DISBROW-L Archives

From: "John Squires" <>
Subject: [DISBROW-L] Disbrow Homesteads Invaded!
Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 01:23:49 -0400

As promised, some thoughts: Disbrow Homesteads & Revolutionary War.
The first thing obvious from the "Jabez Disbrow House" abstract is that the
destroyed "house" and lands were a bequest to Jabez from his father Joseph,
my own direct ancestor. This is exciting "new" information for me since
that means we NOW have identified a Revolutionary era house-site for this
forebear of my own (& Mike's, & of so many of you too).
Mike reports on page 58 of his vol I, DISBROW DESCENDANTS: "Inventory
of Joseph's estate dated 18 Mar. 1777, proved 12 Sept. 1777, includes items
of clothing, household utensils and furniture, farming tools, livestock,
etc. Also listed as property were five negro servants: three girls,
Dorkis, Nancy and Lille [more on her later], and two boys, Tim and Tom." An
account of administration exhibited 25 June 1793 lists losses to the estate,
including "moveables destroyed by the enemy," and the "loss of Negro girl
Dorcas by the enemy." (meaning British soldiers apparently raided the farm
during the Revolution.)"p. 58. Note the later date of 1793, that's just a
year before the WHS "abstract" says Jabez inherited "six acres, a barn, and
the remnants of a house from his father, Joseph."
Further, the "loss of Dorcas" probably does not infer death. The
British generally encouraged black recruitment and slave rebellion by
promising manumission at the conclusion of the war (a sizeable contingent of
black "loyalists" left the US after the war, tho blacks also fought for
"patriot" cause, of course). In the instance of the "Negro girl Dorcas"
they might well have "liberated" her as "contraband" just like during our
Civil War (one hopes, rather than for her re-sale!!). Perhaps she
willingly went off with them (all are interesting questions---would 'Brit'
military field reports, if they exist, help??)? We must not, of course,
assume our Disbrow slaves loved their situation just because our family
forebears were involved as masters here in the north!
I wonder though, does the fact of multiple slave ownership by Joseph
indicate he was relatively well off? Perhaps so, and considering also the
estate he inherited from Thomas Jr., which he certainly would have built
upon, Joseph must have been of average, or better, means (tho Mike should
inform us further about his estate at death). While Joseph died at age 64,
he also died on the brink of something I now feel must have changed the
lives of the people of Compo forever, including our own Disbrows, as I will
demonstrate soon enuf. But Joseph himself apparently died just weeks before
the first British invasion of CT. Commanding a force of at least 2000 crack
troops, General Tryon arrived off Cedar Point at Compo Beach on April 25,
1777 in twenty troop transports and six warships (imagine that armada off
little Compo Beach!).
According to the writer of a commemorative article, April 1994, from
the Westport MINUTEMAN (the month I rediscovered my ancestor Mercy), one
Mercy "Liz" Disbrow confronted the British as they landed. A somewhat
apocryphal story, I fear, but a truly interesting one: "But the poor girl
damn near died/ When she raised her head and spied/ Twenty six ships of His
Majesty's Nave-e-ee!" The writer, Pete McGovern, claims: "With their
men-o-war shielded behind Caukeen (before it became Cockenoe) Island, the
2000 British regulars---massed in greater numbers than were at Lexington and
Concord [& no doubt because of their losses there] and hauling six field
pieces---cleared the area unmolested."
This author was clearly not acting as "historian" in this article and
I was reluctant to contact him for details since I did not wish to embarrass
him then for obviously flubbing some Disbrow names. He continues: "Her
infant asleep in the crude wooden cradle in the Cedar Point cabin [right on
Compo Beach then??], Mercy Disbrow, who answered to Liz, was boiling a
kettledrum of seawater for its salt. Spotting the red vanguard, she
drenched the fire with the cauldron's contents [Westporters knew just enuf
about Mercy Disbrow in 1994 to recall her witch persecution, hence all this
embellishment, cauldron's etc, & the borrowing of her name??], grabbed the
baby, paused briefly to pray for her man, Capt. W.B. Disbrow [who's HE?? I
never could figure it out!] of Washington's irregulars---as the raiders
banged open the stout log door with musket butts. Defiant, legs spread,
babe in arms, she faced them threateningly. She demanded they spare the
child, the house, herself, in that order. Contrary to servants of 'The
Butcher' they did as bidden." After describing Benedict Arnold's
whereabouts and all those tours through Fairfield County by George
Washington, one in company with Rev. Hezekiah Ripley, pastor of Greens Farms
Church 1775 (& visits to Ebenezer Ogden's and MARVIN'S taverns, ---'taverns'
plural, but no 'Disbrow' tavern in sight!!---plus visits to one William
Forsyth, notable horticulturist who had been to the Orient), the author
continues the battle at Compo: "A small black slave boy, tending sheep on
the salt meadow under threat he'd best have them rounded up by supper-time,
was unceremoniously seized, screaming and kicking, by the marauders in red.
With two of the sheep, they carried him along.
"Smoke and sounds of the British passage-in-arms reached across the
state line. In Putnam County...16 year old Sybil Ludington quick-saddled
her horse, Star, and took off on a wild and desperate scamper of 35 miles,
arousing settlers, militia and Minutemen along the way...
"As the raiders neared the juncture of the Great Road [probably now the
road to Compo Beach near downtown] at the Post Road, a blistering volley of
musketfire from behind the stonewall fencing fronting H.A.Birdsall's house
(Winslow Park) felled several. For the first time in Connecticut, the blood
of an invader had been spilled in defense of sacred soil.
"The volley came from 17 clerks, farmers, tradesmen in buckskin from
Weston, captained by Liz Disbrow's mate---the Minutemen were trained to
respond to any emergency "at a minute's notice." [Please realize how the
writer is glorifying our surnamed "Disbrow" as the epitome of the
"Mintueman", an image molded in bronze at Compo & Compo Beach Road via the
pedestaled "Minuteman" statue there to this day!]. At the shooting the
redcoats dropped the black lad. Booting his butt, they sent him scurrying
back to Cedar Point (Compo Beach) and the Saugatuck salt marshes [where Paul
Newman is often visited at the small boat dock by his Weston, CT buddy,
Rebert Redford, for a quick cruise on the Sound]--and to another beating
from his master for failure to round up the stock by supper deadline [this
author is apparently anxious to pack in several "politically correct"
lessons of history]...
" "Deliverance" Bennett [mentioned in Mike, p 50, v. I], suspected Tory
residing at 96 Great Road, proffered his work cart to the Redcoats to carry
their dead and wounded to the beach...
" A detachment of Tryon's troops tracked one rebel shooter wounded in
the return fire by follwong his blood trail. In front of the Greens Farms
rectory [down the road a mile or so from Compo] they bayonated to death the
Reverend Ripley's son on his very doorstep. At dark, in Weston, the
invaders finished off the lambs. "A veritable feast", one soldier wrote
home. [I'd like to know where he gets this stuff, tho haven' looked much
into it yet myself!]
"Overnight, mysteriously Tory chimneys along the charred and ruined
countryside came to bear crude crosses chalked in lime, signals that these
residences belonged to Loyalists and were to be spared....". Quite true,
tho I'd like to know where he gets other embellishments, eh! The author
marches his troops & the battle down the road to Danbury/Ridgefield, with a
return engagement to come at Compo. That's all for now, am tired, more
later with some answers to the riddle of the estate boundaries, & some
solutions to Mike's "jigsaw puzzle" on page 52, v. one! Stephen T.
Squires

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• [DISBROW-L] Disbrow Homesteads Invaded! by "John Squires" <>