Thomas Grovenor
Revolutionary Soldier, Jurist.

The surname Grosvenor is of ancient Norman origin and means "great hunter." The ancestry of the English family is traced to Gilbert Le Grosvenor, who was related to William the Conqueror, and came with him to England. Grosvenor in time became the family name. The family has held a leading place since the days of the Conquest and many of the branches have produced men of wealth, title and distinction. The Grosvenors of Chester have been particularly conspicuous. The coat-of-arms, the same that is inscribed on the tombstone of the American immigrant, is: Azure, a garb or.
John Grosvenor, immigrant ancestor of the American family, first of the American lineage and fifteenth of the English, was son of Sir Richard (3) Grosvenor and the Grosvenor arms, quartered with others, were inscribed on his tombstone.
He was born in England in 1641, and came from Cheshire to New England when a young man. The family Bible of General Lemuel Grosvenor, owned by his granddaughter, Mrs. Clarissa Thompson, of Pomfret, Connecticut, states that John Grosvenor and Esther, his wife, came from Cheshire, England, in 1680, and settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts. The records, however, prove that he was there as early as 1673, when he was one of the proprietors of the town of Roxbury. He was one of the original purchasers of the Mashamoquet grant in i686, which included fifteen thousand acres embracing the present towns of Pomfret, Brooklyn and Putnam, and the parish of Abington, Connecticut. In the division of this purchase, to the twelve Roxbury proprietors who bought it, there was allotted to the widow and sons of John Grosvenor all the land where the village of Pomfret is now located and the hills which surround it, including Prospect hill, which faces the east, and the commanding eminences called Sharp's hill and Spaulding's hill on the west. Here he settled. He married, in England, Esther Clarke, born in 1642, died June i6, 1728 (gravestone). He died at Roxbury, September 27, 1691, in his forty-seventh year, and his gravestone may still be seen in the old Roxbury burying ground.
Ebenezer Grosvenor, son of John Grosvenor, was born October 9, 1684. He shared in the division of his father's estate at Pomfret. His first house was on the road from Worcester to Norwich on the western declivity of Prospect hill, not far from the mansion house of Colonel Thomas Grosvenor, where an ancient well is still to be seen evidently dug for the accommodation of the Widow Esther and her children. Ebenezer lived at Pomfret and died there September 3, 1730. He married Ann Marcy, born 1687, died July 30, 1743.
Captain John Grosvenor, son of Ebenezer Grosvenor, was born at Pomfret, May 22, 1711, died there in 1808. He was captain of a Pomfret company in the Crown Point expedition under Lieutenant Dyer, Lieutenant-Colonel Nathaniel Tyler's regiment, of which Israel Putnam was then second lieutenant. He married Hannah Dresser, of Thompson, Connecticut, for his second wife.
Colonel Thomas Grosvenor, son of Captain John Grosvenor, was born at Pomfret, September 20, 1744, died in 1825. He graduated at Yale in 1765. Judge Theodore Sedgwick, of Massachusetts, was a classmate. Grosvenor established himself in the practice of law at Pomfret.
When Connecticut raised and officered the first seven regiments for the relief of Massachusetts in the Revolution, Grosvenor was commissioned second lieutenant of the Third Regiment, under Colonel Israel Putnam and Lieutenant-Colonel Experience Storrs, of Mansfield. The minute-men followed Putnam to Cambridge and the old red house where the company assembled on the morning of their departure, April 23, 1775, is still standing. On the evening of June 16, 1775, Lieutenant Grosvenor was detailed with thirty-one men drafted from his company to march to Charlestown under Captain Thomas Knowlton, of Ashford and with about a hundred others of the same regiment were stationed before noon next day at the rail fence on the left the breastworks on Breed's Hill (commonly known as Bunker Hill) and extending thence to Mystic river. The whole force was under the command of Knowlton. When the British attack was made, a column under General Pigott was directed against the redoubt and another under General Howe advanced against the rail fence. Captain Dana relates that he, Sergeant Fuller and Lieutenant Grosvenor were the first to fire. When at the third attack the British burst through the American line at the left of the redoubt, Captain Knowlton, Chester and Clark, clung persistently to the position near the Mystic, though separated from the main body of provincials, and eventually protected the retreat of the men who were in the redoubt, fighting, according to the report of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, with the utmost bravery, and keeping the British from advancing further than the breach until the main body had left the hill. Colonel Grosvenor related in a letter to Daniel Putnam, Apr 30, 1818, respecting General Dearborn's charges against the behavior of General Putnam at Bunker Hill, that his command of thirty men and one subaltern lost eleven killed or wounded. "Among the latter was myself, though not so severel as to prevent my retiring." At Winter Hill, where intrenchments had been thrown up by the Connecticut troops, the Provincials made their last stand. Colonel Grosvenor carried a musket and used to relate that he fired his nine cartridges the same precision of aim as if foxhunting and saw a man fall after each shot. His wound was caused by a musket through the hand. Before striking his hand it had passed through the rail and it passed through the butt of his musket after piercing his hand and finally bruised his breast. He bound up his hand with a white cravat and remained on until after the battle. This incident immortalized in Trumbull's painting of the battle of Bunker Hill. The commanding figure in the foreground was intended to represent Lieutenant Grosvenor accompanied by his colored servant.
