Who has ever heard of Norman Jairus Squires? Very few today, I bet. He was a Squires who got away.
Norman was born in Good Ground on October 5, 1941, at the homestead in Squiretown. The homestead is still standing. It’s the blue house on the west side of Red Creek Road close to where Squiretown Road turns into Red Creek Road and close to Newtown Lane. He was the great-grandson of the first Ellis Squires.
Norman worked on the farm summers, attending school for three or four months of the year in the winter months. He went on board the schooner “Oregon” in the coal trade with Uncle Norman Miner. One year Norman J. was the Captain and his brother Seth Luckey was the mate. Every other year they would reverse roles. They went as far as Matauzas, Cuba. This was in 1859-1860.
Norman taught school one winter in Shinnecock and also taught at Good Ground. During the winter of 1859-1860 he attended school at Charlottesville, N.Y. He spent that summer with Luckey as mate of Luckey’s schooner “H. B. Squires,” named for his wife Hetty B. Wines. During the winter of 1860-1861 he was at school at Fort Plain, New York and was there when war broke out. He spent that summer teaching at Good Ground school in 1861-1862.
In the fall of 1862 he entered the Theological Seminary at Concord, New Hampshire, a Methodist school, and grad¬uated in 1865. After the first year, he paid his way through by preaching at West Chelmsford, Massachusetts, a Union Church in 1864-1865. In 1865 and 1866 he preached at Franklin, New Hampshire and at East Sanbourton (now East Tilton), studied at Tilton, New Hampshire Conference Seminary and graduated in the class of 1867. In the year 1867 he enter¬ed Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut and graduated in 1871. He was a member of PU Fraternity. Here he paid his way through college by preach¬ing at the Central Congregational Church, Portland, Connecti¬cut and then preached there one year after graduating. He was ordained a congregational minister and installed as pastor on February 29, 1872.
On January 9, 1873 Norman accepted a call from a church at North Manchester, Connecticut. He left there on December 1880 to accept a call to West Haven, Connecticut. He began preaching at the First Congregational Church of West Haven, Connecticut on January 1, 1881. After a pastorate of 33 years, he resigned on January 1, 1914 and was made Pastor Emeritus of the West Haven Church until his death on May 20, 1919, age 77.
Norman was my great-grandfather.
Tiger Gardiner