USA > Connecticut > A catalogue of the names of the early Puritan settlers of the colony of Connecticut, with the time of their arrival in the country and colony, their standing in society, place of residence, condition in life, where from, business, &c., as far as is found on record, No. 1 > Part 1
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Go 974.6 H59c 1164926
M. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01150 5069
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/catalogueofnames00hinm_0
Roy R Heinman Heartfare
A
CATALOGUE OF THE NAMES
OF THE
EARLY PURITAN SETTLERS
OF THE
COLONY OF CONNECTICUT;
WITH THE
Cime of their arrival in the Country and Coinny,
THEIR
STANDING IN SOCIETY, PLACE OF RESIDENCE, CONDITION IN LIFE, WHERE FROM, BUSINESS, &C., AS FAR AS IS FOUND ON RECORD.
COLLECTED FROM RECORDS, BY ROYAL R. HINMAN, OF HARTFORD.
HARTFORD: PRESS OF CASE, TIFFANY AND COMPANY. 1852.
(
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by ROYAL R. HINMAN, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Connecticut.
PREFACE. 1164926
IN giving to the public a work like the one I now offer, imperfect as pub- lications of this kind generally must be, and depending upon all kinds of evidence, for proof of early days, such as town, court, probate and church records, often badly written two hundred years since, connected with an orthography, frequently difficult to decipher, and old books, with many obliterated margins, with family records in ancient tattered Bibles, and tombstones with many of the words and figures obliterated by time, journals to which I have referred, with dates culled from odd numbers and broken volumes, may be some excuse for the compiler for such errors as necessarily will occur in works of this kind. I have only to say to such fault-finders, serve yourselves better by collecting the genealogy and history of your own ancestors in this country. I have frequently been amused when meeting men of intelligence, who were unable to give me the name of their great- grandfather, and many could not even inform me who was their grandfather, where he resided or where he died, or the maiden name of their grandmother. Indeed I found in one case, a gentleman of a liberal education, who was unable to inform me the month in which he was married, or the birth of any of his six children. Too much dependence has been placed upon family tradition, which is generally worse than no evidence. Ask most men what they know of their first ancestors in this country, and seven persons out of eight will honestly answer-" three brothers came over to this country together," and often give their names, when in fact there are not found in the whole colony of Connecticut but four cases, where three brothers came into the colony in the early settlement, except they were children who accompa- nied their parents. The errors which I committed in the five numbers, I before published, were owing more to my reliance upon family tradition than all other causes. I have devoted the five past years entirely to this subject, and now feel as though I had only commenced a task of twenty years. I have examined some of the records of Long Island, of New Jersey, of Massachusetts, and very many in Connecticut, at an expense of money and time. Sev- eral of the first records in the state of New York are in the Dutch language, and in one town in New Jersey, the records have uniformly been kept in Dutch, until since A. D. 1800-from the latter I glean nothing. I propose to publish once in two months, a number of 100 or more pages, until six num-
3
PREFACE.
bers have been given to the public, at fifty cents a number, which will contain nearly three thousand of the early settlers of the Colony, and most of them the first of the name who came to Connecticut, with some genealogy and character of each, where I have been enabled to procure them. The names will be arranged and printed in alphabetical order, so as to be referred to in the volume with perfect ease. Where so many facts are collected, it will be impossible to give the authority for each, as the printed references would occupy too much space in the book.
HARTFORD, CT., 1852.
-
INTRODUCTION AND HISTORICAL FACTS.
IT is calculated that about one-half of the present population (exclusive of foreigners who have come to New England, since 1800,) are the descend- ants of the Puritan settlers of the four first Colonies in New England. A large portion of the present population, within the old bounds of the Colony of Connecticut, have some curiosity to learn, who their first ancestors were in this country ; where and when they landed; what was their condition to live in the wilderness, surrounded by savage men, more dangerous to their future welfare than the beasts of the forest.
The object of the compiler, is to issue six numbers, revising the five num- bers before published, depending as little as possible, upon tradition, but upon the Town, Church, Probate, Colony and Court Records, in different towns in the Colony, and giving to the public the names of the first settlers who lo- cated in the Connecticut Colony ; the ships they came in, where landed, their standing and condition in life, as far as discovered.
