THOMAS BENEDICT 1640-1688

[Ancestral Link: Lura Minnie Parker (Stagge), daughter of Minnie May Elmer (Parker), daughter of Mark Alfred Elmer, son of Hannah Polina Child (Elmer), daughter of Alfred Bosworth Child, son of Hannah Benedict (Child), daughter of Hannah Carter (Benedict), daughter of Hannah Benedict (Carter), daughter of Thomas Benedict, son of Thomas Benedict, son of Thomas Benedict.]

Birth: 1641, Southold, Suffolk County, New York, USA
Death: November 7, 1688, Norwalk, Fairfield County, Connecticut, USA
Thomas Benedict, Jr. was the son of Thomas and Mary (Brigham) Benedict. In 1662. the entire Benedict clan moved from Southold to Jamaica, Long Island where he was granted a homelot of ten acres. The next year, he signed a petition along with his father requesting protection from the New Haven Colony. Mary Messenger and Thomas Benedict, Jr. were married in January of 1665/6 in Jamaica, Long Island, New York.

In 1665-6, the extended Benedict family (his parents and siblings and their families) moved from New York to Norwalk, Connecticut. In the Records of the Colony of Connecticut, Thomas Benedict, Jr. is on the list of freemen of Norwalk in 1669. He was 9th to draw his homelot in the land division of 1686 which was located between Rayle Hill and Strawberry Hill, and in 1671, he bought of Joseph Fenn four acres of land "by the side of the creek or river called Coafe" which was north of Joseph Fenn's land and south by the cartway leading out of Daniel Kellogg's meadow.

In 1680 he was chosen to be part of a committee to decide where the bridge over the Norwalk River would be erected. He was appointed pounder, fence viewer and surveyor of Norwalk between 1667 and 1686. Hall's "History of Norwalk, Connecticut," p. 26: "He died at Norwalk, November 7, 1688-9. His inventory filed November 3, 1689, shows a clear estate of 169 pounds."

Burial: East Norwalk Historical Cemetery, Norwalk, Fairfield County, Connecticut, USA
Find A Grave Memorial# 33739144
found on findagrave.com

Thomas Benedict Jr.
Thomas Benedict,# 2, was born at Southold, Long Island. From Southold he went with his father to Huntington and thence to Jamaica in 1662. In January of 1665 he married Mary Messenger of Jamaica. Mary's father, Andrew Messenger, was one of the original settlers of Jamaica; settling there March 10, 1656.

In 1665 he removed with his father to Norwalk. "The following notices of the first settlers of Norwalk, I find in the "Catalogue of the Names of the First Puritan Settlers of the Colony of Connecticut,"-"By R. R. Hinman. Hartford, 1846." Thomas Benedict Jr. is listed along with his father, Thomas Benedict Sr. In the Wylys 's manuscripts his name is, with that of his father, among the names of the 42 freemen of Norwalk, taken October 13, 1669. He worked as a pounder fence viewer and surveyor.

Thomas Benedict died at Norwalk on November 20, 1688. His wife survived him. The children of Mary Messenger Benedict and Thomas Benedict were:
Mary, born 1666.
Thomas, born 1670.
Hannah, born January 8, 1676.
Esther, born October 5, 1679.
Abigail, born 1682.
Elizabeth.
Sources:
" Norwalk, Fairfield County, Connecticut, Historical Records"; 1847.
www.ancestry.com
"The Genealogy of the Benedicts in America"; by Henry Marvin Benedict; Albany: J. Munsell, 1870.
Both Thomas Benedict and Thomas Benedict #2 are listed with their children in "The Compendium of American Genealogy, First American Families".
found on ancestry.com