Reinold Marvin

Lieut. Reinold Marvin of Saybrook and Lyme, born at Great Bentley, Essex, and brought to New England as a boy when his father came in 1638. He was made a freeman of Saybrook on 20 May 1658, the same day as his father, and "Sergeant to ye Band at Sea Brook" on 3 Oct 1661, when his brother-in-law William Waller was made ensign; he later succeeded Waller as lieutenant and, Lyme being too small for a captain's company, commanded the train-band of the east side of the river until he died. About 1662 he married Sarah Clark of Milford. He sat on the committee of 1666 that divided Saybrook, and his and Waller's names are two of the six on the "parting covenant" of 13 Feb 1666/7 for Lyme, a "loving parting." He was one of Lyme's first town surveyors, townsman, constable, and its deputy to the General Court in October 1670 and from 1672 until his death; in 1671/2 he and Waller contracted to build and keep the town's grist mill (source).

He was one of "the champions of Lyme" in its boundary quarrel with New London. In March 1671 John Prentice complained of "Reynald Marvin and others, for riotous practices and assaults on New London people," and the Lyme men indicted their adversaries in return. Miss Caulkins thought the fight "more comic than fearful or sublime. The encounter terminated without any serious injury on either side; the leaders drank a draft of seeming friendship together, and all retired quietly from the field."

Andros at Saybrook. In the first weeks of King Philip's War, in July 1675, Major Edmund Andros came from New York to seize the fort at Saybrook. On 8 July Connecticut's council wrote from Hartford to Capt. Thomas Bull at Saybrook of "two sloopes arriued from New Yorke, in which sloopes are som forces com wth Major Andross" (Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, 2:334); Andros wrote his letters from "Seabrooke, July the 9th 1675" and "July 10th 1675" (Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York, 14:692-693). The town's train-bands manned the fort under Capt. Bull, and when Andros landed on 12 July he was not allowed to read his commission. The train-band of Lyme, under Lieut. Marvin, was perhaps there (source, p. 40).

King Philip's War. He sat for Lyme at the General Court of October 1675 ("For Lyme; Lt Renold Maruin") and at the Court of Election in May 1676 ("Lyme; Lt Rein: Maruin, Mr. Wm. Measure") (PRCC 2:265, 274). On 25 Nov 1675, raising the army for the Narragansett campaign, the Council of War named two men in each town "to pass and signe euery one's payment that is due from the Treasurie": "for Lyme, Mr. Griswould, Lt Marvin; for New London, Mr. Witherell, Mr. Josh: Raymond" (2:386). Forty men were to come from New London, Stonington and Lyme (2:385), and a Lyme man, the son of the widow Abigail Lay, "having been impressed in the country service, was wounded at the swamp fight" and lay at Rhode Island (2:276 note).

He died on 4 Aug 1676. Three weeks later, on 24 August, the council sent forty-eight surrendered Indians, "with their retinue of old men, women and children," to be dispersed among Saybrook, Lyme, Killingworth and Guilford, whose people were to "giue entertainment to them ... because of the advantage of gayning reliefe from the sea, by fish, oysters, clams," until the October Court settled them "in service or otherwise" (2:474-475). His company could not agree on a successor: on 10 May 1677 the Court, "vnderstanding that there is some difference in Lyme about the choyse of a Lieutenant," named Mr. Mathew Griswould "to supply the place of a Leivtenant at Lime" until a choice was made (2:317), and in 1678 "Mr. Noyes [Minister at Lyme] was desired to a sermon at the time" of the election (source).

Sarah survived him and married Capt. Joseph Sill, the Indian fighter. Their children, born at Lyme: John (1664/5), Mary (1666), Reinold (1669), Samuel (1671) and Sarah (1673). His grave is in the Duck River burying ground, to the right of Sarah's and Capt. Sill's.

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

• What he died of: his estate (New London County probate, 1676) and Lyme's town book.