A Samuel Munson Birthday

Today, October 7, is the birthday of my 5th great grandfather, Samuel Munson. Samuel is the son of William and Rebecca (Curtis) Munson and lived from 1739 to April 2, 1827. In 1764, when he was 25 years old, Samuel married Susannah Tyler in his home town of Wallingford (now Cheshire) Connecticut.

Flag of the American Revolutionary War.

In 1777, at the age of 38, Samuel enlisted in the Connecticut Militia and fought in the Revolutionary War. He was a private in the 10th Regiment commanded by Isaac Benham; Ward’s Regiment. At this point in his life, his military service meant he left his wife and five children at home as he went to war.

Sometime after the war,  Samuel and Susannah and most of their children moved from Connecticut to Ohio, likely in 1804 or 1805 according to Munson Family research. His occupation was farming so presumably he moved westward to make a living from the good soil in Ohio. I have not found evidence of a land bounty (the new nation’s government was tight on cash but had an abundance of land so often paid Revolutionary War soldiers in land) so I do not know if he bought the land or was granted it for his service to the nation.

A last note: one of the challenges of reading histories with “Samuel Munson” in them is defining which “Samuel Munson” is being written about. This particular Samuel Munson is the grandson of Samuel Munson (1668 – 1741) and the great-grandson of Samuel Munson (1643 – 1693). In the generation of the man about whom this article is written, there were several men, all cousins, named Samuel Munson, living in the community. As Myron Munson wrote about it in The Munson Record: Volume 1, page 249:

Samuel [the Samuel of this article] is called in the record of his marriage “Samuel Munson 2nd,” and he is generally so designated in the public records of Wallingford. His father and three brothers, living in Wallingford, each named a son Samuel;  one, the son of Solomon, was removed to New Jersey, but the other three were on the stage in Wallingford together; the son of Waitstill was usually entitled Sen., the son of Deacon Merriman, Junior, and the son of William, 2nd. These four cousins had in New Haven two second-cousins (of the same generation) bearing the name of Samuel.

Situations like these call for the family historian to be meticulous in her research because it leaves lots of room for error. As I ponder it, I bet having six “Samuel Munson” in town at the same time also created plenty of confusion for the community! It is fun to wonder at how many miscommunications were made at the expense of the cousins.