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Fourth Generation.
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which makes him traditionally the son of that Joseph Riggs, who died 11 Sept. 1744, aged 69, and was buried at Orange, N.J. His grandparents were, possibly, Edward and Mary Riggs, of Newark; and his great-grandparents may have been Edward and Elizabeth Riggs, of Milford and Derby, Conn. No record of his death has been found, but a deed in the Norwalk land records, Vol. XI, p. 185, shows that "Elizabeth Wriggs, widow, or Norwalk," joined her brothers and sisters, 5 Aug. 1754, in conveying land at the upper end of Clapboard Hills, to Ebenezer Benedict. One tradition affirms that he lived in Newark, N.J.; another says that he was a mariner, master of a vessel, and that, at the time of his death, he dwelt in New Jersey, near New York City; and that he was "supposed to have died in New York Harbor, and to have found a watery grave, about 1754."
She married (2d) Ensign David Rockwell, whose first wife, Elizabeth (Hyatt) Rockwell, died in Ridgefield, Conn., 13 Feb. 1758. He was born in Norwalk, 8 Oct. 1708, son of Jonathan and Abigail (Canfield) Rockwell, of Norwalk and Ridgefield, g. son of John Rockewll, Jr., of Stamford, Conn., and g. g. son of John Rockwell, Sen., one of the early settlers of Stamford in Dec. 1641. They settled at Ridgebury, in Ridgefield, where he died, 30 May 1788, in his 80th year, and was buried in Ridgebury Cemetery. She married (3d), about 1791, being then 74 years old, Agur Fairchild, who was her senior by six years. He died in 1797, after which she lived with her daughter, Mrs. Esther (Riggs) Rockwell, in Ridgebury, till she was 94 years old, then went to live with her son, Miles Riggs, at Norfolk, Litchfield Co., Conn., where she died in Aug. 1815, aged 98 years.
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VI. David Whitney, b. at Norwalk, Conn., 24 June 1721; a master-mariner and miller; married, 11 May 1741, at Norwalk, Elizabeth Hyatt, dau. of Ebenezer and Elizabeth Hyatt, of Norwalk, where she was born 6 June 1718. They settled in Norwalk, where she died 28 Oct. 1798, aged, according to the gravestone, 80 years, 4 months, and 22 days, but really, from the chage of style, eleven days less. The church-record of New Canaan, Conn., has the death, in "Nov. 1798," of "The wife of Mr. Whitney," which refers to her. He died at Silver Mine, in New Canaan, 16 Ap. 1816, and was buried in New Canaan. Tradition calls him a soldier of the Revolutionary War. It is said that they dwelt, many years, in Pudding Lane, about half a mile north of Norwalk Bridge, in a house which was torn down in the spring of 1865; and that he had charge of a grist-mill, in which his son, Ebenezer Whitney, succeeded him. "For many years he owned and commanded a sloop, in which he performed great service for the Continental Government in carrying despatches and supplies under the very guns of the British ships." An interesting account of his adventures was published a few years ago, in the New York Sunday Despatch, under the title, "Revolutionary Scenes. By T. R.
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