INTRODUCTION
“In his fortieth year, Platt Benedict left his home in Danbury, Connecticut and traveled to the Ohio wilderness in search of a new home for his family. It was September 1815 . . .”
With those words, on November 2, 2008, I began my first post on the Firelands History Website. Over the next fifty-two weeks, I traced the role Platt Benedict – my great-great-great-great-grandfather – and his fellow pioneers played in founding and settling Norwalk, Ohio, and the region that came to be known as the Firelands. [1]
Today, we return to that story – but not to the Ohio frontier. Instead, we step back forty years, to Danbury, Connecticut, and to Sunday, March 18, 1776: Platt Benedict’s first birthday – two hundred and fifty years ago today.
FIRST BIRTHDAY
On that Sunday, Platt Benedict’s parents – Jonas, age thirty-three, and Mercy Benedict, (née Boughton), age thirty-one – had two birthdays to acknowledge. Their other son, Jonas, named for his father – turned three.
They likely marked the day without ceremony. In eighteenth-century New England, families rarely celebrated birthdays, especially in an era of high infant mortality. Still, the coincidence of two sons sharing the same birthday may have drawn notice as Jonas and Mercy walked to services at the town’s Episcopal church on South Street with their children—including six-year-old Elizabeth. [2]
Most relatives of the Benedict and Boughton families lived in Danbury or nearby towns, so many likely were present at church that day. Mercy had been born in Danbury, as had her parents and five siblings. All but one survived infancy. Her father had died years earlier, but her mother and four surviving siblings still lived in the town. [3]
Jonas Benedict’s family history was more geographically dispersed. His parents, Daniel, and Sarah, were born in Waterbury, Connecticut, about thirty miles northeast of Danbury. They lived there until the birth of their first child in 1731 before moving to Danbury. Even then, they moved frequently. Of their ten children, only five were born in Danbury; two were born in Waterbury, one in nearby Middlebury, and Jonas himself was born in New York. [4]
Jonas’s sister Sarah, age thirty-five, lived on Danbury’s Main Street with her husband, Colonel James Platt Cooke, age forty-six. Cooke commanded the 16th Regiment of the Connecticut Militia, recruited from Danbury, Newtown, and New Fairfield. A native of Stratfield, he had settled in Danbury as a merchant after graduating from Yale in 1750. By 1776, he ranked among the town’s wealthiest and most influential citizens and stood firmly committed to the Patriot cause. His reputation extended well beyond Danbury. [5]
Another prominent Benedict in town was Jonas’s uncle, Matthew Benedict, the elder brother of his father. Matthew age sixty-eight, lived on South Street with his wife, Mabel (née Noble), age sixty-nine. He was prosperous farmer and native of Danbury, but his wife was born in Westfield, Massachusetts. They had six children living in Danfield in 1776. Matthew; Noble, named for his mother’s family; Zadok; Jonah; Abijah; and Thankful. [6]
DANBURY IN MARCH 1776
In 1776, Danbury counted roughly 2,500 inhabitants and about two hundred buildings. Writing sixty years later, historian John Barber described the town:
“A main street, on which the borough is principally built, is one mile and a quarter in extent, thickly settled on both sides for that distance. The village is situated in a narrow but pleasant valley. A gentle eminence rises immediately westward of the main street, called Deer Hill; a much smaller one rises eastward, called the Town Hill.” [7]
News from Boston likely dominated conversation before and after church that Sunday. The day before, March 17, 1776, the British Army had completed its evacuation of the city and sailed away. For the first time since the outbreak of the war, the thirteen colonies stood free of British troops. Many Danbury residents welcomed the news, Loyalists did not. [8]
Like many Connecticut towns, Danbury stood divided.
The Benedict family reflected that division. Most – including Jonas – supported the Patriot cause. Others did not: Josiah Benedict and his son Eli, Hezekiah Benedict, Jr., and Jabez Benedict remained loyal to the Crown. Members of the Taylor, Judd, and Weed families – among others – would eventually cast their lot openly with Britain and leave Danbury forever. Others such as Stephen Jarvis, Sr. and Nehemiah Dibble would stay and make peace with their Patriot neighbors.
