Person:Thomas Leffingwell (8)

"115 Thomas Leffingwell was a native of Croxhall, England. The exact date of his immigration has not been ascertained. In his testimony before the Court of Commissioners at Stonington, in 1705, he says he was acquainted with Uncas in the year 1637, and was knowing to the assistance rendered by the sachem to the English then and ever after during his life.

Thomas Leffingwell relieved the sachem of the Mohegans with provisions when he was besieged by the Narragansetts in his fort on Shattuck Point, and which probably led to the subsequent grant by Uncas and his associates of nine miles square, in 1659, for the original township of Norwich.

According to his age, as given in depositions, he must have been born about 1622: therefore, at the time of the Pequot War was not more than fifteen or sixteen years of age. It appears that he came from Yorkshire at fourteen and returned to England at twenty-one, and m. there Mary White. When he returned to America he brought a younger brother, Stephen, aged fifteen, leaving several other brothers in the old country.

The earliest notice of his name connects him with Saybrook. From the Colonial Records we learn that in March, 1650, a petition presented 'from the inhabitants of Saybrook by Matthew Griswold and Thomas Leffingwell.'

The births of his children are recorded at Saybrook.

Following Mr. Leffingwell to his new home in Norwich, 1660, we find him active and influential in the new town. He was one of the first two deputies of the town to the General Court, in Oct., 1662, an officer of the first train band, and during Philip's War he was lieutenant under Captain Denison in his 'famous band of marauders that swept so many time through Narragansett and scoured the country to the sources of the Quinnebang.' He lived to old age, but the record of his death does not give his years, and no memorial stone marks his grave. He d. about 1710. His wife, Mary, d. Feb. 6, 1711."^[2]

The Christopher Leffingwell House is unique in illustrating the development from 17th century beginnings to a mid 18th century town house. Built as a simple two room house in 1675 by Stephen Backus, the house later belonged to Thomas Leffingwell. In 1701 Thomas was granted permission to keep an inn. Benajah Leffingwell, Thomas' son, was also an innkeeper.

The first additions to the original house were made to accommodate its use as an inn. The building descended to Christopher Leffingwell, a gentleman of utmost importance to the town and to the entire commonwealth. With his entrepreneurial skills and business connections he was invaluable as a supplier of provisions for the Revolutionary forces.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Leffingwell, Albert, and Charles Wesley Leffingwell. The Leffingwell Record, 1637-1897: A Genealogy of the Descendants of Lieut. Thomas Leffingwell, One of the Founders of Norwich, Conn. (Aurora, New York: Leffingwell Publishing Company, 1897)
   9-26.
2. ↑ Wells, Harriette Isabella Hyde. Several Ancestral Lines of Moses Hyde and His Wife Sarah Dana, Married at Ashford, Connecticut, June 5, 1757. (Albany, New York: Joel Munsell's Sons, 1904)
   34-35.

   Many of the statements given here are not substantiated by other record evidence.

3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2} Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England: Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692, on the Basis of Farmer's Register. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1860-1862)
   3:76.

   THOMAS, Saybrook 1637, prob. on the E. side of the riv. had Rachel, b. 17 Mar. 1648; Thomas, 27 Aug. 1649; Jonathan, 6 Dec. 1650; Joseph, 24 Dec. 1652; Mary, 10 Dec. 1654; and Nathaniel, 11 Dec. 1656; was one of the purch. of the tract from the Ind. 1659, now includ. Norwich and sev. other towns, and with the first sett. of N. its rep. 1662, and many foll. yrs. was an active partisan, when he was lieut. in Philip's war.

4.   Leffingwell House Museum Site
   http://www.leffingwellhousemuseum.org/.