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

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The home of John Griswold was a house which he built where now
stands the house of the late Judge Matthew Griswold (his grandson, 1760-
1842) in the Blackhall Avenue. Judge Matthew is said to have made his
house exactly like that of his grandfather, the site of which it occupied, to
please his father the Governor.
The children of Judge John and Hannah (Lee) Griswold were :
92 1. MATTHEW B (see below).
93 2. Phoebe°^ born April 22, 1716; who married, December 14, 1731,
Rev. Jonathan Parsons of Lyme; and died December 26, 1770. Her
husband was graduated at Yale College in 1729, and settled as Pastor of
the First Church of Lyme in 1731, after having studied for the ministry
with Rev. EHsha Williams, Rector of Yale College, and with Rev. Jona-
than Edwards of Northampton, Mass. In the days of ""New Light"
theology, and of the ministerial methods growing out of it, he being
warmly in favor of them, and of Whitefiield, the eloquent preacher of the
new views, he encountered opposition, and finally took a dismission, and
removed to Newburyport, Mass., where he died ;
and
where, in his house,
as is well known, Whitefield had previously died. Whitefield twice visited
him at Lyme, and " preached from a rock on his grounds, near the present
meeting-house, since known as the 'Whitefield Rock.'" Of Mrs. Parsons
it is said, in a funeral-sermon preached on her death
"The God of Nature was pleased to furnish her with mental endowments to an
uncommon degree. In the solidity of her judgment and penetration of mind she
shone superior to most of her sex ; in canvassing many difficult points she could dis-
tinguish with surprising clearness.
" For readiness, liveliness and keenness of wit she appeared to me unrivall'd.
The agreeable sallies of that social endowment have often excited my esteem and
admiration. Such a degree of penetration and agreable sprightliness seldom meet in
the same person. Her ingenious friends, whom she favored with her letters, can
>" Reference is to be had to the Hyde Genealogy for farther particulars respecting the younger
children of John Griswold, which we here omit—our object being, chiefly, to follow the line ot descent
through his eldest child Matthew.
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