ASA R. BIGELOW, farmer, residing
in Colchester, was born in this town, January 17, 1830, son of Guy Bigelow
and his wife, Sarah Ann Waite Bigelow. He is of old and substantial Colonial
stock, being a direct descendant in the male line of John Bigelow, who
came to New England — some have thought from Wales — and settled at Watertown,
Mass., where his marriage took place in 1642, and was the first one recorded
in the town. His wife was Mary Warren.
Lieutenant John Bigelow, grandson of John
of Watertown, came to Colchester from Hartford, Conn., between 1706 and
1710. He was four times married, and had two children by his first wife
and five by his second wife, Sarah Bigelow, a cousin. He died March 8,
1770. Asa Bigelow, first, born in Colchester in 1720, one of the second
group, married early in life, and died in 1754, leaving a large family.
His posthumous son and namesake, Asa, grandfather of Asa R. Bigelow, married
February 5, 1783, Lydia Newton, of Colchester, a daughter of James Newton.
During the Revolution Asa Bigelow, second, was Assistant Commissary to
Commissary-general Champion, and took a drove of cattle to Valley Forge.
He was a carpenter by trade, and used the first cut nails seen in the town
in shingling his own barn in 1794, the nails being brought by his son Guy
on horseback from Windham, Conn. The old buildings are still standing.
Grandfather Bigelow was a large landed proprietor, owning seven hundred
acres of land, which was divided into three farms. He was one of the first
trustees of Bacon Academy. Of the eleven children born to him and his wife,
ten, three sons and seven daughters, reached maturity, and nine were married.
Three of the daughters married clergymen; one became the wife of Daniel
Safford, an iron merchant of Boston, who was one of the promoters of the
school at South Hadley, now Mount Holyoke College; and the son Asa, third,
became a prominent New York merchant. Grandfather Bigelow died July 28,
1830, at the age of seventy-five. His widow survived him fourteen years,
dying in 1844.
Guy Bigelow was educated in the common schools
of Colchester and at Bacon Academy. He was a prominent and influential
citizen, active in town affairs; and he served one year as Representative
in the legislature. He settled on his farm of two hundred acres in 1851.
He married March 8, 1827, Sarah Ann Waite, a daughter of Remick and Susannah
(Matson) Waite. Of the seven children born of this union four died young;
and three — Asa R., Jonathan E., and Henry W. — survived their parents.
The father died in 1868, in the eighty-third year of his age; and the mother
died in 1891, at the age of ninety-five. They were active members of the
Congregational church. Jonathan E. Bigelow, who is unmarried, lives with
his brother Asa on the home farm. Henry Waite Bigelow, the other brother,
was a volunteer in 1861 in the Fourteenth Ohio, going as private from Toledo,
and becoming the Captain of Company H. He was twice wounded at Chickamauga,
first from a ball passing through his thigh and afterward in the arm. For
these injuries he received a pension from the government. He was a merchant
and manufacturer in Toledo, Ohio, and was a thirty-third degree Mason.
He died unmarried, March 12, 1895.
Mr. Asa R. Bigelow, following his father's
footsteps, attended the Bacon Academy in his youth; and, beginning at the
age of seventeen, he taught school for ten seasons. On September 13, 1855,
he was united in marriage with Anne Putnam Brown, of Brooklyn, Conn. Mrs.
Bigelow was a great-granddaughter of General Israel Putnam, and was also
descended from the Brinleys, of Boston, who were among the founders of
King's Chapel, and from the Hutchinsons. She was one of thirteen children
born to her parents, James and Emily (Putnam) Brown, of whose family four
daughters and five sons lived to maturity, and four of the sons married.
To take the places of the four sons who died in childhood, four nephews
of Mr. Brown were adopted. The two children now living are: the Rev. Edward
Brown, Episcopal rector at Stafford Springs, Conn.; and his sister, Jane
C. Brown, at the old home in Brooklyn. The mother died in 1873, at the
age of seventy-three; and the father five years later, at eighty-two years
of age.
Mrs. Bigelow died April 27, 1897, aged sixty-seven,
leaving four children; namely, James Dixon, Elizabeth Brinley, Sarah Waite,
and Henry Waite. James Dixon Bigelow is an attorney-at-law and real estate
broker in Terre Haute, Ind. He has a wife and two daughters. Elizabeth
Brinley Bigelow, a young artist, was educated at Carl Hecker's school,
and now has a class in the village. Several years of her life have been
spent in the West, in Indiana and in Illinois; but both she and her sister
Sarah are now living at home. Henry Waite is a graduate of the Polytechnic
Institute of Terre Haute, Ind. He is a fine mechanic and chemist, and is
now in the department of tests for the Pope Manufacturing Company of Hartford.
The family are all Episcopalians. Mr. Bigelow is a Master Mason. He is
a Republican, and served his town as Assessor for many years. He was Representative
in 1873, and has been a defeated candidate many other years, the town being
strongly Democratic. To the old farm of two hundred acres he has added
thirty acres. It is in a most delightful location, reached by a walk or
drive through the shaded and picturesque wood road past the old mill, now
silent, and the babbling trout brook, which is the outlet of a fine large
mill-pond; and the secluded homestead, so neatly kept and so plainly the
abode of taste and culture, is one of the most attractive in this fine
agricultural town.
Biographical Review Volume
XXVI
Containing Life Sketches of Leading Citizens
of New London County Connecticut
Boston
Biographical Review Publishing Company
1898
pg 53 - 55
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