Form: Short Note

WAR OF NORMAN CONQUEST

ENGLISH CIVIL WAR

WAR – KING PHILLIP’S WAR

Abraham Doolittle, who wrote his name “Abraham Dowlittell,” born in 1619 or 1620, m. Joane ALLING, of Kempston, Co. Bedford, Eng. He was with his bride in Boston as early as 1640, but removed to New Haven before 1642. He was seven times deputy from New Haven to the General Court at Hartford. On July 2, 1663, he m. (2) Abigail Moss, b. Apr. 10, 1652, dau of John Moss of New Haven. Both Doolittle and Moss removed to Wallingford, as founders of that town in 1670. When the church was founded in 1675, Mr. Doolittle was one of the thirteen original members. He was sergeant of the “first traine band” in 1673; and in King Philip’s war, 1675, his dwelling was fortified by a picket fort against an attack expected from the Indians led by King Philip in person. For a fuller record of Abraham Doolittle the reader is referred to the “Doolittle Family in America,” by William Frederick Doolittle, M.D. of Cleveland, O., to whom we are indebted for most of the material in this chapter. The numbers are the same as in his book. The Wallingford well of Abraham Doolittle is still in use. (1908). He died in 1690. He had fourteen children.

–“King Philip’s War, sometimes called the First Indian War, Metacom’s War, Metacomet’s War, or Metacom’s Rebellion,[1] was an armed conflict between Native American inhabitants of present-day New England and English colonists and their Native American allies in 1675–78. The war is named after the main leader of the Native American side, Metacomet, known to the English as “King Philip”.[2] Major Benjamin Church emerged as the Puritan hero of the war; it was his company of Puritan rangers and Native American allies that finally hunted down and killed King Philip on August 12, 1676.[3] The war continued in northern New England (primarily in Maine at the New England and Acadia border) until a treaty was signed at Casco Bay in April 1678.[4]

The war was the single greatest calamity to occur in seventeenth-century Puritan New England. In the space of little more than a year, twelve of the region’s towns were destroyed and many more damaged, the colony’s economy was all but ruined, and much of its population was killed, including one-tenth of all men available for military service.[5][6] More than half of New England’s towns were attacked by Native American warriors.[7]

Nearly all the English colonies in America were settled without any significant English government support, as they were used chiefly as a safety valve to minimize religious and other conflicts in England. King Philip’s War was the beginning of the development of a greater American identity, for the colonists’ trials, without significant English government support, gave them a group identity separate and distinct from subjects of the Parliament of England and the Crown in England”–

WAR – REVOLUTIONARY

Samuel Doolittle, b. Feb. 24, 1729, Middletown, Conn.; m. July 4, 1751, Elizabeth Hubbard, b. Jan. 18, 1729-30, Glastonbury, Conn., dau of Joseph Hubbard and Elizabeth Hollister. ***Of their eleven children, seven served in the Revolutionary War.***

General George Doolittle, b. June 14, 1759, Wallingford, Conn., where his parents resided for a few years and then ret. to Middletown. He m. 1783, Grace Wetmore, b. Dec. 3, 1766, Middletown, Conn., dau of Capt. Amos Wetmore and Rachel Parsons. Capt. Amos Wetmore who had served in the Rev. Army, united with Capt. Hugh White in the purchase of the Saquehada Patent of land and removed to it soon after White. For two years the nearest mill was forty miles away. In 1788 White and Wetmore built a grist mill and nearby a saw mill. When fire burned the saw mill then legal diffuculties arose. White was a Presbyterian and Wetmore a Congregationalist. In 1797 White threatened to cut down the dam and deprive Wetmore of the use of the water unless he (Wetmore) would become a Presbyterian and join Rev. Bethuel Todd’s congregation. (Annals of Oneida Co.) George Doolittle, at the age of seventeen enlisted , 1776, as a private in Capt. Churchill’s Co., Col. Comfort Sage’s Reg., Gen. Wadsworth’s Brigade, raised in June to reinforce Gen. Washington at N.Y., and which retreated Sept. 15, from the city; time expired Dec. 25, 1776. On Jan. 1, 1777, he enlisted in the company of Capt. David Humphrey, under Col. Return Jonathan Meigs; enlisted again April 7, 1777, for six weeks’ service at Peekskill. On May 1, 1778, he enlisted “for the war” in the 6th Reg. Conn. Line (Regulars), Col. Meigs, and served till 1783. In 1786 he followed his father-in-law to Whitestown and at the first town meeting, Apr. 7, 1789, he was chosen commissioner of highways. For many years he was supervisor. On Apr. 1, 1793, a meeting was held to organize a religious society and he was named on the committee. In 1800 the first brigade of militia of all the new part of New York was organized and he was commissioned Brigadier General, though others in that settlement had been commissioned officers in the Rev. Army. he was a mem. of the N.Y. Legislature, and served in the War of 1812. He was a ruling elder in the Presby. ch. He was stricken in the night with apoplexy (stroke) and died Feb. 21, 1825. The widow d. Aug. 27, 1836. There were twelve children.

1273. Rev. Edgar Jared Doolittle (Joseph, Joseph, Capt. Joseph, Abraham), b. Oct. 19, 1810, New Haven, Conn., after his father’s death, rem. with mother and sister to Wallingford, Conn. Grad. 1836 Yale, taught the academy of Upper Houses, now Cromwell, for two years, and married June 8, 1842, Jane Elizabeth Sage, b. Dec. 4, 1820, dau of Lemuel Sage (Lewis Samuel, John, John, David), whose mother was Deborah Ranney. In 1838 he entered Yale Theo. Sem.; in Aug. 1839, was licensed by the So. Hartford Association. Grad. 1841, ord. and settled May 18, 1842, at Hebron, Conn. In 1852 rem. to Chester, Conn. and remained to 1869. In failing health he rem. to the old homestead in Wallingford, where he d. Feb. 1, 1883. On his tombstone is: “Faithful unto Death.” He is remembered by those who knew him as a man of rare excellence, sound in intellect, courageous in conviction and warm in his friendship.” The widow d. Sept. 27, 1903.

WWII

Jimmy Doolittle (of course)

POSTWAR DECLINE

The decline in our family has occurred since 1900. But the most obvious decline has occurred since 1950. I can guess why. But not sure. But there has certainly been regression toward the mean. (I’m an outlier in our family.) Too much outbreeding. In our particular branch I’m pretty sure my great grandmother, a Baldwin, seems to have had a deleterious genetic impact on all her descendants. On the other side, My mother is a perfect example, like her mother of Breton Celt.