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

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Of the Church, or Ecclesiastical Society, of Lyme, there are no
existing records early enough to show whether the first Matthew Griswold
was concerned, or took an interest, in the organization of either. But the
First Church of Saybrook possessed, within a few years, a silver com-
munion-cup which was his gift, as the inscription on it : " S. C. C. dono
domini Matthew Griswold," attests ; though
the three initials at the head,
probably standing for "Saybrook Congregational Church," would seem
to prove the inscription to be of a much later date than the fact it com-
memorates.'^
The foregoing sketch of the public positions held by Edward and
Matthew Griswold, in the Colony of Connecticut, strengthens the conclu-
sions to which one is led by other indications as to their social rank in
England. If Matthew Griswold, who had come to the New World in his
youth, and married a daughter of the first Henry Wolcott, might be sup-
posed to have been trained for public service by the necessities of emigra-
tion, or aided by his father-in-law to obtain that prominence in the affairs
After what we have learned of the prominence of the two brothers Griswold in colonial affairs,
and after what we may so probably conclude, from that and froin other circumstances, as to their social
position by birth, it would not be necessary to refer to a current story, if that had not gained credence by
repetition. It has been said that the first Matthew Griswold followed the trade of a stone-cutter. This
story has arisen, first, from a receipt given by him, April i, 1679, now registered at Saybrook, for seven
pounds sterling, "in payment for the tombstone of the lady Alice Bottler [Lady Fenwick], late of
Sa3'brook
;" and, secondly, from a tradition that the tombstone of his father-in-law, Henry Wolcott of
Windsor (who died in 1655), was obtained by his agenc)'— Caulkins's Hist, of New London, ut supra,
PP- 173-74; and Memorial of Henry Wolcott, ut supra, pp. 12, note, and 32. As to the receipt, noth-
ing is more likely than that he gave it tor money which he had previously paid out as Agent to Gov,
Fenwick, who was then in England ;
and as to the Wolcott tradition, that is no evidence that the monu-
ment of Henry Wolcott was a work of Matthew Griswold's hands. But if he did sculpture the simply
designed monuments of Lady Fenwick and Henry Wolcott, it would seem to have been a labor of love.
The supposition that stone-cutting was his occupation or trade, is wholly without support, and is at
variance with all that we know of his prominence in the public affairs of his time, and inferable educa-
tion, or are led to conjecture, from his large acquisitions of land at an earl)' period, of his having given
himself, from the first, to agriculture. Evidently he was skilled in laying foundations, and in sculptur-
ing monuments, but it was with materials, and in forms, far more enduring than stone, nay, more lasting
than the brass of the mechanic artificer, " Monumentum acre perennius."