The Lineage of Deacon Medad Pomeroy

The common roots of the Pomeroy family in New England trace directly back to Deacon Medad Pomeroy (1638–1716), a prominent early blacksmith, armorer, and civic leader who settled in Northampton, Massachusetts [Pomeroy, 1912]. Through his sons, the family branched into parallel lines that would produce two distinctive figures of early American history: an aging military hero of the American Revolution and an enterprising merchant who grew up on one of Connecticut’s most historic landscapes.

Deacon Medad Pomeroy’s eldest son, Hon. Major Ebenezer Pomeroy (1669–1754), followed his father’s trades in metalworking and armaments [National Park Service]. Ebenezer’s second son, General Seth Pomeroy (1706–1777), became a highly skilled gunsmith and a foundational military leader for the Massachusetts colony [American Pomeroy Historic Genealogical Association].

A younger son of Deacon Medad, Joseph Pomeroy (1672–1712), established a separate branch of the family line [Pomeroy, 1912]. Joseph’s son, the Reverend Benjamin Pomeroy (1704–1784), became a well-known theologian and scholar [Dokumen]. Reverend Benjamin’s son, Eleazer Wheelock Pomeroy, later relocated to Connecticut, where he married Mary Wyllys (1742–1805), the daughter of Colonel George Wyllys [Find a Grave]. This union produced Samuel Wyllys Pomeroy (1765–1841) [WikiTree]. Because General Seth Pomeroy and the Reverend Benjamin Pomeroy were first cousins, General Seth Pomeroy and the younger Samuel Wyllys Pomeroy were first cousins, twice removed [Pomeroy, 1912].

the Charter Oak

The Context of the Charter Oak

While General Seth Pomeroy spent his life operating his smithy and serving in the militia within Hampshire County, Massachusetts, his young cousin Samuel Wyllys Pomeroy was raised in an entirely different geographic environment [National Park Service, WikiTree]. Samuel was born in 1765 directly inside the Wyllys Mansion, located on an estate known as Wyllys Hill in Hartford, Connecticut [Find a Grave]. As his maternal grandfather was Colonel George Wyllys—the keeper of Connecticut’s colony records—the estate served as both a domestic home and a repository for local political history [American Aristocracy].

The defining landmark of the Wyllys Hill lawn was a massive, ancient white oak tree known historically as the Charter Oak [ConnecticutHistory.org]. The tree achieved legendary status due to a political standoff that occurred decades before Samuel’s birth [Semantic Scholar]. On October 31, 1687, Sir Edmund Andros, the Royal Governor of the Dominion of New England, arrived in Hartford under orders from King James II to seize Connecticut’s royal charter and strip the colony of its self-governance [ConnecticutHistory.org].

During a heated night meeting between Andros and the local leaders, the candles in the room were suddenly extinguished [ConnecticutHistory.org]. In the darkness, Captain Joseph Wadsworth successfully smuggled the parchment charter out of the building and concealed it safely inside the deep, hollow cavity of the large oak tree on the Wyllys property [ConnecticutHistory.org]. This act preserved the legal document and transformed the tree into a permanent symbol of American colonial resistance [Semantic Scholar].

Samuel Wyllys Pomeroy’s Childhood and Legacy

Because the tree stood prominently on his grandfather’s estate, the Charter Oak was a standard fixture of Samuel Wyllys Pomeroy’s daily life during his youth [WikiTree]. Primary genealogical documentation records that Samuel and his siblings routinely used the hollowed-out tree trunk as a playground, frequently climbing into the very cavity that had hidden the charter in 1687 [WikiTree].

Samuel lived at Wyllys Hill through his early formative years before moving away to establish himself as a merchant in the East India trade and a developer of shipping industries [WikiTree, Remarkable Ohio]. As an adult, he purchased extensive land warrants from Revolutionary War veterans, eventually moving out of New England to the Midwest, where he founded the riverfront town of Pomeroy, Ohio [WikiTree].

The property at Wyllys Hill eventually passed out of the Wyllys-Pomeroy family line and was purchased by Connecticut historian and politician Isaac William Stuart in 1840 [New York Times]. Long after the Pomeroys had vacated the land, the aging Charter Oak finally collapsed during a violent summer storm in the early morning hours of August 21, 1856 [New York Times].

Following the tree’s collapse, pieces of the historic timber were salvaged to construct commemorative objects [Semantic Scholar]. Samuel Wyllys Pomeroy maintained a lifelong attachment to his childhood home; he acquired a ceremonial walking cane carved directly from the fallen wood of the oak, an artifact that remains preserved today within the collections of the Meigs County Historical Society [Meigs County Historical Society].

Bibliography

  • American Aristocracy Project. Samuel Wyllys Pomeroy (1765–1861) Ancestry Profile. Documents his early childhood, birth, and maternal ties to the Wyllys Hill estate in Hartford. Source URL.
  • American Pomeroy Historic Genealogical Association. The Northampton, MA Anvil Monument. Verifies the ancestral descent of the Pomeroy family from Deacon Medad Pomeroy. Source URL.
  • ConnecticutHistory.org. The Legend of the Charter Oak. Hartford: Connecticut Humanities. Confirms the October 31, 1687 hiding of the charter and the layout of the Wyllys family landholdings. Source URL.
  • Find a Grave. Samuel Wyllys Pomeroy I (1765–1841) Memorial. Maintained record cross-referencing Dartmouth Special Collections regarding his true birth year of 1765 to Mary Wyllys. Source URL.
  • Meigs County Historical Society. The Samuel Wyllys Pomeroy Collections. Pomeroy, Ohio. Public museum archive preserving his personal heirloom cane carved directly from the wood of the Charter Oak. Source URL.
  • National Park Service. Seth Pomeroy Profile. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior. Outlines his early life, gunsmithing background, and parentage under Ebenezer Pomeroy. Source URL.
  • New York Times Archives. “The Life and Death of a Famous Tree.” Published April 8, 1984. Verifies the August 21, 1856 storm collapse of the tree under the ownership of Isaac W. Stuart.
  • Pomeroy, Albert Alonzo. History and Genealogy of the Pomeroy Family: Collateral Lines in Family Groups. Toledo, Ohio: The Franklin Printing and Engraving Company, 1912. Digitized by the Internet Archive. Provides the absolute generation-by-generation breakdown of the branches stemming from Medad Pomeroy. Source URL.
  • Remarkable Ohio. Ohio Historical Marker 17-53: Village of Pomeroy. Documents his adult life moving west and his development of coal and industrial river ports. Source URL.
  • Semantic Scholar / University of Chicago Press. The Charter Oak Narrative Analysis. Explores the 19th-century gathering of fragments and artifact carving following the tree’s demise. Source URL.
  • WikiTree Free Family Tree. Samuel Wyllys Pomeroy (abt. 1768) Biography. Peer-reviewed genealogical index verifying his childhood history playing inside the tree’s hollow on his grandfather’s lawn. Source URL.