Person Page - 759

Jane Towner is 145. Jane Towner in "A Genealogy of the Towner Family."

Samuel Towner is 7. Samuel Towner in "A Genealogy of the Towner Family."

The Branford town records show that he became a proprietor of lands there, Feb. 6, 1717, and afterwards owned much realty. Deeds of exchange between him and Richard Towner, Jr., describe them as brothers. Samuel lived in Branford and Wallingford, Conn., till about 1731, when he moved to Waterbury, Conn., and settled in the part now called Watertown, and moved the next year into the part now Plymouth, where he lived till 1738. During this period his name appears several times on petitions for "winter privileges," i.e., the privilege of hiring a minister during the winter months, by reason of the petitioners living so far from the center of the town, 9 or 10 miles, and at the same time have exemption from paying parish rates to the church at the center, which rates all were in those times required to pay, to support the minister. In the "List of Polls and ratable Estates" of Waterbury, for the year 1737, his name appears, rated at £88. In 1737, he purchased at public sale at New Haven, one of the original town rights of the town of Goshen, Conn., being one fifty-third part of the same. The sale was on condition that he should build a house (there were 200 acres), fence six acres and reside thereon three years. At a proprietor's meeting, in Feb., 1741, he was made one of a committee "to take care of and adjust ye proprietors' affairs," and one of the five selectmen who organized the town.

He appears to have acquired property in Newtown, for in 1750 he sold real estate there for £2000, a large sum for that time, and moved to New Fairfield, and afterwards, about 1762, went with his family, except some of the older children, to Dutchess County, N.Y., and lived in the town of Patterson, now a part of Putnam Co. In 1766, his name appears in a list of the tenants on "Phillips Patent." No record of the date or place of his death has been found. One of his grandsons, John Towner, told his son Samuel, that he (John) remembered his grandfather living in Patterson in 1785, and that in 1786-7 he moved again back to Goshen, but considering his great age (about 95) this seems quite doubtful.¹

Granddaughter of Thomas Barnes, of East Haven, Conn., who was one of the signers of the constitution of the colony of Connecticut in 1644.¹

Richard Towner is 1. Richard Towner in "A Genealogy of the Towner Family."

Richard Towner's will, made May 6, 1725, was probated in Guilford, Conn., Sept 30, 1727. In it these children are all mentioned with portions given, except to Joseph. Of him he says, like Jacob of old, "And Joseph is not." Richard was a husbandman and also worked at ship carpentry, and evidently well to do; his estate amounting to at least £140, which was three times the average fortune for those days.¹

John Crandall is 19. John Crandall in "Elder John Crandall of Rhode Island and his Descendants."²