Family-histories and genealogies : containing a series of ...

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Another private paper, dated July ii, 1674, records the laying out
to Matthew Griswold of
" fifty acres more or Less of upland .
. . bounded
west by the Sea and
Bridebrook, East by the land bought of Richard Tousland, south by the Sea, north
by the Commons,"
which seems to be a description of the promontory of Giant's Neck,'' the
home of Rev. George Griswold, of the third generation, and of a branch
of the family descended from him. On the 28"^ of February, 1676, as
Lyme records show, Matthew Griswold gave in a statement of certain
lots of land then owned by him, as follows :
" Matthew Griswold Senior, his lotts in the first division of upland and meadow,
ivhar his new dwelling house doth stand, Containing in Generall about one hundred and
fourty aight akers and a half . . . and
is bounded Northerly by Blackball river,
Easterly by the highway as far as his dwelling house, southerly by Sea, westerly by
the Great River. .
. ."
A touch of portraiture of the first Matthew Griswold is given us in a
record which has come to light recently. Until within a few years, in Con-
necticut as everywhere else in New England, the property of a wife, unless
it were settled upon her before marriage, went by law to her husband, sub-
ject to his disposal. The following record, therefore, shows that Matthew
Griswold had liberal and enlarged views, very much in advance of his age :
"April 23"*, 1663, Hannah Griswold, wife of Matthew Griswold, has a portion of
meadow- Land in Windsor, Great Meadow, Twelve acres more or less . . . this
comes to her as part of her portion that fell to her by the last will of her brother
Christopher Wolcott Dec*, out of his Estate that was to be Devided among his
Relations ; and
this parcell of meadow is allowed by her Husband Matthew Griswold to
be Recorded and made over to Hannah his wife to remain to her and her children, and
their Dispose, forever." ""
'* This promontory seems to have taken its name from an Indian of the Hammonasset tribe, sur-
named the Giant, and bearing the gigantic name of Mamaraka-gurgana, as Miss Caulkins says, wlio
once had his home upon it— Caulkins's Hist, of New London, ut supra, p. 170.
*' Copied by the Town Clerk of Windsor, from records there, in August 1882.
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