Most of the settlers of New England, previous to 1700, came first into the Plymouth or Massachusetts colonies, and those who afterwards settled in Con- necticut, removed from those two colonies. Many of the first settlers of Connecticut remained several years at Watertown, Newtown and Dorches- ter, in Massachusetts, before they removed to Connecticut. And it is yet quite difficult, from all the records discovered, to settle the point satisfactorily, what town was first settled by the white people in this colony. I am inclined to believe there is little question, that the first Dutch people were at Hartford, before any English settlers were at either Windsor or Weth- ersfield, Both the English and Dutch claimed to have been the first dis- coverers of Connecticut River, and both purchased lands on the river. Mr. Winslow probably had information of the river before the Dutch, yet it appears from history that the Dutch had erected a fort at Dutch Point, in Hartford, probably with the intention of holding the lands on the river, and as a trading-house. The best evidence is, that this was as early as 1633. Gov. Winslow and Mr. Bradford visited Gov. Winthrop to induce him to joir with the Plymouth Colony in a trade with the Indians in Connecticut, in 1633, and erect a house for this purpose. Gov. Winthrop declined the offer of uniting, and gave his reasons for so doing. The Plymouth people, Dr. Trum- bull says, " determined to undertake the enterprise at their own risk." In 1633, " John Oldham and three others with him," travelled through the woods to Connecticut, to view the country and trade with the Indians. It
1*
6
INTRODUCTION.
appears by Dr. Trumbull's account of it, that the Dutch were located at Hart- ford, when Capt. William Holmes of Plymouth, with his vessel and company, with a frame and materials for a house, went up the river. The Dutchmen stood by their cannon and ordered Holmes to strike his colors, or they would fire upon him : Holmes assured the Dutch he had a commission from the governor of Plymouth to go up the river, and he must (and did) obey his orders. And the house was erected in Windsor, in October, 1633, and forti- fied against the Dutch and Indians by palisadoes.
These facts show that the first white men, located settlers on the Connecti- cut, were the Dutch at Dutch Point, in Hartford, as early as October, 1633, and were there when Capt. Holmes went up the river with his company, to erect a trading-house at Windsor. Windsor appears to have been the first town settled by the English, and Wethersfield was probably the next, but it is by no means certain that the English were not in Hartford, nearly at the same time they were at Windsor and Wethersfield. We find Nicholas Clark the joiner, sent to Hartford by John Tallcot, Sen., to build him a framed house in Hartford, in 1635, a year previous to Mr. Hooker and his company removing to Hartford. (See Note A in Appendix.) Nicholas Clark is found at Hartford one of the first settlers, and a son of John Talcot, Sen., wrote these facts in his manuscript copy of the first history of Hartford, which is now, and ever since has been, in possession of his descendants. Nicholas Clark in the summer of 1635, built the kitchen part of the house, and in 1636, the upright part adjoining the kitchen, &c. This he could not, or at any rate, would not have attempted to do alone or with a few men, if surrounded by savages and wild beasts. I am inclined to believe that these three towns had many inhabitants in each of them, as early as 1635 .* The first Court Record now preserved, was held at Newtown, (Hartford,) April 26, 1636 : this was about two months before Mr. Hooker and his company of Hartford settlers started upon their journey for Hartford. Yet we find the five Judges were chosen from the three new towns, Dorchester, Newtown, and Watertown, and appointed a constable for each of the three towns: not only so, if there had been no white English population before 1636 in Hart- ford, Mr. Hooker would not have brought his delicate wife on a litter, upon men's shoulders, from Massachusetts to Connecticut, when he had no house provided for her, on their arrival.
In 1621, and for many years after, all the settlers for New England landed in the colony of New Plymouth, or Massachusetts, and emigrated from thence to Connecticut. For several years after 1635, there were no settlements by
" Dr. Trumbull, under date 1636, remarks, "as soon as the spring advanced, and the travel- ling would admit, the hardy men began to return from Massachusetts, to their habitations on the river." Vol. I. page 64. It may be inferred froin this remark that many settlers in the three towns on Connecticut River, had been the year previous, and built houses, and had returned to their families in the autumn of 1635, and returned to Connecticut in the spring of 1636. The first Court held in Hartford, was upon the 26th of April, 1636, and Mr. Hooker and his company did not start for Hartford, until June, 1636. Trumbull's record, and Winthrop.
