October 13, 1742- Nathaniel Bacon III, son of Nathaniel Bacon & Hannah Wetmore, marries Amy Sage Harrison, widow of Edmund Harrison, in Middletown, Middlesex,
Connecticut.
October 14, 1742- A son, Oliver, is born to Daniel Doolittle & Elizabeth Dayton in New Haven,
New Haven, Connecticut.
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| Official seal of Middletown, Connecticut ( |
(Nathaniel Bacon is my first cousin 9 times removed. Our common ancestors are Nathaniel Bacon & Ann Miller and Deacon Thomas Wetmore.
Oliver Doolittle is my second cousin 9 times removed. Our common ancestors are Abraham Doolittle & Abigail Moss and John Cornwall & Martha Peck.)
Before Europeans arrived, the territory where Middletown now sits was held by the Wangunks on the east bank and the Mattabesetts on the west bank of the Connecticut River. These two peoples shared a common chief, Sowheag, at the time of the initial European settlement in
1650.
In
1650, the first English families arrived from Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor. The new community became officially a town the following year, adopting the name "Middletown" in
1653, a reference to its distance halfway between the mouth of the Connecticut River and Windsor.
The first Africans were brought from Barbados to Middletown as slaves eight years later in
1661. Slavery remained a part of Middletown life throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; by
1756, 218 slaves -- at the time the third largest African population in the colony-- lived among a population of approximately 5,44 Europeans.
Middletown and other Connecticut towns had their own militias, or train bands, and held regular training days. Colonial statute required Middletown to have a force consisting of at least eight armed men and a sergeant acting as guard at any assembly for public worship. The militia kept watch around the meeting house, a structure 20 feet square enclosed by a palisade.
During the fifty years before the guns of Lexington, Middletown merchants developed an extensive trade between
New England and the
West Indies. Middletown enjoyed booming times while the trade lasted. So closely was Middletown's economic life tied to the sea that, by the outbreak of the Revolution, one third of the population was engaged in
maritime trade and merchant activities.
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The Society of Colonial Wars
