Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

1658. Abraham married Mary Cooper,
daughter of John Cooper, one of the original
grantees of the town of New Haven,
and from this union sprang a host of descendants
including in their numbers men
of such prominence as members of Con-
gress, ministers, magistrates, writers,
Wall Street financiers, railroad and in-
dustrial corporation officials, State Legislators,
etc. Abraham's youngest son. Cap-
tain Isaac Dickerman, was a deputy to the
Connecticut General Assembly for fifty-
nine terms, outstripping the longest rec-
ord of any other deputy by twenty-six
terms. He was also one of the committee
to arrange for the transfer of Yale Col-
lege from Saybrook to New Haven in
1716 and made a gift of two acres of land
to assist the college in getting established
in New Haven.
Isaac had considerable property near
Mt. Carmel about seven miles north of the
New Haven green opposite which he lived
and about 1735 his second son, Jonathan,
went out there to improve the lands and
establish a home. In those historic years
just before, during and right after the
Revolution, Lieutenant Jonathan Dickerman
played an important part, being at
various times surveyor, lister, assessor,
tj^hingman, selectman, grandjuryman, inspector,
member of the committee which
voted New Haven's approval of the as-
sociation entered into by the Continental
Congress at Philadelphia, and one of the
eight members of the Special Committee
on Admitting to Inhabitancy, whose report
constitutes one of the town's most
important documents.
Among Jonathan's children who were
in the Revolution was Enos, his oldest
child, who was taken prisoner by the
British and died in New York in 1776.
Following in the direct line came Enos,
son of Enos, a farmer, and Elihu, son of
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BIOGRAPHY
Enos, a large land owner, civil engineer
assisting on the Farmington Canal, Deacon
of the Mt. Carmel Congregational
Church for twenty-five years, and a justice
of the peace. He moved to North
Haven on the Ridge Road in 1848 although
his son, Elihu Justus, was born in
Mt. Carmel. Elihu Dickerson was born
May 14, 1802, and married Sylvia Hum-
iston, who was born February 3, 1805.
His son, Elihu Justus, was born September
6, 1828, taught school in his youth
and later farmed. He married Grace Angeline
Blakeslee, born March 8, 1831, who
died April 18, 1889, seventeen years after
the death of her husband on September
12, 1872.
The maternal grandparents of William
Elihu Dickerman, subject of this bio-
graphical record, were Zophar Blakeslee,
born March 8, 1803, died February 15,
1875, and his wife Sarah Brockett Blake-
slee, born in 1808, died August 11, 1876.
Zophar Blakeslee was the son of Zophar
and Sybil Brockett Blakeslee, Zophar being
a wagon and carriage builder and
blacksmith in the days when horse power
ran machinery. On both sides the family
was Congregationalist in religious faith.
The children of Zophar and Sarah Brockett
Blakeslee were : Zerah Thomas
Blakeslee, a farmer; Hermenea ; Grace
Angeline ; Henry E. ; and Charles Edgar.
William Elihu Dickerman, son of Elihu
147
Justus and Grace Angeline (Blakeslee)
Dickerman, was born in North Haven
November 3, 1861, in the house on the
Ridge Road where his brother and sister
still live. His brothers and sisters were
Sarah Elizabeth, born May 8, 1858 ; Ro-
bert Ellsworth, born September 27, 1863
Grace Emma, born April 18, 1867, died
March 13, 1895 ; Julia Maria, born April
22, 1872, died November 2, 1872.
His early childhood was spent on the
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