Blackleach Burritt (1744 – August 27, 1794) was a preacher during the American Revolutionary War. During the American War of Independence, he was incarcerated in the Sugar House Prison ^[1][2] in New York City.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life and ancestors

He was born in 1744 in Ripton Parish, (now Huntington), Fairfield County, Connecticut ^[3], the son of Peleg Burritt, Jr.^[4] and the grandson of Peleg Burritt, Sr. and Sarah Bennett. His mother was Elizabeth Blackleach, the daughter of Richard Blackleach, Jr. and Mehitabel Leete, (the widow of Dr. Anthony Laborie), and a Great-Granddaughter of Governor William Leete ^[5], who was the Governor of the Colony of New Haven from 1661 to 1665 and Governor of Connecticut from 1676 to 1683.

[edit] Marriages

Soon after graduating from Yale College in 1765, he married, as his first wife, Martha Welles (1744 - April 1786) with whom he had twelve children. She was a daughter of Gideon Welles and Eunice Walker ^[6] and a Great-Great Granddaughter of Governor Thomas Welles ^[7][8] the Fourth Colonial Governor of Connecticut. Following the death of his first wife, he married her sister, Deborah Welles in 1788. There were two children born from this second marriage.

[edit] Education and career

He graduated from Yale College in 1765. After graduating, he studied theology with his pastor, the Rev. Jedidiah Mills, Yale College, 1722, and was licensed to preach in the Congregational Church on February 24, 1768, by the Fairfield East Association of Ministers. Shortly after this he was preaching in Ridgebury Parish, in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Burritt was influenced by and championed the causes of the evangelical style of the Great Awakening. He was also greatly influenced by the works of Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. He heard Whitefield preach, on several occasions, at the Yale College Chapel. He was also known for his use of extemporaneous preaching.

[edit] Imprisonment

At the beginning of 1779, he was installed as the pastor of the Congregational Church in Greenwich, Connecticut, and while thus employed, having been prominent in his advocacy of the American cause, he was captured, on the early morning of June 18, 1779, and taken to the Sugar House Prison in New York City, where he was detained for about fourteen months, during which time his family took refuge in Pound Ridge, New York. The British press referred to Blackleach Burritt as that "most pestiferous rebel priest and preacher of sedition".

It is worthy of record here in this connection, that while Rev. Burritt was so incarcerated, being sick almost unto death, he was kindly ministered unto by William Irving, father of Washington Irving, and to whom he afterwards gave a quaint certificate vouching for his loyalty and setting forth the facts of the case, he (Irving) evidently being under the impression that his residence in the city during the war might expose him to proscription on the part of the now victorious Patriots. The document is published in Vol. I., of Washington Irving's Biography, and reference is made to the fact in the Burritt Family Record. ^[9][10]

[edit] Death

In 1792 he began to preach to the Congregational Society in the village of Winhall, Vermont where he was installed pastor on January 1, 1793. He died in Winhall, Bennington County, Vermont of a prevailing fever on August 27, 1794, aged about 50 years.

Mr. Burritt is reported to have had wonderful physical strength and agility. As a preacher he was noted for fluency and a love of argument. He was regarded as somewhat visionary and unpractical, and perhaps eccentric ^[3].

[edit] Children and descendants

[edit] Ely Burritt

Blackleach and Martha's eldest son was Ely Burritt, born March 12, 1773 at Pound Ridge, Westchester County, New York and died September 1, 1823 in Troy, Rensselaer County, New York. He married as her first husband, at Williamstown, Berkshire County, Massachusetts on April 12, 1798, Mehitable/Mabel Stratton. She was born July 19, 1779 in Williamstown, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and died at Jacksonville, Illinois on July 17, 1856. She was a daughter of Dea. Ebenezer Stratton and Mary Blair. She married as his second wife, on August 30, 1831 at Troy, Rensselaer County, New York, John Adams (educator) ^[11][12][13] (September 18, 1772 – April 24, 1863), Yale College 1795, the son of Captain John Adams, a farmer of Canterbury and an officer in the American Revolutionary War and Mary Parker, the daughter of Dea. Joshua Parker and Jemima Davenport.

John Adams was an educator noted for organizing several hundred Sunday schools. He taught at the Plainfield, New Jersey Academy from 1800-1803, when he took the post as principal of Bacon Academy in Colchester, Connecticut. He remained in that position until 1810, when he started at the Phillips Andover Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. He remained there through 1832. He also served as the principal of Monroe Academy in Elbridge, New York, and as the principal of Jacksonville Female Academy in Jacksonville, Illinois from 1836-1843. He died in Jacksonville, Illinois on April 24, 1863, and is buried there beside his wife.