On the arrival of the American army in New York, May, 1776, General Washington organized a battalion of light troops from the volunteer regiments of New England and Thomas Grosvenor commanded one of the companies under Colonel Thomas Knowlton. The Knowlton Rangers, as they were called, took part in the battle of Long Island, in the fight at Harlem, in that near McGowan's Pass, where Knowlton was killed. The silk sash of Colonel Knowlton, which had been presented to him by the town of Boston, is preserved in the family of the youngest daughter of Colonel Grosvenor, Hannah. Captain Brown, who succeeded Knowlton, fell in the defense of Fort Mifflin in November, 1777. Colonel Grosvenor was in the battle of White Plains, October 28, 1776, and was captain in Durkee's regiment in the battles of Trenton, Trenton Bridge and Princeton, and wintered at Valley Forge. He was captain in Colonel Wyllis's regiment and was with him at the capture of Ticonderoga, May 10, 1776. He was commissioned February 6, 1777, major in that regiment.
During the winter at Valley Forge he belonged to Huntington's brigade, which took part in the battles of Germantown, Brandywine and in the movements at White Marsh and Chestnut hill, from November 23 to December 22, 1777, and down to the encampment at Valley Forge. He was commissioned lieutenant-colonel, March 13, 1778, in Colonel Durkee's regiment, and marched to Monmouth, where June 28, 1778, a battle was fought that decided the fate of Washington. His regiment was in the advance under Lafayette and was ranged upon the heights behind the causeway after Lee's retreat. Colonel Grosvenor was also in General Sullivan's expedition against the Seneca Indians in the summer and autumn of 1779. On May 22, 1779, he was appointed, and July 11 following was commissioned as sub-inspector of the army under Baron Steuben. He was commissioned an inspector, January 1, 1781. On the death of Colonel Durkee, May 29, 1782, he was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the First Connecticut Regiment and continued in that command until January 1, 1783, when the Connecticut regiments were consolidated under act of Congress of August 7, 1782. He was also assistant adjutant-general of the Connecticut Line, as his orderly books show. After January 1, 1783, Colonel Grosvenor returned to Pomfret and resumed the practice of law.
He married Ann, youngest daughter of Captain Peter and Abigail (Martin)Mumford. Abigail Martin, born January 11, 1728, died June 30, 1809, daughter of Captain John Martin, R. A., who came from County Armagh, Ireland, to this country, and was shot during the Revolution by a British captain, Wallace. Captain Martin married Mrs. (Remington) Gardner, a widow. Captain Peter Mumford, born March 16, 1728, died May 3, 1798; married, June 2, 1756, Abigail Martin; was son of Benjamin Mumford, born April 10, 1696, at South Kingston, married, 1720, Ann, daughter of John and Peace (Perry) Mumford and granddaughter of Rev. Stephen and Anne Mumford.
Rev. Stephen Mumford was born in 1638, died July 1; 1707; married, 1665, came from London to Rhode Island and settled at Newport. Benjamin Mumford was a son of Thomas and Abigail Mumford, of South Kingston, and grandson of Thomas Mumford, born in England, high sheriff, settled in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, where he died February 12, 1692. Thomas Mumford married Sarah, daughter of Philip and Sarah (Odding) Sherman, granddaughter of Henry and Susan (Hills) Sherman, and great~granddaughter of Henry and Agnes Sherman, of Dedham, England.
For more than twenty years after his marriage Colonel Grosvenor was a member of the Governor's Council in Connecticut, and for a still longer period chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Windham county and judge of probate for his district. The diploma signed by Washington constituting him a member of the Order of Cincinnati, now in the possession of Bertram G. Goodhue, hung until 1891 in the hall of the mansion house which he built at Pomfret and in which he died. The raising of the frame of that house was an occasion of festivity and many were the recipients of his bounty at that time. It is said that a young Mohegan Indian danced upon the ridge pole as part of the celebration. The house was always open to the chance visitor and for many years was a refuge for the remnants of Indian tribes that still lingered in Connecticut, as well as other unfortunates. Among them were the venerable Indians, Joshua Senseman and his wife, and brother Isaac.
Soon after the death of his second son, Colonel Grosvenor joined the Congregational church at Pomfret. No man was more venerated and respected by his townsmen. He refused a pension. He died July 11, 1825. His wife died June 11, 1820, and both are buried in the little burying ground in Pomfret, where monuments have been erected to their memory. Children: Thomas Mumford, married Charlotte Lee; Ann, married Henry King: Peter, died young; Major Peter, was in the war of 1812, married Ann Chase, had four sons, who with five sons of his brother, Thomas Mumford, fought in the Civil War and of the nine five were killed.
John H., was consul of the United States at Canton, China, died unmarried in New York City, January 3, 1848; Hannah, married Edward Eldredge.