As much as he enjoyed visiting other New England states, such as New Hampshire, my father’s roots in Connecticut ran as deep as the Atlantic Ocean. His paternal grandmother, the former Ann Matilda Corning, was born in Preston, Connecticut. Preston was also the birthplace of her father, Frank Everett Peckham.
According to family records, our Cornings trace their roots to the parish of Saundby, Nottinghamshire, England, to the late 15th century.
The first Corning to settle in the United States was Ensign Samuel (sometimes written as Samuell) Corning, who was born in 1616 in Norfolk, England. After coming to Massachusetts, he first lived in Salem, but he did not stay there for long. He and his wife Elizabeth chose to settle in the smaller town of Beverly, about four miles north of Salem, because of his better opportunities.
It turned out to be an auspicious move. In 1641 Samuel became a freeman, a title that conferred franchise and other privileges in the community. He also established himself as a trusted citizen of Beverly by serving as an alderman, a responsible job given to a city official who, due to his abilities, had been chosen to manage certain public affairs.
Samuel was a puritan in his religious beliefs. This was not a problem in Massachusetts, as it had been in England. There, as he learned through his own daunting experience, the mainstream Church of England harassed the Puritans because of their belief that people should use the Bible for guidance in social matters, financial matters, and even, much to the horror of the authorities. British. —political problems. The Puritans believed that when the Bible reigns as the supreme authority on the above matters, religion remains simple, pure, and unscathed.
Without a doubt, his tenacious grasp of Puritan beliefs was the triggering factor that brought Samuel to the New World, where he was sure to find religious freedom. And find the freedom that he made. Historical records indicate that he was one of the founders of the First Church in Beverly, where he and his family enjoyed free and peaceful worship. As evidence that he was a hard worker, another trait of the Puritans, he built the meeting house for the church himself. Because he wanted to keep his mind on God, Samuel didn’t need rituals or ornate clothing, so he made sure the interior of the meetinghouse was kept spartan.
He brought his religious beliefs into his home by living a simple lifestyle, although it is known that he owned some real estate within the community. It is also known that he was quite well financially in his last years (which he interpreted as a blessing from God).
Samuel’s great-grandson, Nehemiah, born in 1717, was the first of my family’s Cornings to settle in Connecticut. He was married twice, first to Mary Pride and then to Freelove Bliss, the mother of Uriah Corning. It is not known if Uriah, born in 1758, followed a traditional hard-working Puritan lifestyle, but it is certain that he heard the call to arms after Congress voted to accept the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Urías’s ancestors had found religious freedom but he, like other colonists, longed for political and economic freedom. He sensed that the right moment to break the chains of domination of the British Empire —- and the moment of freedom —- loomed on the horizon like a great bonfire. And when it came time to fight the redcoats, Uriah eagerly participated.
Benjamin Corning, Uriah’s uncle, faced an unexpected tragedy too soon to live in a free America or even participate in the war for long. According to the records of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), after he joined the Continental Army, the British captured him and placed him with thousands of other captured Continental soldiers on one of the British prison ships. His boat, the HMS jumper, was moored in New York Harbor, and its crowded and unsanitary conditions were notoriously horrible. Because they had little food and no medical supplies, many of these unfortunate POWs died on the ship. That’s what happened to Private Benjamin Corning, who died in 1783, the year the British surrendered at Yorktown. Tea sweater it was abandoned a short time later.
Uriah had much better luck than Benjamin in fighting the redcoats and surviving the war. He served the Colonies in various capacities, according to data obtained from the Veterans Administration (Certificate 3543 issued December 26, 1832). His first assignment was as a private in Colonel Samuel Sheldon’s regiment, in which he served in the Battle of Long Island, the first major conflict of the Revolution, and in the Battle of York Island.
In the aftermath of these conflicts, he became a sailor for five months aboard the Confederacy, a continental frigate whose main job was to protect convoys. It was under the command of Captain Seth Harding. The main task of the personnel on board was to discreetly raid British merchant ships. It was dangerous work, but Uriah emerged unscathed. He later served in other assignments. He is known to have been present and serving during the fire of New London and the massacre at Fort Grisold in Groton in 1781.
After receiving his honorable discharge, signed by General Washington himself, he returned to Preston. Here he and his wife, the former Elizabeth Willett, raised his family. Along with other former colonists, they cheered heartily in 1789 when George Washington was sworn in as the first president of the United States.
In 1868, a descendant of the first Corning in America became entwined in the Peckham family tree. In that year, Ann Matilda Corning, granddaughter of Uriah and Elizabeth, married James Riley Peckham of Norwich, Connecticut. As a result, two clans with deep New England roots were forever united. Ann Matilda became the mother of my grandfather, Frank E. Peckham, and therefore the grandmother of my father.