Dr. Ely Burritt graduated from Williams College in 1800, and was licensed to practice medicine at Troy, New York, on March 29, 1802 and he quickly gained recognition for his medical skills. A tradition of Dr. Burritt is, that on the capture of his father being then a boy of six years, he threw corn cobs at the British soldiers as an expression of his patriotic indignation!

Dr. Francis Wayland (1796-1865), fourth president of Brown University, said the following about his former teacher: "Dr. Burritt was a man of remarkable logical powers of enthusiastic love of his profession, and of great and deserved confidence in his own judgment. He stood at the head of his profession in Troy, and in the neighboring region, and was a person of high moral character".

Ely and Mehitable/Mabel had a daughter, Julia Ann who in 1828 married Dr. Amatus Robbins ^[14] (1791-1854), the son of the Rev. Robert Robbins Yale College 1760 and Jerusha Estabrook (she was a Great-Great Granddaughter of the Rev. Dr. Charles Chauncey 1592-1672 the second president of Harvard College 1654-1672). Dr. Robbins graduated from Williams College in 1811 and the Berkshire Medical School, earning his medical degree in 1825.

Ely and Mehitable/Mabel also had a son, Dr. Alexander Hamilton Burritt ^[15]. He was born at Troy, Rensselaer County, New York, on April 17, 1805. He studied medicine with his father prior to attending college. He was an 1827 graduate of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and practiced medicine for 11 years as an allopathic practitioner. In 1832, he left Troy, New York locating first in Carrollton, Illinois and the following year in Jerseyville, Illinois ^[16][17] being among the first settlers of that town. He practiced medicine here until 1836, when he moved to an 80 acre farm in Greene County, Illinois. It was here that he helped his mother and stepfather, John Adams and Mehitable/Mabel Stratton Burritt-Adams, relocate and settle into their new life in Jacksonville, Illinois. He also donated land and a log building for the Academy ^[18].

In 1838, Dr. Alexander Hamilton Burritt left Illinois and relocated to New York City and became a student of his celebrated and distinguished cousin, Dr. John Franklin Gray (1804-1882) for two years of study of the principles and practice of homeopathy.

After completing his studies in 1840, he moved to Pennsylvania and was the pioneer practitioner in Crawford County, where he devoted himself to the study of homeopathy. He also practiced at Conneautville, Ohio and then went to Burton, Ohio in 1840, being the pioneer homeopathic Physician in northern Ohio. He was a founder of the Western Homeopathic College ^[19] in Cleveland, Ohio and received an appointment from the trustees of the College to the chair of the Obstetrics Department. He resigned his professorship in 1854 due to his health and removed to Canandaigua, New York and from there to New Orleans, Louisiana where he became one of the leading physicians of the South. It was said that he was a man of great ability as a practitioner and physician as well as a writer. He died in New Orleans of paralysis on October 9, 1877.

A Grandson of his was Dr. William Henry Burritt (1869-1955). He was an 1890 graduate of Vanderbilt University, and like his father ^[20], grandfather and great-grandfather before him, was a physician. Dr. W.H. Burritt willed his house and the surrounding woodlands to the City of Huntsville, Alabama to form its first museum and second largest public park, Burritt on the Mountain. ^[21]

[edit] Melissa Burritt

Melissa Burritt, Blackleach and Martha's second child, was born on February 26, 1768 at Greenwich, Fairfield County, Connecticut and died at Brady's Bend, Pennsylvania on July 3, 1849. She married at Duanesburg, New York on October 9, 1791, James Raymond, born September 3, 1767 at Kent, Litchfield County, Connecticut and died at Franklin, Pennsylvania on November 15, 1852. He was a son of David Raymond and Bethia Newcomb.^[22]

She was activity involved in the temperance and the abolitionist movements as well an advocate for women's rights and female suffrage. She was a woman of unusual mental gifts and independence. It was said of her: "was noted for her strong traits of character which are perpetuated in her descendants." Her husband, James, was a founder of Sherburne (town), New York. They were the parents of three children: Burritt, Philander, and Celestia.

Their second son, Philander Raymond, was born on March 9, 1794 at Sherburne, Chenango County, New York and died at his residence, Locust Grove in Bowling Green, Wood County, Ohio on December 2, 1868 and was buried in Madison, Ohio. He was thrice married, fathering 11 children.

