THE GENEALOGY OF THE STILLMAN FAMILY.

The following genealogy has been compiled from what my father has told me when I was a child, and from my personal knowledge.

My great-grandfather, George Stillman, came from England about the year 1695, and settled in Wethersfield, on Connecticut river, where, from him sprang a large posterity, which are now scattered in different parts of New England and New York.

His name before he came from England was Pickard, or Packard, although my grandfather said that he pronounced it Spickard, but after coming to America he called his name Stillman; for what reason we do not certainly know.

When he left England, my grandfather [Doctor George Stillman, Jr.] was an apprentice at the tailor's trade, and when his time was out as an apprentice, he came to America, and found his father at Wethersfield; and finding his father had changed his name, he did likewise, and called himself George Stillman.

[All of the previous has been shown to be inaccurate, though this account - importantly - documents the change of name. These links present the accurate accounts of the lives of Mr. George Stillman and his son Doctor George Stillman, Jr.]

He [Doctor George Stillman, Jr.] left Wethersfield and came to Westerly, and bought a large tract of land, lying in the bend of the Pawcatuk river, called Crumb's Neck, where he lived and died, and settled four, if not five of his sons. He married a woman by the name of Deborah Crandall, and had five sons and two daughters. One of the daughters died a young woman. The other daughter's name was Deborah, and married Benjamin Tanner of West Greenwich. She had two children named Nathaniel and Deborah; her husband died young, and she lived a widow to a great age, and was much at my father's when I was a child. Grandfather's five sons were named George, Joseph, John, Elisha and Benjamin. It so happened that they all married women named Molly, wherefore old Elisha Babcock said, "all old uncle George Stillman's sons married Molly's, besides Deborah".

Uncle George married Molly Burdick, and had four children - George, Joseph, Tacy and Sarah. George married Uncle Joseph's daughter, Esther, one of the nicest women the world ever bore, and had a large family of children. Joseph married David Maxson's daughter Betsey, and had a number of children of which I know but little. This David Maxson's father was brother to my grandmother Davis; his name was John. Tacy married Stephen Saunders, and had a large posterity. Sarah married Elias Crandall; of her posterity I know but little. So much for Uncle George.

Uncle Joseph married Molly Maxson, and had four children; Joseph, Esther, Amy, and Lois. Joseph married Uncle Benjamin's daughter Eunice and had a large family: Desire, Saberah, Lois, Amy, Joseph, Lydia, Zebulon, Paul, Daniel, Barton, Abel, and Adams - all of these married and had families, except Desire and Barton, who died quite young. Esther, married Col. George Stillman, as before mentioned. Amy married Silas Bailey; she was the mother of Elder Eli Stillman Bailey of Brookfield - she had two other children. Lois married Asa Maxson, son of David, before mentioned, and had a number of children. So much for Uncle Joseph and his posterity.

Uncle John married Mary Clarke and had a large family; Elizabeth, John, Clarke, Deborah, Ketury, and Rhoda. Elizabeth married Joseph Maxson, called sadler Jo. She had no child. John married Uncle George Potter's oldest daughter, Molly, and had eight or ten girls, but no son. Clarke married Abby Bly, and had five children; Russel, Clarke, Nancy, Abby, and Rowse. Deborah married Joshua Coon and had no child. Ketury married Amos Barber, and had no child. Rhoda married Daniel Coon, brother to John; their children I know nothing about. So much for Uncle John and his posterity.

Uncle Benjamin married Molly Saunders, and had eleven children; Eunice, Nathaniel, Nathan, Wait, Lydia, Polly, Welthea, Thankful, Benjamin, David, and Ephraim. Eunice, as before mentioned, married Uncle Joseph's son Joseph. Nathaniel married Oliver Babcock's daughter Deborah, sister to Ezra that married cousin Joseph's daughter Saberah. He had a large family of children; one of his daughters married a Berry, and was the mother of Horatio Berry, who is the husband of my daughter Welthea. Nathan married Hannah Lanphear. Wait married Cloe Maxson, daughter of David, before mentioned. Lydia married Elisha Burdick. Polly married Capt. George Potter. Welthea married Joshua Clark; Thankful married Joshua Maxson, son of Tory; Benjamin married Tory Maxson's daughter Martha; David married Phineas Crandall's daughter Grace; Ephraim died at sea when young. Thus much for Uncle Benjamin.

