in England, the long
Parliament, the Westminster Assembly, the execution of Charles the
First, the establishment of the commonwealth, its power by sea and land,
the death of the Protector, the restoration of Charles the Second, were
events of which Samuel must have heard by letter from his brother and
sisters, as well as in other ways. He doubtless had numerous kinsmen on
the side of both his father and his mother, who were involved in these
movements of the times in England. Perhaps Richard Boardman, one of the
first two "Traveling Methodist Preachers on the continent," who came
here from England in 1769, was among the descendants.

At the same time the pioneer legislator in the Colonial General Court
just established in the wilds of America, was aiding to lay Scriptural
foundations for institutions of civil and religious liberty in the New
World. He left a Thomas Boreman, perhaps an uncle, in Ipswich, Mass.
During the thirty-seven years of his life, after his emigration, he saw
new colonies planted at many points along the Atlantic coast. He saw the
older colonies constantly strengthened by fresh arrivals, and by the
natural increase of the population. Several other Boremans came to
New England very early, some of whom may have been his kindred. He
accumulated and left a considerable estate for that day, derived in part
undoubtedly, from the increase in the value of the new lands, which he
had at first occupied, and which he afterward sold at an advanced price.
Some in every generation, of his descendants have done likewise; going
first north, and east, and then further and further west. One of the
descendants of his youngest son Nathaniel, now living, a man of
distinguished ability, Hon. E. J. H. Boardman of Marshalltown, Iowa,
is said to have amassed in this manner a large fortune.

Samuel Boreman died far from his early home and kindred. He was not
buried beside father or mother, or by the graves of ancestors who had
for centuries lived and died and been buried there; but on a continent
separated from them by a great ocean. He was doubtless buried on the
summit of the hill in the old cemetery at Wethersfield, in a spot which
overlooks the broad and fertile meadows of the Connecticut river. In the
same plot his children and grandchildren lie, with monuments, though
no monument marks his own grave. In his childhood, he may have seen
Shakespeare and Bacon. He lived cotemporary with Cromwell; and Milton,
who died, a year after he was buried at Wethersfield. His wife Mary, the
mother of us all, died eleven years later, in 1684, leaving an estate
of $1,300. As his body was lowered into the grave, his widow and ten
children may have stood around it, the oldest, Isaac, aged 31, with his
two or three little children; the second, Mary, Mrs. Robbins, at the age
of twenty-nine; Samuel, Jr., twenty-five; Joseph twenty-three; John
twenty-one; Sarah, eighteen; Daniel, fifteen; Jonathan, thirteen;
Nathaniel, ten; Martha, seven. Most of these children lived to have
families, and left children, whose descendants now doubtless number
thousands. Isaac had three sons and one daughter and died in 1719, at
the age of seventy-seven. Samuel had two sons and three daughters, and
died in 1720, at seventy-two years of age. Daniel, then fifteen; from
whom Timothy Boardman, the author of the Log-Book, was descended; had
twelve children, nine sons and three daughters, and died in 1724, at the
age of seventy-six. Jonathan had two sons and three daughters, and died
September 21, 1712, at the age of fifty-one. Nathaniel married in
Windsor, at the age of forty-four, and had but one son, Nathaniel, and
died two months after his next older brother Jonathan, perhaps of a
contagious disease, November 29, 1712; at the age of forty-nine. The
descendants of Nathaniel are now found in Norwich, Vt., and elsewhere;
and those of Samuel in Sheffield, Mass., and elsewhere. But the later
descendants of the other sons, except Samuel, Daniel and Nathaniel, and
of the daughters, I have no means of tracing. They are scattered in
Connecticut and widely in other states. During the lives of this second
generation occurred King Phillip's war, which decimated the New England
Colonies, and doubtless affected this family with others. Within their
time also, Yale College was founded, and went into operation first at
Wethersfield, close by the original Borman homestead.

The writer of this has made sermons in the old study of Rector Williams,
the president of the college, near the old Boardman house, which was
standing in 1856, the oldest house in Wethersfield. The second
generation of Boardmans, of course occupied more "new lands." Daniel,
the fifth son of Samuel, owned land in Litchfield and New Milford, then
new settlements, as well as in Wethersfield. Jonathan married in
Hatfield, Mass.

The third generation, the grandchildren of Samuel, the names of
twenty-nine of whom (seventeen grandsons and twelve grand-daughters),
all children of Samuel's five sons, are