Stonington, Connecticut One Place Study

Profile managers: Anne B [send private message], One Place Studies Project WikiTree [send private message], T Counce [send private message], and Connecticut Project WikiTree [send private message]

Welcome to the Stonington, One Place Study Page

This profile is part of the Stonington, Connecticut One Place Study.

About Stonington, New London, Connecticut:

• "...the white men continually applied Indian names to features of the landscape that were not at all in the Indian mind when they coined the word. Thus a word meaning a hill might be applied by the white men to all the surrounding territory and come eventually to mean a pond. And so the Indian names, or their Indian approximates, have come down to us not in the names of the towns, which the white men were creating in the tradition of their own race, but in features of the countryside streams, mountains, hills and other natural aspects." Stonington was the fifteenth (15th) Settlement in Connecticut and was settled 1649; named Souther Towne, by Mass., Oct., 1658; Stonington by Conn., 1666. Indian names, "Pawcatuck" and "Mistack."^[1]
• "The town of Stonington shares its eastern border with Westerly, Rhode Island, and is located in the southeast corner of New London County. The town includes the eastern halves of the villages of Mystic and Old Mystic, the borough of Stonington, and the villages of Lords Point, Wequetequok, and Pawcatuck. Settled in 1649 and named Stonington in 1666, the town grew as its shipbuilding and whaling industries thrived. Even today, the state’s last commercial fishing fleet is based in Stonington. The town, and especially the village of Mystic, is also a popular tourist destination, with a lively historic district, museums, and retail shops."^[2]
• It would be interesting to know how Mr. Stanton appeased the wrath of the Court and the Commissioners, but adding this to other impossible things we learn that the next year he and his family moved to Wequetequock Cove, two and a half miles east of Stonington. This was in 1658. The first settler upon the shores of that cove was William Chesebrough, in 1649; the next was Walter Palmer, who came to Salem, Massachusetts, from Nottinghamshire, England, in 1629. The third settler was Mr. Stanton. In October, 1658, this territory belonged to the Massachusetts Plantation, what is now Stonington, New London County, Connecticut, was then Southington, Suffolk County, Massachusetts. The court ordered it managed by Capt. George Denison, Robert Park, William Chesebrough, Thomas Stanton and Walter Palmer. In 1662, Charles II gave Connecticut a new charter that included Southington, in 1665 the name was changed to Mystic, and in 1667 the final change was made to Stonington. The first meeting-house was built in 1661.^[3]
• More information is available in "History of the Town of Stonington, County of New London, Connecticut, from its first settlement in 1649 to 1900.^[4]

Stonington, Conn

The Stonington, Connecticut One Place Study Mission:

• The goal of this Project is to put together as much information as possible that can be used for analysis, follow migration patterns, tell a living story of the people of Stonington, New London, Connecticut, etc., not just a list of flat facts, and to build it into something bigger. Stonington, Connecticut, as of the 1920 US Census was a town of 115,000+ people so we have plenty to work with.

This Project is Working in Conjunction With Other WikiTree Projects:

To help facilitate you being able to find what or whom you may be searching for this One Place Study Project Stonington_Connecticut-Study works in conjunction with the following Projects and Studies, to help you be more successful in your search(es):

• The One Place Region Project, Stonington, Connecticut which is a list of Cemeteries in the in Stonington in which people of Colonial Times are buried. (If the cemetery you are looking for in Stonington, Connecticut is not on the list, please contact that project manager). Find here: Category:Stonington,_Connecticut
• Connecticut Cemeteries Category Project which is a list of all of the Cemeteries in Connecticut. (If the cemetery you are looking for in Connecticut is not on the list, please contact that project manager). Find here: Category:Connecticut,_Cemeteries
• Category: Connecticut, Wheeler Name Study which is a One Name Study of those people with the Surname "Wheeler" who were born in, lived in, were married in, or died in Connecticut. (Please see that Study for specifics as they may change from time to time.) Find here: Category:Connecticut,_Wheeler_Name_Study

About the Categories on This Page

Categories can be confusing, whether you are new to WikiTree or you have been around for a while. Here are suggestions to help you navigate the categories in this study:

1) Click on the categories at the bottom of this page to get to the different pages connected to this study.

2) It's a good idea to book mark a page to make it easier to find it again. You can book mark this page to use as a starting point in case you get lost.

3) I am currently working adding new categories. Please be patient as this is still a learning process for me and I need to give time to those helping me create the categories.

Who is Working On This:

T Counce, Project Creator, Manager, Organizer

Anne B., Technical Advisor, not to mention numerous other things she's involved with.