Elisha, my father, the youngest but one of grandfather's children, was born April 25, 1722, and was married to Hannah Rogers of Waterford, March 5, 1745. She had five children, Samuel, Judith, Hannah, Martha and Elisha - these all died young, except for Samuel and Martha. Samuel married Lydia Davis, daughter of Thomas Davis, brother to my grandfather Davis; had eight children, Jared, Davis, Prudence, Samuel, Maxson, William, Elisha, and Hannah. They went to Lincklaen, and how many of them are yet living, I do not know. Samuel was born in Westerly, Feb. 5, 1747, and died in Linklaen, Oct. 10th, 1834, aged 87. Martha was married to Jonathan Palmater, at about the age of 37, had one child, and died about the age of 62, in the year 1818. Their mother, my father's first wife, died Nov. 12, 1758, aged 31. My mother, Mary Davis, always called Molly, was then keeping father's house, and was married to my father, Jan. 3d, 1759.

My great-grandfather, William Davis, came from England about 1685, and preached to the Seventh Day Baptist Church in Westerly, now Hopkinton - the first Seventh Day Baptist Church in America, except the one in Newport, R.I., which was constituted sometime previous.The Church in Hopkinton was constituted in 1661. He preached for this Church a year or two, then made arrangements to go back to England, and went to Newport and engaged a passage; but before the ship sailed, the Church sent a committee and persuaded him not to go; so he returned to Hopkinton and preached for them until some of the Church fell out with him, because he preached the doctrine of the Trinity, Whereupon he left them and went to Pennsylvania, and preached some of the time in Pennsylvania, and some of the time in New Jersey, and he died somewhere out in that country. He left property in England, about which he was very much grieved in his old age, as I have been credibly informed, and which some of the heirs, some six or seven years ago, made some effort to obtain but did not succeed. The amount we do not know, but suppose it to be considerable. He had four children; Elizabeth, John, Thomas and Lydia. Of Elizabeth I can tell nothing particular.

Lydia married Hope Covy, who settled in Burlington, Conn., and was a man of high reputation in that country. He had six children, Elisah, David, Nathan, Esther, Elizabeth and Jared. These all had families except Esther; they were all Sabbath keepers.and they and their offspring with some others that moved there from Rhode Island, were organized into a Seventh Day Baptist Church, built them a meeting house, and was in a flourishing state about sixty years ago with nearly 100 members, which has now become extinct, mainly on the account of immigration to the State of New York. Thomas had two children named Thomas and Lydia. This Lydia was the wife of my brother Samuel, as before mentioned.

My grandfather, John Davis, married a Maxson, sister to John, the father to David before mentioned; they had nine children, Elizabeth, William, Martha, John, Joseph, Anna, Judith, Experience, and Mary called Molly. My grandfather moved to New Jersey, when my mother, the youngest of his children was a very little child, to a place called Shrewsbury; therefore I never saw him nor any of his children, except Uncle John, and Uncle Joseph, and my mother - of course I know but little about them. Aunt Elizabeth I think, married a man by the name of William Brand. My grandfather Davis was a minister, and had a church at Shrewsbury, now called Squan, and somewhere about forty years ago, nearly or quite the whole church pulled up stakes and went of together to the Monongahela in Virginia.

Uncle John married Bethia Rogers, sister to Nathan and David of Waterford, Conn., sister also to father's first wife; they had a large family: William, Elizabeth, Thomas, David, John, Jonathan, Amy, Experience, Rogers, and Bethiah. Five of these married people of the name of West, viz: Elizabeth, Thomas, Amy, Experience and Bethiah.

Uncle Joseph had a large family, Samuel, Joseph, Clark, Ethan, Patty, Marvel, Comfort, Prudence, Tacy, and Betsey. Uncles John and Joseph were ordained ministers in the Hopkinton Church, but for some cause uncle Joseph withdrew from the church, and set up another church called new lights, and a considerable number of the old Seventh Day Church went off with him. He was considered a very eccentric man, he settled and died in Hopkinton. I never heard him preach but once, and I never wanted to hear him again, although he was a very fluent speaker, much more than uncle John. Soon after his death, his church run down and became extinct.

Uncle John lived at the place called Potter's hill, and owned the saw-mill, grist-mill, and fulling-mill, and when I was about five years old, (1772), he sold out and went to Farmington, now Burlington, Conn., and was the pastor of that church, until his death, 1791; uncle Joseph died near the same time.

Aunt Judith married Nathan Rogers of Waterford, and had five sons, Nathan, Jeremah, Amos, Cary and Davis, and one daughter named Martha; three of these were preachers, Nathan, Amos, and Davis. My mother, then a young woman, came from New Jersey, and took care of her sister Martha in her last sickness, and after her death, my mother came to Westerly, and took care of my father's first wife, in her last sickness, and not long after her death, she was married to my father; by whom she had twelve children, Judith, Elisha, Amos, Luanna, Betsey, William, Ethan, Matthew, Hannah, Polly, Willet, and Polly. Luanna and the first Polly died very young.

