Raymond

On 7 December 1659 Captain John Penny of the London ship Roebuck, who was on the coast "to take Duch-men," seized the Black Eagle and her goods "neare a place called Stamford point." She belonged to Richard Raymond, a mariner of Salem, who said he had been "forced by his imploymt to have to doe wth a Duch vessell, being he could not get an English vessell to doe his businesse," and the New Haven magistrates sent the case to the court of admiralty in London. Five days later the town court called him in: "its comonly reported that he was drunke aboard ye shipp." He "confessed yt he was exceedingly distempered, but withall alleadged & desired that it might be considered that he was very cold at that time, & his head weake, & haveing seuerall sorts of liquors was ouercome by it," and was fined ten shillings. A freeman of 1634, given half an acre at Winter Harbor in 1636 "for fishing trade and to build upon," he and his wife Judith were of the First Church at Salem, and he traded along the coast in his own vessels. In 1662 he bought a house at Norwalk, probably for his son John, and in 1664 he moved to Saybrook, where he died in 1692, about ninety, his son Daniel having cared for him "in the time of his weakness." Another son, Joshua of New London, was the commissary through whom Connecticut fed its army in King Philip's War.

John, "the farmer of the family," married Mary Betts, daughter of Thomas Betts of Norwalk, in 1664, and in 1676 his father gave his Norwalk lands "unto those children which my son John Raymond allready have or may have, by Mary Raymond his present wife." John died on Christmas Day 1694, and Mary the next year. Their son Samuel married Judith, daughter of Ephraim Palmer of Greenwich, in 1696, made his will the day before he died in October 1738, and was buried in Pine Island Cemetery at Norwalk. His son Ephraim, born at Norwalk in 1701, was probably the Ephraim Raymond of Bedford, Westchester County, who married Mary Coley, baptized at Fairfield in 1703. "Being ill and not well in body," Ephraim made his will on 6 February 1765: "My son Ebenezer is to pay to my eldest daughter, Ann Fairchild, £20," and "I leave to my grandchild Sarah, 'that I brought up,' £10."

Ann was the wife of Thomas Fairchild of Norwalk, the eldest son of Jonathan Fairchild, the Norwalk fuller. Their children were born at Norwalk: Sarah, probably the granddaughter Ephraim brought up, in 1742, Jonathan in 1744, John in 1747 and Mary in 1748/9; by 1779 Thomas, too, was of Bedford. Their son Jonathan was perhaps the Jonathan Fairchild who built the first tannery in Greene County, New York, and settled at East Jewett about 1800, the grandfather of Elizabeth (Fairchild) Frost and of Adeline (Fairchild) Bell.

The line at a glance

Richard Raymond (d. 1692), mariner of Salem, Norwalk and Saybrook > John Raymond (d. 1694), of Norwalk = Mary Betts (d. 1695), daughter of Thomas Betts of Norwalk > Samuel Raymond (1673-1738) = Judith Palmer, daughter of Ephraim Palmer of Greenwich > Ephraim Raymond (1701-1765), of Bedford = Mary Coley (bp. 1703, d. 1788) > Ann Raymond (living 1765) = Thomas Fairchild (b. 1718), of Norwalk and Bedford > Jonathan Fairchild (b. 1744) [?], perhaps the tanner of East Jewett.

The scope walks every ancestor of Ann Raymond. Her husband's side is the Frost and Fairchild line, which stops at her. The whole line rests on one possible link below her: that Jonathan Fairchild of East Jewett was her son.