He was the founder of the Great Western Iron Works ^[23][24] which opened at Brady's Bend, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania in December 1839, manufacturing "strap rails" for railways.

In 1844, the iron works was acquired by the Brady's Bend Iron Company, which added a second, third and fourth blast furnace along with additional forges and rolling mills. In 1846, the Brady's Bend Iron Company became the first iron works west of the Alleghenies to produce T-Rails, using the Bessemer process, which became the industry standard. The company had been known for its innovations since it founding and built the first vertically integrated rolling mill in the United States. This pioneering time and labor saving design would eventually be adopted by all rolling mills. ^[23] He was the superintendent of the Company from 1839 to 1850 ^[25].

The Panic of 1873 took its toll on the business and the company closed in 1879. The Brady's Bend Iron Company was, at one time, the largest of the U.S. iron industries plants of the 19th century.

It was said of him that he had the capacity of great undertakings and brilliant leadership. He was one of the founders of the city of Toledo, Ohio.^[26] and he was prominently engaged in the Abolitionist movement.^[27]

He was a conductor, agent and station master in the Underground Railroad and was associated with Horace Ensign (was a conductor, agent and station master), Emerson Wadsworth Brewster (station master), James G. Birney, John Rankin (abolitionist), Dr. Patrick Wells Gray (a son of Diantha Burritt and John Gray), Joshua R. Giddings, Benjamin F. Wade and William Lloyd Garrison. His work as the superintendent of the Brady's Bend Iron Company gave him the opportunity to travel to every State and territory in the Union and take an important role in the Underground Railroad.

One who knew him well said: "He was a fine looking man, very gentlemanly and genial, with a remarkable mental and moral development."

[edit] Diantha Burritt

Diantha Burritt was another daughter of Blackleach and Martha's. She was born January 9, 1776 in Pound Ridge, Weschester County, New York and died on October 14, 1846 in Sheridan, Chautanqua County, New York. She had been a school teacher in Vermont before her marriage, and was a woman of literary taste. She married on May 26, 1793 in Winhall, Vermont, John Gray (December 15, 1769 - April 24, 1859, the son of John Gray ^[28][29] and Elizabeth Skeel.

Their son was Dr. John Franklin Gray ^[30][31] (1804-1882), an 1826 graduate of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the first practitioner of Homeopathy in the United States. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

A Great-Grandson of Dr. Gray's was the writer, sailor, boat builder and teacher, Gerald Warner Brace^[32][33] (1901-1978). The prominent biological anthropologist, Dr. C. Loring Brace IV (1930 - ), is a son of Gerald Warner Brace.

Their only daughter was Diantha Eloise Gray (June 22, 1799 - July 28, 1880) who was eminent as a teacher, poet, and as an advocate for woman suffrage. She was educated at Troy Female Seminary, now known as The Emma Willard School in Troy, New York. She first taught at what she called the Wadawannuck Female Seminary in Stonington, Connecticut. In the spring of 1837 she went to LeRoy, New York, where she founded LeRoy Female Seminary. She returned to LeRoy in 1852 and the name of the Seminary was changed to Ingham Collegiate Institute and again in 1857 to Ingham University (1837-1892), the first University for women in U.S. (Rev. Samuel D. Burchard (clergyman) was the chancellor of the University). The University was named after its benefactor, Mrs. Emily E. Ingham Staunton, a former student of Diantha's at the Wadawannuck Female Seminary.

Diantha and her husband, Rev. Dr. Harvey A. Sackett, Yale College 1838, were instrumental in the founding of Elmira College in Elmira, New York. She was also a founder of New York Medical College and Hospital for Women as well as serving on its Board of Trustees. In 1867, the college graduated the first female physician in the country, Emily Stowe. Three years later in 1870, Susan McKinney Stewart graduated as the first African-American female physician in New York State. This College merged, in 1918, with the New York Medical College.

[edit] Martha "Patsy" Burritt

Another daughter of Blackleach and Martha's was Martha "Patsy" Burritt. She was born October 9, 1770 in Winhall, Bennington County, Vermont and died on May 20, 1851 in Madison, Lake County, Ohio. She married in 1789, at Dover, Dutchess County, New York, Elisha Gray born on September 24, 1765 in Dover Plains, Dutchess County, New York, and died in 1823 in Tallmadge, Summit County, Ohio, the son of the Hon. Nathaniel Gray (An Ensign in the Ninth Regt. Conn. Militia) and Deborah Lathrop (she was a direct descendant of the Rev. John Lathrop ^[34] (1584-1653) a graduate of Queens' College, Cambridge, 1605 and 1609. He has been ranked as one of the four most prominent colonial ministers in America. He was also the founder of Barnstable, Massachusetts).

