Jabez Willey, son of Eben Willey, born in Peacham, Vt., July 22, 1801, came to this town in July, 1840, and still resides here, aged eighty-two years. He was the first Universalist preacher in the town, and has often traveled six or eight miles on the Sabbath to preach in some school-house of this or adjoining towns, and even now, at his advanced age, the Universalist society has no more earnest and able advocate than Jabez Willey.
Hutchinson is an old and numerous family in Norwich, as well as in other parts of the country. They were among the early settlers of Massachusetts and were in Lynn and Salem in that colony as early as 1628, or 1629. A descendant of these early colonists, named Abijah, who was a tailor, removed from Salem to Windham early in the eighteenth century. His son Samuel, born about 1719, in company with his son, John, came to Norwich in 1765. They cleared an island in the Connecticut River, opposite the present residency of John W. Loveland, and planted it with … Read more