Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial ...

Revolutionary times Tories were imprisoned
there. Captain John Yiets was
the first keeper, and his bill for one year
was twenty-nine pounds, five shillings,
ten pence. It was decided that the Colony
should occupy it as a permanent
prison, and its purchase and fortification
price was $375. In 1700 it was estab-
lished as a State Prison. The wall built
in 1802 is still standing. As a tourists'
resort it has gained much fame, there
being the thousand visitors in the year
1910. The property is now owned by
Almon Blake Phelps, a prominent dairy
farmer of East Granby.
The Phelps family originated in Lombard}',
Northern Italy, where they were
called Welf. In the eleventh century in
Germany the form became Guclph. In
the sixteenth century they went to Scot-
land the name became Phelps. The reigning
English family are of this line, and
the old English family seat was in
Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, where in
the old Abbey church the lettered tomb-
stones still remain. The name has its root
in the Greek word philos, meaning friend.
The escutcheon of the American branch
of the family was as follows
Arms—Per pale, or and argent, a wolf salient
azure with anorle of eight crosses—crosslet and
fitchie and gule, crest a wolf's head erased, azure
collard or, the collard charged with a martlet
sable.
The meaning is considered to be a record
of fortifications against an enemy ; cour-
age and endurance being signified by the
wolf; the crosses-crosslets fitchee being
emblems of the Second Crusade, that the
arms were earned in that campaign ; also
the martlet indicates that the ancestor has
been on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
James Phelps was born about 1520, and
the records show that his wife, Joan, ad-
ministered his estate, May 10. 1588.
Their eight children were baptized in the
:
ENCYCLOPEDIA OE BIOGRAPHY
109
Tewkesbury Abbey Church. William
Phelps, eldest Son Of Janus and Joan
Phelps, was born August 4, 1550. Ad-
ministration was granted on his estate to
his wife, Dorothy, September 28, 161 I.
She died in 1613. George Philps, son of
William and Dorothy Phelps, was horn
at Tewkesbury, England, about 1606.
lie came to New England Oil the "Mary
and John." and settled in Connecticut, his
home being at the junction of the Farm-
ington and Great (now Connecticut)
rivers, in what is now the town of Windsor.
On this farm there was an orchard
of one thousand trees. He lived at Westfield,
Massachusetts, for a time, going
there in 1670. He married (second)
March 22, 1649, Mrs. Frances Dewey.
Their son, Sergeant John Phelps, was
born February 15, 1652, and lived in Poquonock.
He died about 1742. He married,
in 1673, Sarah Buckland, born March
24, 1649, daughter of Thomas and Temperance
Denslow. Thomas Phelps, the
next in line, was born June 21, 1687, and
died January 6, 1702. He married (second)
Ann Brown, born in Windsor,
daughter of John and Elizabeth (Loomis)
Brown. Thomas Phelps, born July 2j,
171 1, lived in Poquonock, and owned
land in Torrington. In 1744 he bought
land in Simsbury for two hundred pounds.
He died September 24, 1777. He married,
November 23, 1737, Margaret Watson,
born June 7, 1715, in West Hart-
ford, daughter of John and Sarah (Steele)
Watson.
Jabez Moore Phelps, the next in line,
was the grandfather of Almon B. Phelps.
He was born May 20, 1782, and received
only a common school education, as there
were no advantages at that time in coun-
try districts, and transportation to schools
in adjacent cities was out of the question.
He lived throughout his life in the town
of Suffield, following the occupation of