Editing Suffield, Connecticut (section)

==History==
Originally known as Southfield—pronounced "Suffield," on May 20, 1674, the committee for the settling of the town petitioned:

{{blockquote|...that the name of the place may be Suffield, it being the southernmost town that either at present is, or like to be in that Countrey, and neere adjoining to the south border of our Patent in those parts. {{sic}} }}

The petition was granted by the Massachusetts Bay court on June 8, 1674. Suffield was incorporated as a town in March 1682.<ref>Sellers, Helen Earle (no date, c. 1965; reprint from ''The Connecticut Register and Manual'', 1942 Edition). ''Connecticut Town Origins: Their Names, Boundaries, Early Histories and First Families''. Stonington, Connecticut: The Pequot Press. p. 81.</ref>

Also, on early 17th and 18th century maps, Suffield was alternatively spelled as Suthfield.

Suffield and the surrounding area were part of the [[Equivalent Lands]] compromise with Massachusetts in 1715–1716.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Nw4wi4igtLAC|title=Vermont, the Green mountain state|first=Walter Hill|last=Crockett|date=March 18, 1921|publisher=New York, The Century history company, inc.|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

Suffield's native and adopted sons include The Rev. Ebenezer Gay, a renowned [[Congregational]] minister; U.S. Postmaster General [[Gideon Granger]]; real estate speculator [[Oliver Phelps (politician)|Oliver Phelps]], once the largest landowner in America; composer [[Timothy Swan]]; architect [[Henry A. Sykes]]; sculptor [[Olin Levi Warner]]; Seth Pease, surveyor of the [[Western Reserve]] lands in Ohio, most of which were controlled by Suffield financiers and speculators; and [[Thaddeus Leavitt]],<ref>Leavitt's daughter Jane Maria Leavitt, wife of Vermont Congressman [[Jonathan Hunt (Vermont Representative)|Jonathan Hunt]] was the mother of architect [[Richard Morris Hunt]], painter [[William Morris Hunt]] and photographer [[Leavitt Hunt]]</ref> inventor of an early [[cotton gin]], merchant and patentee of the [[Western Reserve]] lands.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.suffield-library.org/localhistory/index.htm|title=Historic Suffield|website=www.suffield-library.org}}</ref> Thanks to the town's early prominence and wealth, it boasts an astonishing collection of early New England architecture.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.suffieldhistoricalsociety.org/|title=Suffield Historical Society|website=www.suffieldhistoricalsociety.org}}</ref> The Kent family, for whom the town's library is named, originated in [[Gloucester, Massachusetts]], and boasted relations to many prominent early New England families, including the [[Dwight family]] of [[Northampton, Massachusetts]], the [[Thomas Hooker|Hooker]] family of Hartford, the Dudleys of [[Guilford, Connecticut]], and the Leavitts of Suffield.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.suffieldhistoricalsociety.org/families/kent.htm |title=Family History of Samuel Kent, Suffield Historical Society |access-date=April 10, 2008 |archive-date=January 23, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090123121201/http://suffieldhistoricalsociety.org/families/kent.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://archive.org/details/genealogicalnot00goodgoog|title=Genealogical Notes, or Contributions to the Family history of Some of the ...|date=March 18, 1856|via=Internet Archive}}</ref> Descendants of Robert Olds, who arrived from [[Sherborne]], [[Dorset]], in 1667, include automotive pioneer [[Ransom Eli Olds]], [[Copperhead (politics)|Copperhead]] Ohio politician [[Edson Baldwin Olds]], his great-grandson [[United States Army Air Forces|USAAF]] General [[Robert Olds]], and his son, iconic [[United States Air Force|USAF]] fighter pilot [[Robin Olds]].

[[Slavery]] was common throughout the [[Connecticut River Valley]] during the 18th century, and the 1774 Census for the [[Colony of Connecticut]] listed 37 slaves in Suffield. Throughout the Connecticut Valley, wealthy merchants, tavern owners and town ministers owned slaves. When Major John Pynchon originally purchased from the Pequonnocks and [[Agawam tribes]] a six-mile tract of land, which he called Stoney Brooke Plantation, he first ordered the construction of a sawmill, and used two of his slaves, Harry and Roco, for the construction.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=0iiUQQAACAAJ&q=robert+romer+google+books  Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts] 2009, Robert H. Romer</ref> Suffield's third minister, Reverend Ebenezer Devotion, became minister in 1710, and "sixteen years later the town voted to give him £20 to purchase a slave.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=0iiUQQAACAAJ&q=robert+romer+google+books Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts] 2009, Robert H. Romer</ref> Reverend Ebenezer Gay, Devotion's successor, owned six slaves throughout his long term, 1742–1796. Reverend Ebenezer Gay Jr. manumitted his family's three remaining slaves in 1812. They were Titus, Ginny and Dinah.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Colonial Slavery |url=https://www.suffield-library.org/manuscripts/colonial%20slavery/slavery1.htm |access-date=22 January 2013 |website=www.suffield-library.org}}</ref> "Princess," a slave belonging to early Suffield settler, Lieut. Joshua Leavitt, died November 5, 1732.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_QcWAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22john+devotion%22+suffield&pg=PA83|title=Documentary History of Suffield: In the Colony and Province of the Massachusetts Bay, in New England, 1660-1749|date=March 18, 1879|publisher=C.W. Bryan Company|via=Google Books}}</ref> Some of Leavitt's descendants became ardent [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionists]], including [[Joshua Leavitt]] and his cousin [[Roger Hooker Leavitt]], who operated an [[Underground Railroad]] station in [[Charlemont, Massachusetts]].

One of the earliest graduates of the [[Yale Medical School]] was one of Suffield's earliest physicians. Dr. Asaph Leavitt Bissell, born in 1791 at [[Hanover, New Hampshire]], to parents originally from Suffield,<ref name="dwight1">{{cite book |author=Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight |title= The history of the descendants of John Dwight, of Dedham, Mass |volume= 1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WLfMU4yd1FYC&pg=PA416 |year=1874 |publisher=J. F. Trow & son, printers and bookbinders |isbn= 9780788448911 |author-link= Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight }}</ref> attended [[Dartmouth College]], and later graduated in the second class of the Yale Medical School. Bissell moved to Suffield, where he rode horseback to make house calls on his patients. Bissell's saddlebags are today in the collection of the Yale Medical School's Historical Society.<ref>[http://yalemedicine.yale.edu/ym_ws98/gallery/gallery_01.html When house calls were horse calls, Yale Medicine, Winter/Spring 1998]</ref>