Julian Borman for “her good sonne”—“her very loving sonne, Samuel Boreman” already reach, under the covenant promise of Him who remembers mercy to a thousand generations, a widely scattered family.

In the above letter the name is spelled both with and without the letter “e” after “r;” the letter “d” is not found until 1712. The letter “a,” was not inserted until 1750; so that the descendants of Samuel, may still bear all these names, Borman, Boreman, Bordman or Boardman, according to the generation at which the line traced, reaches the parent stock. It is said that the name, however spelled, is still pronounced “Borman,” at Wethersfield. The rise of Cromwell in England, the long Parliament, the Westminster Assembly, the execution of Charles the First, the establishment of the commonwealth, its power by sea and land, the death of the Protector, the restoration of Charles the Second, were events of which Samuel must have heard by letter from his brother and sisters, as well as in other ways. He doubtless had numerous kinsmen on the side of both his father and his mother, who were involved in these movements of the times in England. Perhaps Richard Boardman, one of the first two “Traveling Methodist Preachers on the continent,” who came here from England in 1769, was among the descendants.

At the same time the pioneer legislator in the Colonial General Court just established in the wilds of America, was aiding to lay Scriptural foundations for institutions of civil and religious liberty in the New World. He left a Thomas Boreman, perhaps an uncle, in Ipswich, Mass. During the thirty-seven years of his life, after his emigration, he saw new colonies planted at many points along the Atlantic coast. He saw the older colonies constantly strengthened by fresh arrivals, and by the natural increase of the population. Several other Boremans came to New England very early, some of whom may have been his kindred. He accumulated and left a considerable estate for that day, derived in part undoubtedly, from the increase in the value of the new lands, which he had at first occupied, and which he afterward sold at an advanced price. Some in every generation, of his descendants have done likewise; going first north, and east, and then further and further west. One of the descendants of his youngest son Nathaniel, now living, a man of distinguished ability, Hon. E. J. H. Boardman of Marshalltown, Iowa, is said to have amassed in this manner a large fortune.

Samuel Boreman died far from his early home and kindred. He was not buried beside father or mother, or by the graves of ancestors who had for centuries lived and died and been buried there; but on a continent separated from them by a great ocean. He was doubtless buried on the summit of the hill in the old cemetery at Wethersfield, in a spot which overlooks the broad and fertile meadows of the Connecticut river. In the same plot his children and grandchildren lie, with monuments, though no monument marks his own grave. In his childhood, he may have seen Shakespeare and Bacon. He lived cotemporary with Cromwell; and Milton, who died, a year after he was buried at Wethersfield. His wife Mary, the mother of us all, died eleven years later, in 1684, leaving an estate of $1,300. As his body was lowered into the grave, his widow and ten children may have stood around it, the oldest, Isaac, aged 31, with his two or three little children; the second, Mary, Mrs. Robbins, at the age of twenty-nine; Samuel, Jr., twenty-five; Joseph twenty-three; John twenty-one; Sarah, eighteen; Daniel, fifteen; Jonathan, thirteen; Nathaniel, ten; Martha, seven. Most of these children lived to have families, and left children, whose descendants now doubtless number thousands. Isaac had three sons and one daughter and died in 1719, at the age of seventy-seven. Samuel had two sons and three daughters, and died in 1720, at seventy-two years of age. Daniel, then fifteen; from whom Timothy Boardman, the author of the Log-Book, was descended; had twelve children, nine sons and three daughters, and died in 1724, at the age of seventy-six. Jonathan had two sons and three daughters, and died September 21, 1712, at the age of fifty-one. Nathaniel married in Windsor, at the age of forty-four, and had but one son, Nathaniel, and died two months after his next older brother Jonathan, perhaps of a contagious disease, November 29, 1712; at the age of forty-nine. The descendants of Nathaniel are now found in Norwich, Vt., and elsewhere; and those of Samuel in Sheffield, Mass., and elsewhere. But the later descendants of the other sons, except Samuel, Daniel and Nathaniel, and of the daughters, I have no means of tracing. They are scattered in Connecticut and widely in other states. During the lives of this second generation occurred King Phillip’s war, which decimated the New England Colonies, and doubtless affected this family with others. Within their time also, Yale College was founded, and went into operation first at Wethersfield, close by the original Borman homestead.

The writer of this has made sermons in the old study of Rector Williams, the president of the college, near the old Boardman house, which was standing in 1856, the oldest house in Wethersfield. The second generation of Boardmans, of course occupied more “new lands.” Daniel, the fifth son of Samuel, owned land in Litchfield and New Milford, then new settlements, as well as in Wethersfield. Jonathan married in Hatfield, Mass.

The third generation, the grandchildren of Samuel, the names of twenty-nine of whom (seventeen grandsons and twelve grand-daughters), all children of Samuel’s five sons, are preserved; went out to occupy territory still further from home. We have little account however, except of the nine sons of Daniel, the seventh child of Samuel. Daniel the great-grandfather of Timothy, the author of the Log-Book, was married to Hannah Wright just a hundred years before the marriage of that great-grandson, June 8, 1683, while the war-whoop of King Phillip’s Narraganset savages was still resounding through the forest. Of his twelve children, two sons, John and Charles, died before reaching full maturity, John at the age of nineteen, near the death of two of his uncles, Jonathan and Nathaniel, in 1712; and Charles the youngest child, at the age of seventeen, very near the time of his father’s death, in 1724. One son died in infancy. Of his daughters, Mabel, married Josiah Nichols, and for her second husband John Griswold of New Milford; Hannah married John Abbe of Enfield; and Martha married Samuel Churchill of Wethersfield. Of his six surviving sons, Richard was settled at Wethersfield; he married in Milford, and had three children. His second son Daniel, born July 12, 1687, was graduated at Yale College in 1709, became the first minister of New Milford in 1712 and died in the ministry with his people, August 25, 1744. Hinman says: “He gave character and tone to the new settlement, by his devotion and active service.”

He was a man of deep piety, and of great force of character. It is related that an Indian medicine man, and this Puritan pastor met by the sick-bed of the same poor savage. The Indian raised his horrid clamor and din, which was intended to exorcise according to their customs the evil spirit of the disease. At the same time Mr. Boardman lifted up his voice in prayer to Him who alone can heal the sick. The conflict of rival voices waxed long and loud to see which should drown out the other. Mr. Boardman was blessed with unusual power of lungs like his nephew Rev. Benjamin Boardman, tutor at Yale and pastor in Hartford, who for his immense volume of voice, while a chaplain in the Revolutionary army was called by the patriots the