So my mother had the bringing up of ten of her own children, and two of my father's first sort. Nay, I should have said she had the bringing up of three of the first sort, because Hannah, one of the first sort, lived to be a young woman, and was engaged to be married to Matthew Randall, was taken sick and died three or four weeks before the appointed marriage. All that I can remember of her is, that I heard her groan when in some of her last moments. Brother Matthew was born near the time of her death, and Matthew Randall named him, and gave him a lamb for his name.

But a word or two about the Rogers family. These six children of Uncle Nathan Rogers, were first cousins to all father's children; they were cousins to father's first sort, because father's first wife was sister to uncle Nathan, and they were cousins to father's second sort, because their and our mother were sisters; hence the connection between the Stillmans and Rogers.

But now in regard to my mother's children, Sister Judith married Asa Coon, who afterward became a distinguished and able Seventh Day Baptist minister, although he had no more learning than could be acquired at a common country school. They had a large family of children, one of which is the present Elder Stillman Coon. Elisha married Elder John Burdick's daughter Prudence, and had a large family of children. Amos married cousin John Davis's widow, Naomi - she was sister to Wells Kinyon, that married my sister Betsey - he also had a large family. Sister Elizabeth (called Betsey,) married Wells Kinyon, and had a pretty large family. Ethan married Polly Lewis, daughter of Stephan Lewis, and had a large family. Willet married Seviah Noyse, daughter of Joseph Noyse, and had quite a large family. Hannah married Weden Burdick; of their children I know but little; they went to Deruyter, and I never saw but one of her children, and that was Elder Sebeus M. Burdick. Polly married John Cottrell and went to Brookfield, and from there to Genessee, and of their children I know but very little. Four of my mother's sons were preachers, viz: Elisha, Amos, Matthew and Willet. Amos Matthew and Willet, were ordained ministers.

RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY MINISTERS.

The managers of the Sabbath School Visitor, requested me in addition to my own biography, to give what I knew about our former ministers.

I knew but little about Seventh Day Baptist ministers, any further back than Elder Joshua Clarke, Elder John Burdick, Elder William Coon, and Elder William Bliss of Newport; all of these I was well acquainted with, and have heard all of them preach a good many times. They were all able and and powerful preachers, and not one of them had any more education than could be acquired at a common country school.

I do not believe there is now a highly educated minister in New England, that can do more towards convicting and converting souls than these could. Of Elder Burdick there was something quite remarkable. I believe he never prepared any notes to preach by; and when he entered the pulpit with apparent undaunted confidence, his preaching would be as dry and powerless as the preaching of highly educated ministers is now; but when he came all broken down, in a flood of tears, complaining of his insufficiency, and told us he felt as though he could say nothing to edification, in that case, I always expected a rouser, and indeed I never knew it fail; when he came in such frame of mind as that we always had a very powerful discourse. He got his living by farming and weaving, with what the brethren chose to give him. Elder Burdick once came to Pawcatuck and preached in the schoolhouse, and after the meeting, Dr. Lee requested him to come often and preach for us, and said we would pay him well for it. He smiled and said, he never thought he could preach well enough to be paid for it.

In regard to Elder Bliss, he was a plain and intelligent preacher, and was esteemed as a man of good judgement in discipline, the church flourished more in his day than it ever has since. In regard to him there was one incident which it may not be amiss to mention. He said he never prepared notes for a sermon but once; he had then given out word that on such a day he would preach a sermon to the young people, and it was noised abroad, and was expected a number of ministers in the place would be there. He began to think he must be prepared to do something a little more than common, and so he went to work and prepared notes for the discourse. But when the time came and the people got together, he rose up and laid his notes before him, but for his life could not understand them, and was obliged to lay them aside, and he said he believed he never made a more miserable piece of work trying to preach, and he never again undertook to prepare notes to preach by.

Elder Joshua Clark was a plain, intelligent preacher, was peculiarly qualified to point out the different and various ways that men commit sin, and was considered very judicious in discipline. He owned a good farm in Hopkinton, and was very industrious and frugal in the management of it, and lived above board, and that without a salary, although the people sent him a good many presents.

Elder William Coon might well be called Boanerges, for I never heard a man's voice sound so much like thunder as did his when preaching. But there was one thing in his preaching that was peculiarly remarkable. He generally divided his discourse into six or seven heads, and his last head was always a few words of exhortation, and when he came to his exhortation, his voice would change as if it were from a voice of thunder, to the softness and sweetness of the musical organ, or as if it were from the voice of the lion to that of the mourning dove, the tears trickling down his cheeks, it would seem that the stoutest heart could not but melt into contrition, in the presence of such exercise, and such exhortation I believe is not to be heard in these latter days.

