Joseph Chidsey

Biography

Joseph Chidsey was born at East Haven, beside New Haven on Connecticut’s southern coast, in August 1710, the youngest son in the household of Joseph Chidsey and Sarah Hull. His father died while Joseph was still a small child. As an adult he established his family at North Guilford, the inland northern part of nearby Guilford, marrying Bathsheba Baldwin on October 22, 1735.

The cemetery records preserve some of the family's hardest years. Their son Samuel died in November 1760 at sixteen, and their daughter Sarah in February 1764 at fifteen. Their daughter Lois married John Bartlett and remained part of the North Guilford community. These were closely connected households, joined through both marriage and the local church.

Joseph's public work included service as a highway surveyor during the Revolutionary period, according to a Connecticut patriot-graves compilation citing the town's meeting records.

Joseph died on May 19, 1790 and was buried in the Old North Cemetery. Bathsheba survived him until September 1792. Their memorials and those of their children preserve the history of a household that had endured several decades of family loss.