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

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The Inventory of William Diodate also shows, as having belonged to
his estate, a considerable amount of gold and silver coin, or bonds and
notes for the same, beside silver-plate ; which
accords with what we other-
wise know, that he dealt in coin and plate, as at once a banker and broker,
and a trader in the various articles of gold and silver which were in use at
the time. Not improbably, therefore, the communion-tankard, marked
with his wife's name, came from his own establishment. Family-history
says that he had "the first store," i. e., probably, the first of the kind, "in
New Haven."
It is to be noticed, farther, that his residence in Connecticut must
have dated from a yet earlier period than that of the first appearance of
his name on the town-records of New Haven, for a copy of Dr. Diodati's
"Annotations," presented to the Collegiate School at Saybrook in 1715,
was his gift. Possibly, he may have been drawn to New Haven by a
hereditary appreciation of academic learning, as well as by the new
business-life growing out of the first establishment of the College there.
The very year in which he is first heard of in New Haven was that of the
removal of the Collegiate School from Saybrook, and its beginning in New
Haven, to be known—from the next year onward (17 18)—as Yale College.
The records of the First Church of New Haven, under date of
August 14, 1755, refer to a gift of if 50. to that church from William
Diodate deceased, which was then appropriated towards building a new
house of worship, afterwards known as the Old Brick Meeting-House.
Crossing to the shores of England, whither the personal history of
this old New Havener carries us, we take with us, as our chief thread of
connection, a record, still existing in William Diodate's Bible, in his own
hand-writing, which informs us that his father's name was John, and his
mother the eldest daughter of John Morton Esq., by the only child of
Mr. John Wicker, and the widow of Alderman Cranne (so the name here
reads) of London ;
and that he had a brother John, older than himself.
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