BIOGRAPHY.

Having been requested to write my own biography, I feel somewhat at a loss about it; the affairs of my life have been so trifling that it seems that as if I could hardly write anything that would be interesting to the reader. I will try, however, to tell a little of it.

I was born in Westerly, R.I., May 4th, 1767, in the house where Deacon Joseph Stillman lived most of his days, and where his son Adam's widow now lives. I lived there until I was about four years old, when my father sold the place and moved to Hopkinton, about seven miles, on a farm of about 60 acres which was covered nearly all over with brush and timber. Of course, as soon as I was old enough I was put to cutting bushes, clearing land, hoeing corn, dressing flax, getting out hay-seed, [and so forth, and so forth], which kept me to it until I was about fifteen years old, when I took a notion to be a shoemaker, and my father put me to work with a shoemaker for what I could learn in three months, and when my was out there, I went home and followed that business for about two years, my father taking my wages, which I suppose he had a good right to do.

But to go back a little. When I was about fourteen years old, and following the plough, I took a notion to make something that would tell the time of day. I had never seen a clock, for for there was but very few clocks in the country in those days. But I cared not whether it was a clock or not, if it would only tell the time of day. So when I was following the plough about the field my head would be full of contrivances, and I studied so hard that it made me poor in flesh, and I began to try experiments in all the odd spells I could get. At length my father found out what I was at, and said to me, "foolish boy, you can never make a clock; I wish you would go somewhere and see a clock, and then you would give it up." But thinks I, if that would make me give it up, I had rather not go; so I stuck to it till I got it going, and set it up in one corner of the great room, and my father liked it so well that he got a carpenter to make a case for it; and there it stood a number of years, and kept time tolerably well and struck the hour regularly on a piece of old case bottle; and we could hear it strike the hour when at work forty or fifty rods from the house, and I verily believe that old piece of broken bottle gave a better sound than one in ten of the clock bells now in use.

But to return to my shoemaking; when I had worked at it about two years, I began to think it would not do for me to get a living by; so I went to a clockmaker to see if I could find out how to make clocks. I told the man I had heard of a man that wooden clocks. He said his brother that lived about a mile off had got a wooden clock that he had made himself, but had never set it a going.I went to see it and gave the man six pounds of hay seed for it, and carried it home with me, finished it off, and sold it for a barrel of molasses. I then thought I could do better at making wooden clocks than I could at shoemaking. So I took a model from the one that I bought, and went at it in my father's old blacksmith shop.

I was then about eighteen years old. Now there was a young woman that had worked for my father several years, and had overdone at hard work, particularly by lifting and taking care of my mother in her last sickness, which terminated in June of that same year, 1785, in the 49th year of her age; the young woman's name was Welthea Coon, and she was very much beloved by the family and the neighbors. During the time she worked for my father, her father moved to Petersburg, so that she had no father's house she could go to for help, and having spent her health and strength in the service of our family, I thought it in the line of duty to see her well provided for, which I thought that my father did not so much realize, and I being the oldest of father's children then living at home. I concluded to take the burden on myself, and besides my father had married another woman that was very agreeable to us, and I rather wanted to get away on that account, and so with the consent of the young woman, and that of my father, we were married.

I then carried her to Doctor Phelps, and he let us have some medicine, that seemed to help her very much, although she was feeble all summer. We went to keeping house the next Spring, when I was nineteen years old, and went on making wooden clocks. But in the fall when we had been married about ten months, she had a child, which lived but a few days, and though she was pretty smart for a time, she took a bad cold which threw her into a fever, that proved fatal in about two weeks, and I was left alone, and felt as if I was one of the lonesomest creatures in the world, a mere outcast, and in that frame I wrote the following lines -

Alas! my dearest friend is gone,
And I am left to live alone,
I look around but I can find
Nothing to ease my aching mind;
My lonesome state I do lament,
Altho' my store of tears are spent.
When I am walking all alone
It causes me to sign and groan,
And when I cast my mind around,
No music did I ever hear;
To sound so pleasant in my ear;
Her words to me were soft and mild,
Proceeding with a loving smile,
No earthly thing could ever be
Compared with her sweet company.
She was a loving tender wife,
She was the comfort of my life,
And since from me she's took away
Nothing on earth is worth my stay,
But yet the Lord doth justly know,
The Lord doth give; He takes the same,
Forever blessed be His name.
When near her last expiring breathe,
She calmly bid adieu to earth,
With heavenly smile upon her brow,
Said, "I'm going to Jesus now."
Why should I not then let her go,
And leave this world of sin and woe.