Would you like to join us? Contact T Counce either by leaving a message on this page, sending a private message through the link above, or a private message through my profile, but be sure to put in the subject box Stonington OPS.

What Needs To Be Done

Here are some of the tasks that I think need to be done. I'll be working on them, and could use your help.

• Add all profiles of people who have lived in Stonington, New London Connecticut in all of the appropriate places. (I am starting with my own family and any profile I come across while working on other projects) to this Space AND the One_Place_Project as it exists now.
• Researching and Documentation of their professions. What a person did for a living tells much about the person and their daily interactions with their friends and neighbors.
• Creating a list of Churches and as many records as we can get our hands on to help not only in the documentation of our findings, but to help with the analysis of trends, births, marriages and deaths.
• Getting together in one place a list of historical events that did not seem important to historians (A couple of examples: one of my ancestors was killed while out hunting bears by Native American's of the area because he refused to leave the area, cease his hunting of the bears and leave the hunting to them; as much as many people have tried to put Mary (Wheeler) Bolles into my family tree, she is not one of my relatives, but the history of this woman while tragic, is only mentioned as facts, depending on who's account you read, and it is not in every account you read. I want to get more information on this Stonington resident and her life so that her whole story can finally be told accurately).

List of References with Hot Links That May Be Useful:

Free

Reference Books Available on Line

• The Homes of Our Ancestors in Stonington, Conn.^[5]
• History of the Town of Stonington, County of New London, Connecticut, from its first settlement in 1649 to 1900.^[4]

While not always 100% accurate, it's a good starting point for looking for family members who originally set up Stonington, and their decendants, with some history of some of their roles in the town.

• The Genealogical and Encyclopedic History of the Wheeler Family in America.^[6]

While not always 100% accurate, another good starting point, whether your relative is a Wheeler or married a Wheeler of Stonington.

• History of the First Congregational Church, Stonington, Connecticut, 1674-1874; With The Report of Bi-Centennial Proceedings, 03 Jun 1874; With Appendix Containing Statistics of the Church.^[7]

Contains: When Members joined the church, Baptisms and by whom, Marriages and performed by whom.

• Stonington Chronology, 1649-1949; Being a Year-By-Year Record of the American Way of Life in a Connecticut Town^[8]
• FamilySearch ^[9]

Free site, does require sign up to log in (recommended to get better results).

• Internet Archive^[10]
• Stonington Marriages Starting in 1915: ^[11]

Other Places To Look For Information

Free

Free site that is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. Requires sign up to log in (recommended to get better results). Some books may require you to check them out, then read when they are available.

• Google Books^[12]

Free when available, quality of the digital copies of books is not always as good as Internet Archive, but if the other doesn't have it, this might. Also has links for where to buy when a digital copy is not available.

Not Free

• Ancestry^[13]

Family Trees and Documentation: (Caution, use what you find here with a grain of salt. If you can't find documentation to verify something as fact, chances are it isn't)

• Fold3.com^[14]

Military Documentation and information

Will you join me? Please post a comment here on this page, in G2G using the project tag, or send me a private message. Thanks!

Note: This Page May Change, frequently as the Study Progresses and the vision becomes clearer. Be sure to put the Stonington_Connecticut-Study in the tags on your profile page so that you will be notified when something changes, in case you miss an announcement in the G2G Forum

Parts are Free/Parts are Not Free

The Stonington Historical Society (some oral histories-free), great book selection (though not complete and not free): ^[15]

Stonington In The News

• US Navy Recovers Cannon To Identify 200-Year-Old Shipwreck: ^[16]
• So many graves, they wore out a camera:^[17]
• Isolated Reminders Of Old Epidemics: ^[18]
• The Tiny Beach Town In Connecticut You’ve Never Heard Of But Need To Visit; ^[19]
• The Stonington Ape Man, April Fool's Day - 1926; The Musuem of Hoaxes, Dedicated to the exploration of hoaxes, mischief, and misinformation throughout history; All text Copyright © 2015 by Alex Boese, except where otherwise indicated. All rights reserved.^[20]

Note

If any of the links above stop working please let T Counce know. Thank you.

