SAMUEL KEELER

• Birth Notes
  • born Abt. 1655 in Norwalk, CT, United States

• Death Notes
  •  May 19, 1713 in Ridgefield, CT, United States.

• General Notes
  • When Samuel died, in 1713, he was 58 yrs old, and was one of the first deaths to be recorded in Ridgefield, CT.
    
    "Samuel took part in the "Direful Swamp Fight" (Hall, p. 66) of 19 Dec. 1675 in which men from the colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth and Connecticut successfully attacked a strongly fortified encampment of Indians near Narragansett Bay. The Indians were being led by Philip, sachem of the Wampanoags, in an uprising against the colonists known as King Philip's War. For his services, Samuel received from the town "one parcell of land lying upon Clapboard Hill, so called, containing twelve acres more or less..." (ibid, p. 64).
    
    Samuel and his brother Ralph were among a group of ten Norwalk residents whose names appear on a 1697 petition seeking to "purchase of the Indians a certain tract of land lying about fourteen miles Northward of the town of Norwalk to settle a plantation there..." (Rockwell, History of Ridgefield, p. 9). The court named a committee to study the proposal. It took more than ten years to achieve General Assembly approval of their petition. The purchase deed was dated 30 Sept. 1708. The Indians received 100 pounds for 200,000 acres of land. The General Assembly decreed 13 Oct. 1709 that the new settlement shall be called and known by the name of Ridgfield (Teller, History of Ridgefield, p.8).
    
    Samuel's brother Ralph apparently had lost interest but Samuel and his two eldest sons, Samuel and Joseph, were among the 24 original proprietors. A street was laid out along a central ridge with parcels of land designated by numbers. Samuel drew lot 24, Samuel Jr. drew lot 2 and Joseph, lot 19 (Welsh, Proprietors of Ridgefield, p. 9). Before moving to Ridgefield, Samuel represented Norwalk as deputy to the General Assembly in 1701, 1703, 1704, 1706, and 1709."
    
    

Click here for details of SAMUEL's family with SARAH ST. JOHN

Source/Citation

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