SANFORD NELSON BILLINGS, a
skillful farmer and extensive landowner of Stonington, Conn., was born
May 18, 1841, in North Stonington, a son of Horatio N. Billings, and is
of ancient Colonial stock.
Roger Billings, probably the first of this
surname in New England, came over about 1635, and settled at Dorchester,
Mass. His epitaph, which has been preserved in print, reads as follows:
—
Here lyeth buried ye
Body of Roger Billings
Senior aged 63 years
Departed this life ye
15 day of November 1683
William Billings, an ancestor of the subject
of this sketch several generations removed, married February
12, 1658; and to him and his wife, Mary, were born seven daughter
and two sons, William being the eldest and Ebenezer, the next in line of
descent, the youngest child. In 1680 Ebenezer married Annie Comstock, who
bore him five daughters and an equal number of sons, among them being Ebenezer
and Increase. The latter, their eighth child,
born May 13, 1697, settled in Ledyard, Conn. Ebenezer Billings, Jr., their
second child and first son, was the next in this line. He was born January
1, 1684, and on April 2, 1706, married Phebe Dennison, by whom he had eleven
children, six of them being sons. The line was continued through their
third child and second son, Ebenezer, third, born March 2O, 1711. He married
Mary Noyes on November 20, 1733, and had four sons and four daughters.
Sanford, the second child and first son, born April 21, 1736, was named
in honor of an uncle or aunt who had married into the family of George
Sanford. Sanford Billings married Lucy Green, daughter of James Green,
whose wife, it is said, was a direct descendant of John Alden and Priscilla
Mullins, immortalized by Longfellow. Nine sons and two daughters were born
of this union, Gilbert, the fifth son and child, being the grandfather
of Sanford Nelson Billings.
Gilbert Billings was born November 25, 1768,
on the old homestead in Stonington. He married Lucy Swan, by whom he had
eleven children, eight sons and three daughters; and of these two sons
and one daughter died in early life. A daughter, Lucy, was twice married;
and one of her grand-daughters, whose father was a surgeon in the Twenty-first
Illinois Volunteer Infantry, commanded by General Grant, now lives in Illinois.
A son, Robert Billings, married Calista Kinney, and at his death left one
son, Gilbert, of Mill Town. Sanford Billings, second, another son, a young
man of great promise, went West as a surveyor when young, and died in Illinois.
Horatio N. Billings was born in 1803, and
married on January 30, 1838, Mary Ann Fish. He was a seafaring man, and
in 1849 or 1850 went to California as first mate of a sailing-vessel. He
was heard from soon after his arrival, but never afterward. Mrs. Billings
struggled nobly to educate their four children; namely, Lucy H., Sanford
Nelson, Edward E., and Mary A. Lucy H. Billings became the wife of John
L. Spalding, and died in 1881, aged forty-two years; Edward E. is a farmer
in North Stonington; and Mary A. is the wife of Charles D. Thompson, of
North Stonington, and has twin daughters. Mrs. Spalding, who possessed
rare literary ability and artistic talent, was educated at Cooper Institute
in New York, where she won the first prize medal in art. She wrote much
for the press; and in 1871 a volume of her poetical works was published
by J. B. Lippincott, bearing the title of "The Ruined Statues and Other
Poems," by Louise Billings Spalding (her pen name). She was twice married,
but had no children.
Sanford N. Billings began the battle of life
on his own account when a lad of sixteen, working as a farm hand for his
uncle, Benjamin F. Billings, in Griswold, this county. At the age of eighteen
he began farming on the old homestead farm that his early ancestor, William
Billings, had taken from the government, and a portion of which has since
been in the family, being now owned by a cousin of Mr. Billings. In August
1862, Mr. Billings enlisted as a private in Company G, Twenty-first Connecticut
Volunteer Infantry. Six months later he was detached, and for a year and
a half was turnkey of the jail at Norfolk, Va. Rejoining his regiment at
Washington, N.C., he was taken prisoner in front of Richmond on May 16,
1864, and conveyed to Libby Prison and two weeks later to Andersonville,
where he was confined until the fall of 1864. He was then taken to Charleston,
S.C., thence three weeks later to Florence, and from there to Wilmington,
N.C., and afterward to Goldsboro. Mr. Billings had in the meantime endured
untold horrors, and, having suffered a shock, had become so reduced that
he could scarcely walk. He had barely clothes enough to cover him; but
in sheer desperation he and a comrade wandered away, and were fortunately
picked up by some of the boys in blue. Mr. Billings was so feeble in mind
that he knew not his name or where he was; but after weeks of faithful
nursing he was partially restored, and as soon as able was sent home, arriving
here a mere shadow of himself. He had weighed one hundred and seventy-five
pounds when in his normal health, but after becoming convalescent he weighed
but ninety-four. Though he escaped the missiles of death that flew around
him in battle, he suffered worse agonies than were ever caused by a bullet's
wound, his prison life having been a veritable "hell upon earth," the very
memory of it even now overshadowing him with a sickening horror. While
he was in Andersonville, his mother died on the old homestead.
Mr. Billings has since turned his attention
to agricultural pursuits in Stonington and North Stonington, paying much
attention to stock-raising, a part of the time having been in partnership
with W. W. Billings; but he is now more interested in dairying. In 1873
he took possession of his present fine farm, which was presented to him
by William W. Billings, of New London. He also owns another farm and two
tracts of land, amounting in all to some three hundred acres.
Mr. Billings was married October 28, 1867,
to Miss Lucy E. Main, of North Stonington, a daughter of Charles H. and
Almira (Egleston) Main. Mr. and Mrs. Billings have eight children, the
following being their record: Byron, born January 4, 1869, is foreman of
the Wilcox Fish Works at Mystic; Mary, born May 15, 1871, married Arthur
G. Wheeler, and has one son and one daughter; William W., a farmer, resides
in Stonington; Lucy was born June 20, 1881; Grace W. was born December
18, 1882; Lilla M. was born July 6, 1886; Priscilla Alden was born May
29, 1892; and Sanford N., Jr., was born August 17, 1895. Mr. Billings is
a decided Republican in his political affiliations, but has never aspired
to official honors. He is a member of the J. F. Trumbull Post, No. 82,
G. A. R.
Biographical Review Volume
XXVI
Containing Life Sketches of Leading Citizens
of New London County Connecticut
Boston
Biographical Review Publishing Company
1898
pgs 16 - 18
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