In a message dated 6/2/99 9:19:59 AM, Harry Walden <hmwalden@flash.net> writes: >Saybrook and Old Saybrook are not really the same, although I think that >a lot of people do consider them as being the same. Officially, I don't >believe that Saybrook exists today. Here's more than all of you wanted to know: "Old Saybrook" is the modern name of the town at the west side of the mouth of the Connecticut River on Long Island Sound. Locals and genealogists and recorders do not always differentiate Saybrook from Old Saybrook. Some old records spell it "Sey-brooke" with a hyphen. >Saybrook Colony originally consisted of a >number of towns, Chester, Essex, Deep River to name a few. The town of >Saybrook existed until 1947 when it's name was changed to Deep River. … >Harry Walden, Georgetown, Texas Well, not exactly! Present-day towns Old Lyme and Lyme, on the East side of the Connecticut River in New London County; and Essex, Deep River, and Chester, to the north on the river, and Westbrook, to the west on the Sound, (all in Middlesex County) were all originally part of the Saybrook Colony or the town of Saybrook. This incorporates several other village names including Winthrop, Ivoryton, Fenwick, Chalker Beach, etc. >From "Connecticut Town Origins" by Helen Earle Sellers, The Pequot Press, Inc., Stonington, Conn. I excerpt the following: Old Saybrook: Sellers reports that "Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brooke and others in England who had formed a Company to start a Puritan Colony in America, received from Robert, Earl of Warwick, a grant to all "That part of New England in America which lies and extends itself from a River there called Narragansett … Forty Leagues upon a straight line … as the Coast lieth towards Virignia … & also all & singular the Lands … North and South … from the Western Ocean to the South Sea." Sellers continues, "This vast territory, which would have reached to the Pacific, came eventually to include only a territory about ten miles square…" "In 1635, John Winthrop, Jr. was commissioned "Governor of the River Connecticut" and was appointed to lay out a settlement "for gentlemen of quality." The first expedition with 20 men arrived 24 November 1635." But the Dutch got wind of this attempt to settle their claimed "Kievit's Hook" and sent a ship from New Amsterdam to build a fort and defend their prior claim. However, Winthrop's party stood their ground and Saybrook became a permanent English settlement. Under the heading "Saybrook," which she differentiates from "Old Saybrook," Sellers writes, "After the English had torn down the Dutch arms at Saybrook and replaced them with a fool's head in 1634, the Dutch made no further attempt to seize or fortify the mouth of the Connecticut. George Fenwick, Esq., a lawyer of Gray's Inn, London, was not one of the 11 grantees named in the patent from Warwick responsible for the settlement of Saybrook, but he later became a member of the company in London, presumably buying out the interest of one or more of the original members. He arrived in New England for the first time in May or June 1636… In July 1639, he came back to Saybrook, bringing with him his wife, Lady Alice Boteler, and as Governor he assumed control…" Hence the area at the western point of the river is known as Fenwick, the summer home of notable Connecticut families for years, including Katharine Hepburn. Westbrook, the western part of the Saybrook settlement to the Menunkateset River (then Hammonasett/Kenilworth/Killingworth, now Clinton) petititoned the General Assembly in May 1724 for the privileges of an independent Society, per Sellers. She continues, "This was granted and known as Waterbury West Society. In October 1725 liberty was granted them "to imbody into church estate and to call and settle an orthodox minister amongst them." The community was known by the Indian name Pochaug until 1810, when it was named Westbrook. Incorporation as a town did not come until May, 1840." Westbrook was the birthplace of David Bushnell, inventor of the torpedo and submarine "turtle". Chester was settled about 1690 in the "Pattaquonk quarter of Saybrook" and set off as a parish about 1739. It was incorporated as a town from Saybrook in 1836. The name is from Chester, capital city of Cheshire County, England. Essex, Sellers reports, is a derivative of "the east Saxons." One of three sections, or "quarters" split from the settlement at Saybrook point, known as the Eight Miles Meadow or Potopauge (later Pettipaug), it was sold in lots to 10 men January 4, 1648. Sellers continues, "Potopaugh was a part of Old Saybrook when the town was divided, Saybrook from Old Saybrook, by the General Assembly of 1852. Two years later, Old Saybrook was divided again, the northern part set off as a separate town given the name of Essex…indirectly from the sire in England…and more directly from Essex County in Masachusetts… Lyme, says Sellers, means "a large forest district". Settlement began about 1664. The General Court at Hartford named the plantation on the East side of the river from "Say-brooke". It then included what is now Lyme, East Lyme, Old Lyme and part of East Haddam. The town boundaries were determined as follows…East Haddam from Haddam, in May 1724; East Lyme in 1839; Old Lyme 1855. Deep River is a recently incorporated town. [Sorry, I skipped copying this page, can someone help fill in here?] Other sources: "Purtians Against the Wilderness, Connecticut History to 1763" by Albert E. VanDusen, a publication of The Center for Connecticut Studies of Eastern Connecticut State College, published by The Pequot Press, Chester, Conn., 1975. Van Dusen, Ph.D., at the time of publication, was a professor of history at UCONN and the Connecticut State Historian. Notes from his history of the Saybrook area: Dutchman Adriaen Block sailed up the Connecticut River in 1614 [Block Island namesake.] 1635 John Winthrop, Jr. sent men to establish a colony at the mouth of the (Connecticut) River. He followed in April 1636. Thomas Hooker & Co. reached Hartford 1636 from New Town (Cambridge) Mass. In March 1637 Lion Gardiner, an engineer, erected a fort at Saybrook on commission from the Fenwick group to defend the mouth of the river. This group challenged the Hooker company. Additional facts about the state and its communities can be found in "Connecticut, a Guide to its Roads, Lore and People" which was "written by Workers of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of Connecticut." Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1938, one of the American Guide Series. This concludes the Connecticut history lesson for the day, we hope you have enjoyed your flight <grin> --Martha Byrnes, native of Clinton, now resident of Illinois