She was the first person that came out in religion, and joined the Seventh Day Baptist Church in Hopkinton in the great reformation in the year 1785-6, which I suppose was the greatest reformation ever known in this country, although there was no protracted meetings held as is now practised. It commenced under the preaching of Elder John Burdick and Elder William Coon, neither of whom had any more education than could be acquired at a common old fashioned country school; but they were both powerful preachers. They came to the people not with the wisdom of this world, but in the demonstration of the spirit, and of power, and I do not believe there is now one highly educated minister out of ten generally, that can reach the hearts and consciences by their preching as either of them could. They both followed their secular business as regularily as other men, and was completely prepared to preach on the Sabbath. The people used to meet together evenings, in different places, to pray and exhort one another, and so much the more as they see the day approaching. But to return. After the death of my wife, I quitted house-keeping, and hired my board, and followed making wooden clocks, until I was twenty-one years old, then I left R.I., and went to Burlington, Conn., to live with brother Amos at his request, and took his planting land at the halves, and made very slim wages of it that year. I then determined on making brass clocks, and went to Hartford and Weathersfield to view clockmaker's tools, and to get what information I could in that business. I then went back to Burlington, and went to making tools and the necessary preparations. I partitioned off part of brother Amos's blacksmith shop and went at it, and followed that business there about three years, and found pretty good encouragement.

I then came to R.I., and got married to Martha Potter, daughter of Jonathan, and went to keeping house at Hopkinton City in the Spring, when I was twenty-five years old, in 1792, and continued making brass clocks. The next spring I moved to Pawcatuck Bridge, and hired a young man that had served his time at gold and silver smithing, and when he had worked for me a year, I could work that business as well as he could. I then went on with gold and silver smithing, and clockmaking, and could get a comfortable living by it, and continued it until the embargo in 1809, when that business seemed to run down, and cotton machinery was in great demand. I then quit that business and went to making cotton machinery, and machinery for making cards and shearing machines, and followed that kind of business for many years.

But soon after I came to Pawcatuck to live, I undertook to build me a house and having nothing before hand, it got me considerably in debt, which, together with losing some hundreds of dollars by bad debtors, kept me under embarrassment for a good many years, and I suppose that I paid thousands of dollars for interest - but at last I got out of debt, and saved the old house and seven hundred and fifty dollars in bank stock, and that is all I am now worth, except the mill on White Brook in Richmond, together with one acre of land, which was given to me by my wife's father.

My wife Martha had ten children, eight sons, and two daughters, and lived to see tham all married except for her oldest daughter, who was thirty-nine years old when she was married - they are all living to this day, May 16 1851, except Albert, our third son who was drowned by the upsetting os a boat, Sept. 1821, and left a wife and two children. I lived with my wife Martha, forty-six years, and more profitable housewife for a poor man than she, I hardly think was ever raised in Rhode Island. She was very suddenly taken from me, May 10th, 1837, and I lived a lonesome life almost two years, and was married to Charlotte Gerea, daughter of Thomas Clark of Newport. She had buried her second husband; we were married January 1839; she died May 12, 1844, and I have lived alone since (1851,) surrounded with many people.

There was an incident that transpired when I was about forty years old, perhaps it might be well to mention. There came a small bunch under my chin; it looked like mold and I was afraid it would turn out to be cancer; it did not alter much in about a year - it then began to grow fast, and in the course of a week or ten days, it got to be as big as a red cherry, and as red, and was very sore and painful. I showed it to Doctor Lee, and he put his fingers on it and hurt me so bad that I turned from him, said no more to him about it. I then hired a horse and went to Hopkinton to see Esther Coon, a seventh daughter of uncle David Coon, and it hurt me very bad to ride out of the walk. I arrived there in much pain, and she rubbed it very softly with the end of her fingers, and I started for home, but had not got more than two miles when I perceived it had gotten entirely well, and never troubled me any more from that day to this. I rode up in exquisite pain, and rode home entirely free from pain or soreness, all on the same day. Was it a miracle?

Some ministers have said that miracles ceased with the life of the Apostles; that they are not now necessary, the Gospel being fully established by them, they ceased and are no longer needed. But I think they are as much needed now, to keep the Gospel alive, as they were then to establish it. The Saviour did not say these signs shall follow you, (The Apostles,) while you live, no he said these signs will follow them that believe, and that is my opinion, the reason why we see no more miracles now, is because the people do not believe.

WM. STILLMAN