Moses Noyes

Rev. Moses Noyes, the first minister of Lyme, son of Rev. James Noyes, teacher of the church at Newbury, and Sarah Brown. Born at Newbury on 6 Dec 1643, he graduated from Harvard in 1659 and began to preach at Lyme in 1666, twenty-seven years before its church was formally gathered in 1693 (source). The Noyes genealogy sums him up: "He was the first minister of Lyme, Conn., where he preached fifty years. He had Cedar Swamp lots awarded for Indian War service (Naragansett Vols.)" (source).

King Philip's War. Moses was counted among Connecticut's volunteers in the Narragansett campaign; perhaps he went as minister with one of the volunteer expeditions out of New London County in 1676. Long afterwards the colony granted the volunteers a township, Voluntown (granted 1696, confirmed October 1700), and on 1 July 1701 they met to list their names. On "A list of the Names of the English Volunteers in the late Narraganset War" he is no. 180, "Rev. Moses Noise," and on the list of those who drew "Cedar Swamp" lots he drew no. 32, "Rev. Moses Noyes"; his brother Rev. James Noyes is no. 50 and lot 90 (Soldiers in King Philip's War, pp. 441-445). The grant was for volunteers only: it "shut out the Indians, who formed a large contingent of their forces, and also the white men, who were pressed into the service" (p. 442).

His kin served. His brother James, minister at Stonington, was appointed "minister to our army" on 28 Nov 1675 but "could not attend" (Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, 2:387-388), and was with the volunteers who took the Narragansett sachem Canonchet in April 1676: "Mr. Noyes ... advised to despatch him there," and was "an eyewitness of the manner of the execution" (Sibley 2:46-47, quoting Hubbard). In James's place the council sent their cousin, Rev. Nicholas Noyes: "Mr. Nicholas Noyse to goe forth with our army" (11 Dec 1675, PRCC 2:388); Bodge lists him as chaplain of the Connecticut regiment (p. 183), and "He accompanied the Connecticut troops under Major Treat, and was at the Swamp-Fight" (Sibley 2:239).

In 1678, when the Lyme train-band could not agree on a successor to Lieut. Reinold Marvin, "Mr. Noyes [Minister at Lyme] was desired to a sermon at the time, which he was pleased accordingly to attend" (source); Sibley gives it as the election of "a lieutenant and ensign" (2:50). He married Ruth Pickett, daughter of the New London merchant John Pickett and granddaughter of Jonathan Brewster; she died in 1690, aged 36. Their children, born at Lyme: Moses (1678), John, Ruth, Sarah (1683, wife of Capt. Timothy Mather) and Naomi (source). He outlived her by nearly forty years.

He was a Fellow of the Collegiate School that became Yale, "even before its removal from Saybrook, in effecting which his influence is said to have been decisive" (source); his brother Rev. James Noyes of Stonington was one of its founders. He died at Lyme on 10 Nov 1729. The Noyeses of Lyme kept "an old desk, inherited from Rev. Moses Noyes (whose wife was a descendant of Elder Brewster), and believed to have been brought to New England by the Elder"; his descendant Judge William Noyes kept the grandchildren's New Year's money in it (same).

Research: Notable connections of Patricia Hatten (1940-2009): the paternal Hatten line; the war: King Philip's War: the Connecticut valley, the Colony of Connecticut, Long Island and New Paltz.

Open questions

• How he came to be one of Connecticut's Narragansett volunteers: the Voluntown Proprietors' Records, or Larned's History of Windham County, vol. 1.