For now, Loyalists kept their views to themselves. Even when the British occupied Boston, joining them proved nearly impossible. Few expected British troops to march to Danbury and save them. [9]
WAR TO THE NORTH
American forces still occupied most of Canada following the previous year’s invasion. Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, a New Haven native, was still besieging Quebec, where many of his men languished in the city’s prisons after a failed assault at the end of 1775. Another Connecticut officer, Brigadier General David Wooster, commanded American forces in Montreal. [10]
For Danbury, this war was personal. In 1775, Jonas’s cousin Noble Benedict had raised a company in town and marched north after Lexington and Concord to join Major General Richard Montgomery’s army. Most had returned home by early 1776 following the surrender of British forces in Montreal.
Jonas and Mercy probably encountered those men every day around town, still telling stories of the hardships they had endured – and of their victory. [11]
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You can find other installments in this series under the “Suffering Towns of Connecticut” tab. Comments and corrections are always welcome.
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Notes and Sources
[1] “Land of Opportunity,” Firelands History Website, November 2, 2008, accessed February 1, 2026.
[2] Henry Marvin Benedict, Genealogy of the Benedicts in America (Albany: Joel Munsell, 1870), 373; Ebenezer Parkman, diary entry, in Ebenezer Parkman’s World (Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts, 1974).
[3] James Boughton, Bouton–Boughton Family: Descendants of John Bouton (Albany: J. Munsell’s Sons, 1890), 361–62, 369–70.
[4] Benedict, Genealogy of the Benedicts in America, 373.
[5] Henry P. Johnston, ed., The Record of Connecticut Men in the Military and Naval Service During the War of the Revolution, 1775–1783 (Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Brainard, 1889), 437; Battle of Ridgefield, April 27, 1777: Technical Report (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Interior, 2022), 16.
[6] Lucius Manlius Boltwood, History and Genealogy of the Family of Thomas Noble, of Westfield, Massachusetts (Hartford: Case, Lockwood, 1878), 41–42; James Montgomery Bailey and Susan Benedict Hill, History of Danbury, Conn., 1684–1896 (New York: Burr Printing House, 1896), 56–58; Benedict, Genealogy of the Benedicts in America, 365–67, 374–75.
[7] John Barber, Historical Collections of Connecticut (New Haven: B. L. Hamlin, 1836), 368.
[8] Henry B. Dawson, Battles of the Revolution, vol. 1 (New York: Johnson, Fry & Company, 1858), 91.
[9] Olivia Patch, “Confiscated Estates and Loyalists [of Danbury and Newtown],” The Connecticut Nutmegger 51, no. 2 (November 2018): 154–55; Alexander Frazier, Second Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Toronto, 1904: United Empire Loyalists (Toronto: L. K. Cameron, 1905), 282–83.
[10] Willard Sterne Randall, Benedict Arnold: Patriot and Traitor (New York: William Morrow, 1999); Michael P. Gabriel, Major General Richard Montgomery: The Making of an American Hero (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002).
[11] Benedict, Genealogy of the Benedicts in America, 373–75; Bailey and Hill, History of Danbury, 56.
Illustrations and Maps
[A] Portrait of Colonel Joseph Platt Cooke, oil on panel by William Jennys, c. 1790-1795, Honolulu Museum of Art. The author died in 1859, so this work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author’s life plus 100 years or fewer.
[B] South-Eastern View of Danbury. John Barber, Historical Collections of Connecticut (New Haven: B. L. Hamlin, 1836), 368. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1930.
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Enjoyed this post? Click the Like button below and enter your email in the right-hand column to follow the blog and receive notifications of new posts.
You can find other installments in this series under the “Suffering Towns of Connecticut” tab. Comments and corrections are always welcome.
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Filed under: Suffering Towns of Connecticut | Tagged: American Revolution, Benedict Genealogy, Boughton Genealogy, Danbury Connecticut, David Wooster, Invasion of Canada 1775, James Platt Cooke, Jonas Benedict, Lexington and Concord, Noble Benedict, Platt Benedict, Revolutionary War, Richard Montgomery | Leave a comment »
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