Daniel and Rebecca Smith Hurd

According to the vital records of Killingworth, Middlesex County, Connecticut, Grandpa Daniel hailed from there, a son of Daniel Hurd and Esther Maltbe1. Our Hurds seem to have maintained a very low profile2 and lived a quiet life in Sandisfield. My researches when we visited there in the summer of 2009 revealed only the sparse timeline shown above. Children of the American Revolution, our 3GGM Amanda Hurd and her five sisters entered a world in turmoil but perhaps via one of its quieter neighborhoods. Whatever Daniel did in the War (“What did you do, Grandpa…?”) mustn’t have taken him away for years at a time, as the girls arrived at conventional two-year intervals, last-born Sarah coming only weeks after the Treaty of Paris. If there’s a gap at all, it comes around the time Grandma Amanda was “in the oven”: she would become the second wife and widow of 3GGF Appleton Stillman. Not that Berkshire County and Sandisfield itself were exempt from wartime sacrifice. Grandma Rebecca’s father, Lieutenant Benjamin Smith, lies in the Sandisfield Center Cemetery with a star and flag which, until recently, we believed honored his service in the Revolution; now it appears that it was not he but his son Benjamin and other family members who enjoyed that distinction. Grandpa Appleton’s veteran status is amply documented. The Daughters of the American Revolution count Grandpa Daniel in their list of “Revolutionary Patriots,”3 although I’ve not yet uncovered any military records for him.

¹Connecticut Town Birth Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection) : Killingworthital Records 1667-1850: p. 61 shows Daniel Hurd, Jr., marrying Est[h]er Maltbe 17 Apr 1744 [Vol 2 p. 142], with their son Daniel born 17 Feb 1744 [sic, Vol 2 p. 146].
²In contrast to our Smiths of Sandisfield (Rebecca’s family) and to our Stillmans of Sandisfield and Colebrook, who were notably active, civic-minded citizens, holding public offices and appearing in the public record in many contexts. The Hurd family appears in the 1790 Census with two men, one boy, and six females.
³Abstract of Graves of Revolutionary Patriots, Vol.2, p. Serial: 11999; Volume: 8 lists Daniel Hurd in Beach [sic] Plain Cem, Sandisfield MA 56