Sources

1. ↑ Secretary of the State Denise W. Merrill, Connecticut Towns In The Order Of Their Establishment; With The Origin of Their Names, Connecticut's Official Website, Retrieved from: https://portal.ct.gov/SOTS/Register-Manual/SectionVII/Connecticut-Towns-in-the-Order-of-their-Establishment?fbclid=IwAR04kIgtL7JBpk8tOHnMTqf-0R1yZ1K_d8pQT8G56TsY4R-PNQnBW_xc5iI
2. ↑ ConnecticutHistory.org: View at: [ConneciticutHistory.org: Stonington: https://connecticuthistory.org/towns-page/stonington]/
3. ↑ William A. Stanton, Ph. D., D.D., (1891); A Record Genealogical Biographical Statistical, of Thomas Stanton, of His Descendants. 1635-1891; Joel Munsell's Sons, Albany, NY.; PG 21; Retrieved from: https://archive.org/stream/recordgenealogic00byustan#page/n3/mode/2up
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Wheeler, Richard Anson; (1900); History of the Town of Stonington, County of New London, Connecticut, from its first settlement in 1649 to 1900; Press of the Day Publishing Company, New London, Conn.; PG ; Retrieved from: https://archive.org/stream/historyoftownofs00whee_1#page/n11/mode/2up
5. ↑ ”Wheeler, Grace Denison (1903); The Homes of Our Ancestors in Stonington, Conn.”; Newcomb & Gauss, Printers. PG: . Retrieved from: https://archive.org/stream/homesofourancest00whee#page/n9/mode/2up
6. ↑ Wheeler, Albert Gallatin : American College of Genealogy (1914). The Genealogical and Encyclopedic History of the Wheeler Family in America; Retrieved from: https://archive.org/stream/genealogicaland00genegoog#page/n12/mode/2up
7. ↑ Wheeler, Richard A. (1875); History of the First Congregational Church, Stonington, Connecticut, 1674-1874; With The Report of Bi-Centennial Proceedings, 03 Jun 1874; With Appendix Containing Statistics of the Church.; T.H. Davis and Company, Norwich, Connecticut; Retrieved from: https://archive.org/details/historyoffirstco00whee
8. ↑ Haynes, William (1949); Stonington Chronology, 1649-1949; Being a Year-By-Year Record of the American Way of Life in a Connecticut Town; The Stonington Publishing Company/Pequot Press, Stonington, Conn.; Retrieved from: https://archive.org/stream/stoningtonchrono00hayn#page/n5/mode/2up
9. ↑ [FamilySearch.org: https://familysearch.org/search]
10. ↑ [Internet Archive.org: https://archive.org/]
11. ↑ Connecticut Marriages, 1640-1939," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G9V5-F8FJ?cc=2448940&wc=Q8RL-B2D%3A1589605362 : 12 May 2016), 007616091 > image 6 of 191; Connecticut State Library, Hartford.
12. ↑ [Google books: https://books.google.com]
13. ↑ [Ancestry: http://ancestry.com, Ancestry.com]
14. ↑ [Fold3.com: https://www.fold3.com/]
15. ↑ [Stonington Historical Society: https://www.stoningtonhistory.org/]
16. ↑ View this story online via Hampton Roads Virginia TV Station WVEC located in Norfolk, Virginia: [US Navy Recovers Cannon To Identify 200-Year-Old Shipwreck: http://www.13newsnow.com/news/military/us-navy-recovers-cannon-to-identify-200-year-old-shipwreck/445431919]
17. ↑ View this story online via The Westerly Sun: [So Many Graves, They Wore Out a Camera: http://westerlysun.ri.newsmemory.com/publink.php?shareid=271336d09]
18. ↑ (Article about Smallpox Cemeteries in Connecticut where Stonington is mentioned, including Groton passing a law "no one from Stonington could enter into Groton"; [https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/09/nyregion/isolated-reminders-of-old-epidemics.html
19. ↑ Clunan, Natalie (27 Mar 2018); Only In Your State Website: https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/connecticut/tiny-beach-town-ct/?fbclid=IwAR3mf7iPnB3EjWXFdCI9g8MLohBP0w1mHyIH9tT0inzehQ2gpYSOtt9u2bM]
20. ↑ http://hoaxes.org/af_database/permalink/stonington_ape_man?fbclid=IwAR2k37Ar8g6M9InlJQLCBFHt29JMfCoL73LGcEmQvjhDnapRSxIv91WZJAI

Additional Links (to be added above at future date)

• Steenburg, Nancy (2012) War of 1812: Attack on Stonington, Connecticut Explored (Formerly Known As Hog River Journal); Retrieved from: https://www.ctexplored.org/war-of-1812-stonington/
• Battle of Stonington; Retrieved from https://www.stoningtonhistory.org/exhibits/battle-of-stonington/