43. Thomas 5 Ingersoll (Jonathan, 4 Thomas, 3 Thomas, 2 John, 1 born Mar. 24, 1750, came to Great Barrington from Westfield about the year 1774.
He married Feb. 28, 1775, Elizabeth Dewey, b. Jan. 28, 1758; died Feb. 20, 1784, daughter of Israel Dewey, and in the same year bought a small piece of land with a dwelling house. Here he settled in business as a hatter and a few years later, having in 1782 added another small strip of land to his original purchase, erected the " Old Stanley House " now owned by Robt. Girling.
Mr. Ingersoll's first appearance on the town records is as constable and tax collector in 1776, and at the consolidation of the Great Barrington Militia into one company, in Oct, 1777, he was commissioned second lieut. under Capt. Silas Goodrich. He became Capt. of the company in 1781. We find his name repeatedly in the rolls of detached militia which performed service m 1777-8-9 and he also marched with forty men of his company to Stillwater on the occasion, of an alarm in that vicinity in Oct, 1871. His commission of Major was received for his assistance in putting down Shay's Rebellion.
In 1792 he was interested with Moses Hopkins, Esq. in building the old grist mill in Water street, but soon after removed from town.
The wife Elizabeth died within a few years after marriage, leaving a daughter Abigail, six months old, who was adopted by her aunt, Mrs. Daniel Nash, and brought up in her family.
Major Ingersoll married second, 1785, Mrs. Mercy Smith, widow of Josiah, who was buried May 18, 1789, no issue; and third, Sept. 20, 1789, Mrs. Sarah (Whiting) Backus, a sister of Gen. John Whiting, born Apr. 26, 1762, died Aug. 8, 1832, daughter of Gamaliel Whiting.
Some time after the close of the war, Major Ingersoll was attracted by a proclamation of the Canadian Governor, Simcoe, offering to persons who would settle there, certain large tracts of land in Canada. He afterward met the celebrated Indian chieftain Capt. Joseph Brandt, who gave him information respecting the lands offered and proposed, whenever Major Ingersoll might visit Canada to point out to him the most desirable section for settlement. Later this was done and the location chosen was on the banks of the La Tranche—now Thames.
By the terms of the grant, Major Ingersoll was required to furnish forty settlers, each to have 100 or 200 acres on payment to the government of a fee of six pence per acre, and the remainder of the 66,000 acres in the township was to be held by Major Ingersoll for the benefit of himself and his associates. In the process of time, Major Ingersoll succeeded in obtaining the requisite number of settlers to each of which a patent was issued for the land settled on, but in doing this, in the building of roads and in making improvements, he expended all his resources.
He had also with a view to other settlements made arrangements for the sale of several thousand acres of land at 50 cents per acre. But at about this time (1806) " some busy body " had communicated with the British government representing that the course of Gov. Simcoe in granting lands was likely to do much harm. In consequence of this, order was sent from England annulling the grant of the township. Major Ingersoll, disheartened by this act of injustice which deprived him of his property, and discouraged at the failure of an enterprise to which he had devoted years of toil and all his means, abandoned the settlement and retired to the vicinity of Toronto, where he died at the age of 63, in 1812.
The site of Major Ingersoll's improvements is now the thriving town of Ingersoll, in Oxford Co. (Hist, of Great Barrington by Chas. Taylor.)
All the children were born at Great Barrington, except the last three who were born in Canada. ...
