Ebenezer Hitchcock

Ebenezer was born at Springfield in August 1694, probably a son of Capt. Luke Hitchcock and Sarah Burt, and he grew up among people who had lived through King Philip's War. His father had ridden in the Falls Fight of May 1676. His mother had lost her first husband, Benjamin Dorchester, in 1676, and her father, Jonathan Burt, wrote the only account of the burning of Springfield in 1675 that the town's records keep (The First Century of the History of Springfield, 1:130-131). His grandmother was the sister of William Gibbons, the steward Gov. George Wyllys sent ahead to Hartford to build his house, and his wife would be the governor's great-great-granddaughter.

He "was a soldier in the French wars and was in the Louisburg expedition in Col. Dwight's regiment. He received his commission as lieutenant from Governor Shirley at 'Louisburg, June 28, 1745, just after the fall of that famous fortress.' In 1747 he was selectman of Springfield" (source).

He married Mary Sheldon on 14 Feb 1716, "who was the mother of his fourteen children," from Anna (b. 9 July 1717), who married Jonathan Chapin, to Daniel (b. 1739/40). Among them was the Rev. Gad Hitchcock (b. 1718/9), who kept the family record of his parents' deaths. Through Mary came money from the Pynchons: "Ebenezer Hitchcock received from the Pynchon estate three hundred and seventy-nine pounds, being the rest of his wife's fortune from that source." After Mary died in 1760 he married the widow Mary Morgan of Brimfield.

His will gave his wife £6; Gad £3; Ebenezer five shillings; "to his daughter Ann wife of Jonathan Chapin, Mary, wife of Hezekiah Warriner and Silence, wife of Samuel Bliss, £10 each"; Sarah £14; the four children of his late daughter Dinah Sykes fifty shillings each; land in Springfield to Abner, Joseph and Seth; and the rest to Phineas and Stephen, "they not having already received their portion." Gad recorded: "My Hond. Father died Jan. 18, 1776."

Research: Patricia Hatten's Browne–Chapin side: the pedigree, notable ancestors and famous kin; his parents: King Philip's War: the Connecticut valley, the Colony of Connecticut, Long Island and New Paltz.