| From Thomas to
Daniel/3 |
1.
Thomas 1590
2. Thomas 1630
3. Samuel 1664
4. Daniel 1708
5. Daniel 1735
6. Daniel 1761 |
| The farm |
| The Sherwoods farmed
on the island through most of the 1800s. The
farm yielded abundant crops, especially
onions and potatoes shipped to New York. Oysters were harvested. |
| The mill |
| In 1790, the
Sherwoods acquired the Mill Pond gristmill,
which serviced local farmers. Its specialty
was kiln-dried corn meal shipped to the West
Indies. The mill burned down in 1895. |
Genealogy
Most of the information here came from the Mormon's
database. |
|
| The Sherwood family |
Thomas Sherwood, the patriarch of the
Fairfield Sherwoods, was apparently born in 1586 in
Ipswich (Suffolk) England. If there was a
connection with Sherwood (Nottingham) and
Sherwood Forest, it must have been before
his time.
In 1634
he sailed from Ipswich on the ship Francis. After some time in
Wethersfield CT, he arrived in Fairfield in about
1648. He was a carpenter and a miller, and a community
leader. His son Thomas Jr., who also arrived on the Francis,
was the first miller at
the gristmill at Mill River, Southport.
With his many
children, Thomas stands atop an
enormous family tree. Some of his descendants stayed
here, some migrated west. Among the descendants,
Daniel (1761) is especially significant because he
was the first to settle on Sherwood Island. The
land was a wedding present when he married
Catherine Burr in 1787.
Here, mention is
made only of Daniel's descendents. |
| Generation 7.
Daniel
and Catherine had 11 children. Two died in
childhood. The others were: Ebenezer Burr (1788),
Catherine (1790), Eunice (1792), Daniel (1794),
Abraham (1802), Silas Burr (1805), and in 1810 the
legendary triplets Francis, Frederick and
Franklin who became sea captains. All of them were probably
born on the island. |
| Generation 8.
There were too many Sherwoods in this
generation for listing here. Among them, the children of
Silas Burr Sherwood and Anne Coley Taylor
were: Silas Burr Jr.
(1830), Jessup (1832), Catherine (1835) and Moses
(1839). Fannie Sherwood (1848), daughter of
Franklin, married John H. Elwood, who farmed
on Sherwood's Island. |
| Generation 9.
When the State began acquiring land for the
park in the 1900s, the Sherwoods were no
longer farming there, but the Elwood's were.
The upland acquired in 1923 was from the
heirs of Moses, who had died about eight
years before. Some other parcels were
acquired from other Sherwood heirs. |
|
|