this obscure, local merchant.
Caleb Brewster’s achievements were as noteworthy as his distinguished ancestors. He was born in Setauket, Long Island on September 12, 1747. His grandmother, Sarah Ludlow, was the wife of Roger Ludlow, the English lawyer, magistrate, military officer, and colonist who helped found the Colony of Connecticut as well as the town of Fairfield. Caleb is related to the celebrated William Brewster, the Elder, and highly esteemed member of the Plymouth Colony, who arrived on the Mayflower passenger and was the only such passenger with a university education.
Caleb Brewster married in 1783 to Anne Lewis, daughter of Jonathan Lewis, a shareholder in the Middle Wharf in Black Rock. He became a blacksmith, often trading with the Black Rock merchant Thomas Bartram, and became Captain of the first United States Coast Guard revenue cutter ship for the district of New York from 1793 to 1816. Main Street in the historic Black Rock Harbor village was renamed after Caleb Brewster in 1901 and is now called Brewster Street.
Danenberg, Elsie Nicholas, Naval History of Fairfield Country Men in The Revolution, A Tale Untold, Fairfield Historical Society, 1977
Rose, Alexander, Washington’s Spies, The Story of America’s First Spy Ring, Bantam Dell, 2006
Radune, Richard, Sound Rising, Long Island Sound at the Forefront of America’s Struggle for Independence,
Mather, Frederick Gregory, The refugees of 1776 from Long Island to Connecticut, B. Lyon Company, printers, 1913.
Various articles by Historian Beverly Tyler, Education Chair of the Three Village Historical Society. Setauket, New York, Long Island.
Web site on Black Rock history: http://www.blackrockhistory.org/