The Newtown bee. (Newtown, Conn.) 1877-current, 1902-10-31

Colds, Coughs, Consumption. csc. 60c, $1.0o.
a guest of Mrs Frank Wright on Mon
day and Tuesday.
THE BL.ACKMAN FAMILY.
SOME INTERESTING NOTES BY E. N.
SHEPPARD.
This Blackman- Brakeman family, of
Newtown and vicinity, derives its de-
scent from the Rev Adam Brakeman,
son John, who married Dorothy,
daughter of the Rev Henry Smith Of
Wetherstield, Conn.,, and grandsons,
John, Jr., and Ebenezer Brakeman.
The brothers, John and Ebenezer,
married Kimberly sisters, Mary and
Abigail, daughters of the Widow Han
nah Curtiss of "old Stratford," the
''gentis cunabulae.'' so to speak, of all
this allied tribe. This Widow Hannah
Curtiss had been the wife of Abraham
Kimberly of "Albemarle Colony" Car
DINA, and Stratford, and, on his de-
cease, in the sixtesn-eighties, had mar
ried John Curtiss, I'd. Hence these
two Kimberly sisters, Abigail, the
second wife of Ebenezer Brakeman,
and Mary, wife of his brother. John,
are called Curtiss by Nathaniel Good
win, in his archaeological Notes"
There was third Kimberly girl,
Sarah by name, born at Albermarle in
the Carolinas, in 1872, who became the
wife of Sergeant Benjamin Hurd, ST.,
of Woodbury., Conn.,, which Sergeant
Benjamin Hurd, also had an Adam for
grandsire; i. e., Adam Hurd, who, with
his brother, John Hurd, came early TIC
Stratford, and both have numerous
progeny scattered throughout Fairfield
and Litchfeld counties, and, for that
matter, throughout the United States.
Each had a son John; Adams son,
John, Jr., married Ann, widow of
Joshua Judson of Stratford, Porter
FROM Hartford, by birth, daughter of
John and Rose, and was the father of
Sergeant Benjamin Hurd a quo antea;
while Johns son, John, married Sarah
Thompson, was called Senior, and was
the father Of Jabez Hurd of Trumbull,
Conn.,, from whom JabeZ Hurd of New
town descended. (See Postscript).
These several family names, Skid
more, Brakeman, Smith and the rest,
are clearly English in their immediate
origin; Skidmore, or Scudamore, as
the blacksmith, Thomas Scudamore
of Huntington, L. l., signed his name
(and he was their first town clerk
alone, being Norman French. and with
Smith, herein referred to, the only
families in this group that can
trace an unbroken line of descent
in English pedigrees.< AS to the sig
niticance of these names, Blackman
and Smith Il, e. blacksmith) speak for
themselves. Kimberly is purely local,
and derived from the name OF the town
in Nottingham 1--WE dine off Kimberly
ware). Scudamore was knight in
Spencers Fairie Queen, but our Kim
berly and Skidmore were both black
smiths. and tie Smithy of Abraham
Kimberly, I'd, is rated in his inventory
of 1927, recorded at Fairfield.
Hitchcock, says Bardsley in his
"English and WEIGH surnames," with
the harder forms Hickock and Hiscox,
is simply son of Hick or Hitch, a nick
name of Richard. Hurd or Heard,
also written and pronounced Hard,
after the manner of Bardsley above,
for Beardsley, is Shepherd, having,
like Little Bo-Peep of nursery fame,
lost the sheep. Heard and Shepherd,
or Sheppard, both have their innings
in the game of heraldry and ancestry,
the latter claiming descent from the
FitZ Herberts, Earls of Pembroke,
like Horace's Macenas, with his prince
ly Etruscan lineage, "atavis edit
regibus' excuse the change of quanti-
ty of the final syllable, in edit for
edite. to suit the grammatical con-
struction), and the former reckoned in
their line d Lancaster Herald" and a
"Garttr king-of-arms' in the person
VI tJii i''rhC Ilthib, VI UlIC olu l)cNOIl-
shire family of that name. However,
whats in name?'
From yon blue heavens above us bent
The grand old gardner and his wife,
land his name was A dam, too, accord
ing to the Bible and the version of this
line in earlier editions of Tennyson)
Smile on our CLAIMS of long descent"
Yours truly,
e. N. Sheppard.
New Haven, Ct, October II, 1902.
Postscript No. l. Skidmore-B Black
man: Amos Skidmore, son of Nehemj-
all and Charity Lake. Skidmore,
grandson of Lieutenant Thomas and
Martha Skidmore, and of John and
Abigail kimberly Lake: great-grand-
son of Abraham I'd, and Abigail Fitch
Kimberly query l,15S), married Hester
Blackman, daughter of James and
Hester (Hitchcock) Blackman. They
had four children, Wheeler, James B.,
Rufus and Hannah. James B. Skid
more lived at "Butternuts'' (Morris),
N. Y. Abel Skidmore, son of John