How sure it is

• Jonathan of East Jewett as Ann's son (compiled, possible), the link the whole line hangs on. Gilmore's More Fairchilds in America (2001) makes the tanner the Jonathan born at Norwalk on 29 Aug 1744, son of Thomas and Ann Fairchild, from research done for a descendant in 1993, and a Hartford Times query of 1944 gives the same. But the family stone at Fairview Cemetery, Bridgewater, Oneida County, gives him "age 66" at his death in 1815, and the East Kill Valley Genealogy "b. about 1751"; a man born in August 1744 would have been seventy, and no record yet ties the tanner to Norwalk. The ruling of 8 Oct 2026 (Research decisions) brought the Norwalk generations in as pages with this step labelled possible.
• Ann to Ephraim Raymond (documented, probable): his will of 6 Feb 1765, proved 1 Apr 1765, names "my eldest daughter, Ann Fairchild," and "my grandchild Sarah, 'that I brought up'" (Abstracts of Wills, NYHS Collections for 1897; Pelletreau, Early Wills of Westchester County, 1898). That she was Thomas Fairchild's wife is inferred and probable: Phoenix (1878) knew her only as "Ann ——, of whom nothing is known"; Gilmore (1991) concluded that "Ann Raymond must be his wife," since Thomas and Ann's eldest child was Sarah, born 1742, and Thomas was of Bedford by 1779. Their marriage, "as early as 1742," is compiled.
• Ann to Mary Coley (compiled, probable): Ephraim's wife in 1765 was Mary, and the 1969 Raymond Genealogy lists "Ann, married — Fairchild" among the children of Ephraim and Mary (Coley) Raymond. Mary's surname and baptism come from that book, citing Jacobus's Families of Old Fairfield, and from Knapp (1948): baptized 5 Dec 1703 or 15 Aug 1703. Her father, Samuel Coley of Fairfield, is possible, and her death in December 1788 has no source.
• Ephraim of Bedford to Samuel Raymond and Judith Palmer (compiled, probable): Samuel's will of 23 Oct 1738 names a son Ephraim, born at Norwalk on 9 Sep 1701. That he is Ephraim of Bedford is the 1969 genealogy's identification; he is the only Ephraim of the right age at Norwalk, and his sons were named Samuel and Ephraim. The 1886 Genealogies of the Raymond Families only guessed that the Bedford family was "probably" of this line.
• Samuel to John Raymond (documented, probable) and Mary Betts (compiled, probable): the inventory of John's estate of 20 Jan 1695 lists his children, "John, age 31, Samuel, age about 22, Thomas, age about 19, Daniel ... Hannah"; a Norwalk deed of 1699 runs "from John, Samuel, Thomas and Hannah Raymond to William Haynes"; and Richard's deed of 1676 gave his lands to John's children "by Mary Raymond his present wife." Samuel's birth, 7 Jul 1673, is the 1886 genealogy's; the 1969 one has "about 1672" from his age at death. Mary Betts's father, Thomas Betts, is compiled and probable: Richard called him "well beloved brother" in 1677, and he was an administrator of John's estate. Judith Palmer's father, Ephraim Palmer of Greenwich, is compiled and probable.
• John to Richard Raymond (documented, proven): Richard's deed of 1676 to the children of "my son John Raymond," as Hall's Ancient Historical Records of Norwalk (1847) abstracts it, and John's release of March 1692 as "John Raymond of Norwalk, son and heir of Richard Raymond late of Saybrook." John's mother is not known: Richard's wife Judith was of the First Church at Salem before 1636, but John is the only one of Richard's children with no baptism there (possible).

Set aside: Gilmore's "b. ca 1720 Norwalk" for Ann, an estimate. Judith Palmer's father is said to have been a son of William Palmer and Judith Feake, daughter of James Feake, a London goldsmith of Lombard Street, which would make her of the same Feake family as the Frosts of Oyster Bay (Olar, The Palmer Genealogy); that chain was not checked and is possible only. Richard Raymond was not of the Beverly Raymonds, whose father was George Rayment of Glastonbury, Somerset. The research is in Notable connections of Frances Fairchild Holbrook: the Fairchild branch and the families that married in, sections 1.5 and 1.7-1.9; Joshua Raymond's war in King Philip's War: the Connecticut valley, the Colony of Connecticut, Long Island and New Paltz.

Open questions

• Is Jonathan Fairchild of East Jewett Ann's son Jonathan, born 1744? The Bridgewater stone and the 1815 Greene County probate should say.
• Ann's birth, marriage and death; the Norwalk baptisms of her children may name their mother.
• When Ephraim Raymond married Mary Coley, and when he moved from Norwalk to Bedford.
• Mary Coley's baptism, and her parents (Jacobus, Families of Old Fairfield I:155).
• Judith Palmer's birth and death, and her father's family.
• John Raymond's birth and mother; Mary Betts's birth and mother.
• Richard Raymond's English origin (said to be Essex) and his wife Judith's family.