Ancestor Birthday - January 4th - Stephen Scovill[e] 1751/52-1813

I'll admit it. I made a mistake. When I entered the information in my database about my 5th great-grandfather Stephen Scovill, I failed to enter the day in January of 1751/52 that he was born. So my birthday calendar just said January and I missed him back on the 4th. Now it's time to make the correction and give him his post only 24 days late.

Stephen's birth is entered in the records at East Haddam, Connecticut, on 4 Jan 1751 [1751-52], son of Stephen and Rebeckah (Millard) Scoville. He was their second son named Stephen. The first was born 19 Sep 1729 and died 19 Sep 1751, so when this son was born a little over 3 months later, they named him Stephen.

It is believed that Stephen married his cousin Mary Scoville. (A Scovell family history gives a rather detailed explanation of this conclusion)¹ From his will of 1813 he had at least 4 children.

His death on 27 Jan 1813 at Cornwall, Connecticut, was reported in the Hartford, Connecticut, newspaper Connecticut Courant on 2 Mar 1813. There were 5 others there as well as one from Salisbury, who all died from the "prevailing epidemic." Doing a Google search, it appears that New England had suffered from a "spotted fever epidemic" in the spring seasons of 1812 and 1813. It was later called "malignant fever" and is believed to be what is now known as cerebro-spinal-meningitis.

Since my 4th great-grandmother, Irene (Scovill) Howe, also died in this epidemic a few days after her father, it meant that Irene's children would receive her inheritance. It was in those probate records I found my 3rd great-grandmother as a child and it identified both her parents and grandparents for me.

I am sad that both Stephen and his daughter Irene died in the epidemic, but at least the fact that their deaths were so close together created probate records which helped me put the family together.

1Jennie M. (Scoville) Holley and Homer Worthington Brainard, compilers, Arthur Scovell and His Descendants in America 1660-1900 (Rutland, Vermont: Tuttle Publishing Company, 1941). page 41