Samuel Orcutt, A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut (1886)

A compiled town history with family genealogies. Read in the archive.org full text (a poor OCR) for research/mcmillan/Fairchild_Raymond_Woodworth.md (October 2026).

• Fairchild: “FAIRCHILD, Thomas, m. 1st, so said, the dau. of Robert Seabrook in England; m. 2d, Katharine Craig, of London, England. He died Dec. 14, 1670, and she m. 2d, Jeremiah Judson. His first wife was sister to Thomas Sherwood’s wife, so said … This first wife was also sister to Wm. Preston’s wife, of New Haven.” Children: “Samuel, b. Aug. 31, 1640. Probably the first white child born in Stratford, Conn.”; Sarah 19 Feb 1641/2 (m. Jehiel Preston, “her cousin”); John 1 May 1644, d. y.; Thomas 21 Feb 1645; Dinah 14 July 1648; Zechariah 14 Dec 1651; Emma Oct 1653 (m. Hackaliah Preston); by the second wife Joseph 1664, John 1666, Priscilla 1669. “Samuel, son of Thomas Fairchild, m. Mary, dau. of Moses Wheeler. He died about 1704, and she m. 2d, Benjamin Beach, Sen.” Children: Robert 1681, “to whom Moses Wheeler left property”; Samuel 1683; Edward, of Newtown; and Jonathan.
• Seabrook: “SEABROOK, Robert, was one of the earliest settlers in Stratford, but died very early — about 1650.” His daughters: Alice, who m. Thomas Sherwood Sen. (“John Wheeler, who m. their daughter, says, in a deed, he had sold the land that came to his wife from her grandfather Seabrook”); a daughter “who m. in England, prob., Thomas Fairchild, Sen.”; and a daughter who m. William Preston of New Haven. Under Preston, Robert Seabrook “gave to his grandson Jehiel Preston half of his home lot in Stratford.”
• The ferry: Moses Wheeler “was in Stratford in 1648, when the privilege of a ferry across the Housatonic was granted him by the General Court … He was a ship carpenter by trade, became a farmer, as well as the ferry man, was an extensive land holder, and one of the leading influential men of Stratford township.” A highway to the ferry was ordered in 1653. Orcutt’s p. 236 pictures Moses Wheeler’s gravestone (quoted by Starr, 1915).