I desire to contact fellow descendants of John Billings and Olive Noble of Royalton, VT. I have recently learned that a letter from one of their sons, Oel Billings, named his grandfather as "John". This differs from the usual trees "out there" who have John's father as "Saumel."

The letter from Oel was in the possession of Mary Montagu French Moore, in the later 1990's, which I found on some rootsweb website. I tried her email address, but it is now obsolete. Mary descends from Oel Billings, the brother of my ancestor, Sarah, who married Calvin Skinner.

Dear Ms. Woodward. I know we have had brief correspondence in the past from other sites. Just to jog your memory, I am descended from John Billings and Olive through their son John. This past summer, I trapsed through Connecticutt, Vt, and the Capital district this summer. I even went to the Indian and Colonial Research center in Mystic, Ct and still come up with dead ends. Samuel MAY be John Billings's father, but I still have my doubts.
I could not EVEN find birth christening records for John 1751-1832 or his son John, supposedly born in Montville. When I went to montville there was little available. Montville was part of Salem until 1786. It was incorporated that year.
MUCH of the family history comes from "History of Royalton Vermont". I wonder if it is time for a male Billings decesndent to take the male marker test. That should help, but I am still looking for a volunteer. It may direct us from John to Samuel to William OR other
Mindy Henningson Wroten

Well, even though you came up short in your travels to CT, I still am envious you got to go to such wonderful places! You now have a place in your mind as to the hometown of John Billings (Montville). John's Rev War pension application, including papers submitted for his widow, Olive, help paint a picture of the area where they first lived (Montville). These are now completely available on Footnote, if you subscribe ($12/mo.). If you do not have the complete set of pension papers for the Billings, I can somehow manage to get them to you, via an email attachment or snail mail.

I am glad you sent me your message, as I have been meaning to contact the town historian for Montville, and pick his brains. I was given his name and telephone number a year or so ago.

One thing, if there was only one Billings family in Monville at the time, then we can put John in the family of Samuel and Grace. I have not done a completely exhaustive search on this subject (how many Billings families lived in Montville at the time), but my recollection is that the other Billings families in the area were north or south of Montville, i.e. in New London or Norwich or across the river.

Your message has got my brain juices going on one of my favorite subjects: WHO WAS JOHN BILLINGS PARENTS?

In the next few weeks, I will take out my Billings papers and get back to you.

Mij Woodward
mijwoodward@yahoo.com

First let me note that I am not connected to this family. Happened upon this thread and looked up the names. Here's what I found...

Source: Windsor County, Vermont Probate Index, 1778-1899, compiled by Bartley & Bartley.

Page 40-41 covers the BILLINGS, among them:
John - Hartland - Hartford Dist - Testate - 1808 - Vol 3-4
John - Royalton - Hartford Dist - Testate - 1832 - Vol 10-11
Oel - Woodstock - Hartford Dist - Testate - 1871 - Vol 30
Olive - Bethel - Hartford Dist - Intestate - 1843 - Vol 13


North Royalton Cemetery, listed by Vivian V. Kill & Hazel Aldrich 1973

BILLINGS, Sally - April 26, 1850, age 68, wife of Calvin SKINNER
SKINNER, Calvin - Aug 23, 1843, age 65
SKINNER, Calvin - July 25, 1817, age 2, son of Calvin & Sally
SKINNER, Martin T. - March 9, 1821 - Dec 18, 1889
SKINNER, Richard - April 5, 1844, age 19, son of Calvin & Sally
(also here is the family of Isaac SKINNER and wife Lucy)

Did not find any other BILLINGS in Royalton cemeteries. None in my Hartford Cemeteries either. I have no listings for Bethel or Woodstock, and Hartland only has names without dates. There is a BILLINGS Farm in Woodstock. You may be able to google that.

If probate records cannot be found at the town level, check the Hartford District Probate Court. You should be able to find contact info via an internet search.

Good luck with your research!

Thanks very much. Very informative. I have photos of the Skinner headstones, but have not collected the probate material for John and Olive yet. So, your details will help!

Dear Ms. Tootsie,
Thanks so much for your look ups. I will defenately go check hese out.
John Billings Sr., his wife Olive, and their son Oel are buried in the North Royalton Cemetery. It's a little hard to find. If anyone is interested, you can check here at findagrave:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gsr&GScid=...

Whoops!
After reading your post, I went back and looked a bit more closely at my listing and found these, as you noted, in the North Royalton Cemetery. My listing is not alphabetical.

SKINNER, Sarah S. - July 1, 1856, age 26, wife of Calvin
SKINNER, Calvin - Aug 17, 1878, age 74, son of Isaac & Lucy
[listed together]
also another son of Isaac & Lucy named Calvin died March 17, 1802, age 4

BILLINGS, Dea. John - Aug 22, 1832, age 80y, 9m
BILLINGS, Olive - May 14, 1843, age 83, wife of Dea. John
[listed together]

Haven't yet been able to find Oel in my listing. Its possible it was missed when the list was compiled, or its there and I keep missing it.

Source: History of Windsor County, Vermont, edited by Lewis Cass Aldrich and Frank R. Holmes (1891)

Pages 876 - 883 contain a biography of Hon. Frederick Billings, including a photo of him. I will type here only a small portion.


BILLINGS, Hon. FREDERICK, the son of Oel Billings and Sophia Wetherbe, the fourth child of a family of nine children - six sons and three daughters - all of whom lived to adult age.

Mr Billings' great-grandfather, Samuel Billings, of New London, Conn., was killed in defense of Fort Griswold, in 1781; and his grandfather, John Billings, was also a soldier in the War of the Revolution. The latter married Nancy, the daughter of Governor Jonas Galusha of Vermont, and they had ten children, of whom Oel Billings, the father of Frederick, was one. Frederick Billings was born in Royalton, Vt., September 27, 1823. When he was twelve years old he removed with his father to Woodstock, which was thereafter the family home.



You might want to read the whole biography of Frederick as it is quite interesting. I don't know if you can find this online or not, but I am sure that the Vermont Historical Society (VHS) has a copy. You could google contact info to request copies of the pages. I know the Norwich, VT Library has one.

Also, you might want to google and contact the Public Library of New London, CT on Huntington Street, as last I knew they have a room for historical/genealogical research. [I use to live there, now reside in Orange Co, VT]

Fort Griswold is in Groton, CT
Fort Trumbull is in New London, CT
They are on opposite sides of the Thames River.
Perhaps your Billings ancestor is in Ye Olde (or Ancient) Cemetery (something like that).

Enjoy the adventure!

Thanks for info. I have been in contact with a descendant of Oel, so she had sent me what you noticed, plus other papers from Oel.

Am also a student of the Griswold battle, etc. For a couple of reasons, the question remains, was the Samuel Billings who died at Griswold the father of John?

Thank you SO MUCH--re the details for John and Olive. I do not think I have that! Am extremely grateful.