Their Great-Great Granddaughter was Emily Newell Blair ^{[35][36][37][38][39]}( January 9, 1877 - August 3, 1951). She was born in Joplin, Missouri and educated at Goucher College and the University of Missouri. She was a U.S. political activist, American feminist, suffragist and writer, beginning her work as a suffragist in 1914. After she helped organize the League of Women Voters, she rejected its non-partisanship. She was the national vice chairman of the Democratic Party in 1922, and worked to elect women to public office. She also organized more than 2,000 Democratic Women's Clubs around the country and built regional training programs for women party workers. From 1925 to 1934 she was an Editor of Good Housekeeping magazine.

A prolific writer, she was also appointed to several high-level governmental posts in the 1930s and 1940s. In her autobiography, she remembered how she was described by Senator Carter Glass: "I was like the drink called Southern Comfort which goes down so smooth and easily but has an awful kick afterwards." She was married to Harry Wallace Blair, (1877 - 1964), a 1904 graduate of the George Washington University School of Law. He was the Assistant U.S. Attorney General under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Their son was Newell Blair, a Washington lawyer and businessman who founded three legal newsletters.

Their Grandson was Philander Raymond Gray (1837 - 1914). He enlisted in the 121st Regiment of the Pennsylvania Volunteers at the outbreak of the Civil War and fought through the entire conflict. He was the founder of the Tidewater Petroleum Company. He is also considered to be the first refiner of oil in this country. In 1878, he moved the Tidewater Oil Company of Franklin, Pennsylvania to Bayonne, New Jersey. It sold its products under the trademarks Tydol, Veedol, and Flying A. Flying A was a major gasoline brand in the USA from the 1930s to the mid-1960s.

A Grandson of Philander Raymond Gray's was John Lathrop Gray (1905 - 1982) (Harvard University, 1926; Harvard Law School, 1929) who married Nancy Harlan Work (1917 -1994). She was a Granddaughter of Frances Work (1857 - 1947) and a cousin of the Hon. Frances Shand Kydd the mother of H.R.H. Diana, Princess of Wales.

[edit] Susannah Burritt

Their youngest child, Susannah Burritt was born on March 6, 1786 in Westchester County, New York just six weeks before her mother's death. She died at Bristol, Elkhart County, Indiana on September 19, 1881, Her mother, believing her illness to be fatal, sent for Miss Susannah DeLancey, the unmarried daughter of Governor James DeLancey, who lived in nearby Crompond, who despite powerful family influence remained true to the cause of the Colonies, and was a very warm friend of the Burritt Family.

On her dying bed she gave her infant daughter to Miss DeLancey's keeping, and she was faithful to the trust. She was tenderly cared for and reared by her foster mother. She brought her up as her own child, and she willed her a considerable estate, 1200 acres in Yorktown, Westchester County, New York, and all her personal estate. She was married twice and was the mother of seven children.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Raymond, Marcius Denison. Sketch of Rev. Blackleach Burritt and related Stratford Families. Bridgeport, Connecticut, 1892
• Sketch of Dr. John Franklin Gray, Cleave's Biographical Cyclopædia of Homœopathic Physicians and Surgeons By Egbert Cleave, published by Galaxy Publishing Company, 1873.
• Days that Were, the autobiography of Gerald Warner Brace, published by W.W. Norton and Company, 1976., ISBN 0-393-07509-5
• C. Loring Brace - by Erin Potter
• O'Connor, Stephen. (2001). Orphan Trains: The Story of Charles Loring Brace and the Children He Saved and Failed. Available: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/16328.ctl
• New York Times, dated April 28, 1900, Saturday Review of Books and Art, page BR14, 1910 words
• NEHGS Register, xiviii, 193-195
• William Richard Cutter, New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial, Lewis Historical Publishing, New York, 1914
• Frederick Calvin Norton, Governors of Connecticut, 1905
• Reverend Samuel Orcutt, History of the Old Town of Stratford, Connecticut, 1886
• Edmund Welles, The Life and Public Services of Thomas Welles, Fourth Governor of Connecticut, 1940
• Lemuel Welles, The English Ancestry of Gov. Thomas Welles of Connecticut, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1926

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• Burritt on the Mountain