother Zerub¬
babel four or five, perhaps. The children between the two brothers were Elizabeth (Mrs.
Samuel St. John) and Hannah (^Irs. Judah Gregory).

Walter, the Norwalk Hoyt father, was useful until the end of life. He made his
will Feb. II, 1695-6, "aged abt. 78", and did not long thereafter survive. John, his son,
who married a step-daughter, Mary Lindall, of Nathaniel Richards (see page 121) re¬
moved to Danbury, leaving his only brother, Zerubbabel, sponsor for the Norwalk male
portion of the family. The children of Zerubbabel were Abigail, born Feb. 2, 1675;
Joseph, born 1676-78; Daniel, born Jan. i, i68r ; Hannah (Mrs. Joseph Whitney):
Caleb;   Rhoda (Mrs. John Keeler"''-).

DESCENT   OF   AND   FROM   WALTER   HOYT.

Walter Hoyt, the Norwalk settler, son of Simon Ho>-t the progenitor, was some
thirty-five years of age when he came to this town and planted his "coaste banke" home
adjacent to the fathers' ferry to "the other side", now South Norwalk. Four children—
John, about nine or ten, Elizabeth and Hannah, girls not far from five and seven, and Zerub¬
babel, a mere child—composed, with their parents, the Hoyt family circle when Norwalk
was cradled. The quite young Zerubbabel'"'- grew to man's e.state and lived to be rwice
married, his second wife, Mehitable, the widow of John Keeler, and by whom he had no
children, being, singular to say, the mother-in-law of his son Caleb and daughter  Rhoda.