Moses Noyes

Rev. Moses Noyes, the first minister of Lyme, son of Rev. James Noyes, teacher of the church at Newbury, and Sarah Brown. 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). 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). 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 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.

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 (source). That the desk was the Elder’s is family tradition.

Research: research/hatten/Hatten_Philbrick_Marvin.md.