My 6th great grandfather Elijah Atwood was born in 1725 in Barnstable, Massachusetts, the son of Isaac, and Mehitable (Grey). In 1754, he married Anna Goodspeed in Haddam, Connecticut. They had one child during their marriage, John Atwood (1755-1829). Elijah died in 1806, having lived for 81 years.
Anna Goodspeed was born in 1734, in Barnstable, Massachusetts, the daughter of Samuel and Rebecca (Smith). Anna died in April 1774. Elijah married Mary Kelly in November 1774.
Elijah served in the 1st Regiment of the Connecticut Continental Line in Captain Judson’s 8th Company. His son John served in the 1st Regiment in Captain Holmes’ 2nd Company.
What prompted this post was not simply Elijah’s service during the Revolutionary War, but the house he lived in during his final years. It was a former schoolhouse that in the winter session of 1773-1774 had a teacher by the name of Nathan Hale, the Connecticut patriot and hero of the Revolutionary War! The building is a historic site and can be visited today, alas, it is known not as the Atwood House, but as the Nathan Hale Schoolhouse.
This building was used as a school until 1799 (originally built in 1750), when another larger one was purchased, at which time Captain Elijah Atwood purchased the original schoolhouse and removed it to the north some one hundred yards, to a place just south of the old burying ground, and, by adding a little to it, converted it Into a dwelling house. He lived in it until his death in 1816; from that time until 1899 his descendants had always occupied it. In 1899, one hundred years after it came into the Atwood family, Judge Julius Atwood presented the building to the Connecticut Society Sons of the Revolution. Connecticut (CT) (Source (edited): CT Sons of the American Revolution)
Nathan Hale was an intelligent, engaging, athletic, ambitious and dutiful schoolmaster in New London, Connecticut, at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. When news of the battles of Lexington and Concord reached New London on April 22, 1775, Hale reportedly declared: “Let us march immediately and never lay down our arms until we obtain our Independence.” He joined the Seventh Connecticut Regiment of the Continental Army as a lieutenant. Hale left camp on September 12 posing as a schoolmaster looking for work. He took a circuitous path to British-held Long Island, where he gathered information on the enemy’s numbers and positions. On the night of September 21, he was discovered on his way back to the American lines and captured. Before his execution he delivered a stirring address including the words, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” (Source: The American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati) Left: Statue – Nathan Hale (back) Frederick W. MacMonnies (1863-1937)
Comments, corrections and suggestions appreciated.
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