PRIVATE JOHN STREET

DOB/DOD: July 21, 1728 (Fairfield, CT) – October 28, 1776; 38 years old
MARITAL STATUS: Married Hannah Jarvis (1727-1804).
CHILDREN: Two sons, John (1759-1833) and Nathaniel J. (1758-1831).
UNIT: Served as a private in Captain Ichobod Doolittle’s Company in Colonel David Waterbury’s Fifth Connecticut Continental Regiment.

CIRCUMSTANCES: Killed in Action at the Battle of White Plains on October 28, 1776.

OTHER: One of only two Norwalkers to die in the Revolutionary War. The other is Captain Seth Seymour.

---

From The Norwalk Hour July 2, 1976

John Street, Revolutionary War Hero, Escorted Home by Comrades for Burial
By James T. White

Mrs. Polly Merrill Apperson of Silvermine Avenue, Norwalk, a direct descendant of several Norwalk residents who fought with the American Forces in the Revolutionary War, has found they participated in the battle of White Plains, New York. The battle Is being commemorated this month.

Mrs. Apperson’s great-great-great-grandfather John Street was killed in action against the British on October 28, 1776, while serving as a private in the Connecticut Regiment under the command of Colonel Webb, who, history says, had organized his forces to hold off the Redcoats in a series of small encounters preceding the White Plains engagement.

Private Street, who was born in Darien, then a part of Norwaik, had volunteered his services to participate in the White Plains conflict. He was 48 years old. He is buried in the churchyard of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church on the Green, Norwalk.

His two sons, Nathaniel, and John Jr., who had enlisted in the American army with their father, served with General Lafayette at the Battle of Valley Forge and returned to Norwalk at the end of the war.

Another son, Major David Street, who survived the war, is buried in the East Norwalk Historical Cemetery. He was a commanding officer in the Connecticut Regiment.

Major Street’s son, Charles Granderson Street, Mrs. Apperson’s great-grandfather, died in August 1892 at the age of 77 and is buried in St. Paul’s Cemetery.

Mrs. Apperson has a letter which describes the hardships and suffering of American soldiers during the Revolutionary War. The letter recalls a number of stories about events in the War that he had heard from his father and uncle when he was a boy. This was about 1825. He recalled visiting St. Paul’s churchyard to see his grandfather’s gravestone, which, according to family reports, was removed with others about the mid-1800s from the burial place.

A book titled “Nicholas Street Family’,’ published in 1891, states that John Street’s body was brought to Norwalk for burial by Captain Nathaniel Slosson of the Connecticut regiment. Several of the soldier’s comrades, Henry Weed, J. Hoyt, and others, accompanied Captain Slosson on a 50-mile journey to Norwalk. The body was apparently carried in a wagon or cart hauled by hand because of the scarcity of horses, perhaps due to the war. The book says the men had encounters with Tories along the way.

Mrs. Apperson, a retired physical education teacher in the Norwalk public school system and a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, has compiled an interesting collection of information over the years about the ancestors who settled early in Norwalk. Some of the gravestones which once identified the burial sites of members of early Norwalk families, no longer exist.

---

Buried in East Norwalk Historical Cemetery, Norwalk, Connecticut.

---

END