Henry Whitney

Millwright, the first of the Whitneys of Norwalk, and great-grandfather of Thomas Fairchild of Norwalk and Bedford. Phoenix thought him “born in England, probably about the year 1620,” and found “No record of him … prior to 8 Oct. 1649,” when he joined Edward Tredwell and Thomas Benedict in buying land at Hashamommock, in Southold, Long Island (source).

By 1658 he was at Huntington, where on 17 August he bought of Wyandance, “sachem of Pammanake,” “three whole necks of meshepeake Land … ffor the vse of the whole towne of Hvntington.” There he built a corn mill for the minister, William Leverich; they went to law over it, until on 1 November 1660 Whitney gave a receipt for “forty pounds for the bulding of his mill,” acquitting Leverich of all demands “from the begining of the world to this prsent daye.” In June 1660 he complained to the court against Joseph Whitmore “for steling of his daftars afections contray to her mothars mind”; it is the first mention of his wife, a widow Ketcham. In October 1660, sued for “breking the mill and grinding seueral times with out his leue,” he “confesed he opened the dore, and went and groune his corne, his family being all scik … and his family with himselue being like to famish he was constrayned to doe it: yet notwithstanding he gaue the miller his just towle.” The court found “the defendant was necessitated to yt he did and the plaintiff sufered no damage.” He was at Jamaica, Long Island, from about 1662 to 1664.

At Norwalk on 24 July 1665 he “agreed and incaged with the towne to make, build, and erect a goode and sufficient grounde corne mill … at the mouth of Norwalk River by the falles,” taking no more than “the sixteenth part for Tole,” and was given a home lot near it (source). That December he was set to see the meeting house finished. In 1667 the General Assembly ordered £4 paid him from the treasury in his case with William Haugh “about seizing of rumme” (source). He was on the list of Norwalk freemen of 11 October 1669, and in 1672 one of the petitioners for the new plantation that became Danbury.

His will of 5 June 1672, “being weake and crazy in body,” left “vnto my Sonn John Whitnee, the Mill and all the Lands belonging to the same,” with his clothes and working tools, and to “my beloued wife” the home lot and house during her widowhood, or £10. The inventory, £244 6s, included “Bookes” at 13s, “Ammunition,” “carpenters tooles,” and “the mill and upland and Meadowe belonging to the same,” and was sworn by “John Whitne the son of Henr Whitne deceased” on 8 November 1673 (source).

The family’s descent from him rests on the identification of Jonathan Fairchild of East Jewett with Jonathan, born at Norwalk in 1744, which is only possible (see Jonathan Fairchild).

Research: research/mcmillan/Fairchild_Raymond_Woodworth.md.

Open questions

• His origin, and his first wife.