7
INTRODUCTION.
the English in Connecticut, except in the towns of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield, and a few at Saybrook. In 1634, some of the Watertown set- tlers came and erected a few houses in what is now Wethersfield. (Mr. Weeks in his manuscript claims Wethersfield to be the oldest town on the river.) In 1635 the congregation of Mr. Wareham, at Cambridge, settled upon moving to Connecticut, and some few had come to Windsor, and made preparations to move their families. The people of Watertown also many of them moved to Wethersfield, and the people of Newtown were preparing to move to Hartford in the spring of 1636-though some had come in 1635. John Winthrop, a son of Gov. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, arrived at Bos- ton in 1635, as agent for Sir Richard Saltonstall and others, for the purpose of erecting a fort at the mouth of Connecticut River, and was appointed by the Company, (whose agent he was,) Governor of the River Connecticut, for one year after his arrival. He soon built the fort and erected houses-which was the commencement of the building and settling Saybrook. Many of the Dorchester people who had settled in Windsor, occupied land near the Plym- outh trading-house-this greatly disturbed Gov. Bradford, as the Plymouth people had purchased the land of the Indians, and taken possession of it by building their trading-house upon the land. About October, 1635, the Dor- chester people commenced moving to Windsor ; about 60 men, women and children started through the wilderness with their horses, cattle, swine, &c., without roads, bridges, or even huts to cover them, sleeping in the open air- but they arrived safely, though the journey was long and tedious. Much of their provisions and household furniture had been sent round by water for Dorchester, (Windsor,) and were cast away and lost. The sufferings in the Colony in the winter of 1635 were most severe ;- their provisions failed, and bedding lost, so that many to save life returned to Boston for the winter. But those who remained in the Colony through the winter came near perish- ing by famine, notwithstanding all they could procure of the Indians and get by hunting. Much of the winter they subsisted on acorns, roots and grains. Many of their cattle died.
In the spring of 1636 the emigration began again in companies from Mas- sachusetts to Connecticut, and sent their provisions by water. In June, 1636, the Rev. Thomas Hooker, Mr. Samuel Stone and about one hundred others, of all ages and sexes, started through the wilderness, guided only by a compass, to Hartford-with no cover but the heavens, and no lodging but the ground, and subsisted on the milk of the cows which they drove with their other cattle, numbering one hundred and sixty in all. They carried their packs upon their backs, and their arms for protection in their hands. Mrs. Hooker was so feeble in health that she was carried the whole journey upon a litter, and they reached Newtown (Hartford) in about two weeks. In September, 1636, as many of Mr. Warham's people had moved to Windsor, he started for Windsor to take charge of his church, but left his family at Dorchester, until he could prepare to receive them; so that at this time the three towns upon the river were permanently settled by many inhabitants, with Mr.
.
8
INTRODUCTION.
Warham in charge of the church at Windsor, Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone at Hartford.
Rev. Mr. Philips who had been the minister for the emigrants to Wethers- field, at Watertown, Mass., did not remove to Watertown, Conn., with his people. Mr. Mather and Mr. Warham had amicably agreed with the church at Dorchester, that Mr. Mather should remain with the church at Dorchester, Mass., and Mr. Warham should remove with such of his church as preferred to remove with him to Dorchester, Conn. All emigrants to Connecticut firstly came to some one of the three old towns on the Connecticut River: in- deed after the first settlement at New Haven, some of their emigrants, passed from Massachusetts by land, on the track made by the Connecticut settlers from Boston to Hartford.
It will be recollected by the reader, that Mr. Warham and Mr. Hooker had been ordained, one at Dorchester, and the other in Newtown, in Mass., before they and their churches moved to Dorchester and Newtown, in Con- necticut. They gave the towns where each resided in this Colony the same names of the towns from which they had removed; Hartford was called New- town-and Windsor, Dorchester-and Wethersfield, Watertown. But at the General Court of the Colony, in February, 1637, (as time is now reckoned,) they gave the several towns their present names.
It will be discovered then, that here were three towns located in the wil- derness, with a large number of inhabitants, (as many must have come into the colony, before either of the churches moved as a colony) without any law to govern them, either civil, military, or criminal; and the principles and much less the practice and forms of an independent, government, in a great measure unknown to men who had been educated under the crown of Eng- land and had learned only to obey. The first year (1635) no courts were organized, not even a town organization formed, and much less any thing like a General Court formed to enact laws and punish offences. The officers of the several churches governed their own members according to the rules and discipline of the church; and as no other law existed in the Colony, all offenders, if any were tried befere 1636, must have been tried by the Mo- saic law, by the churches. But as the law of Moses made no provision to punish a white man for selling a gun to an Indian, it therefore became nec- essary that some civil body of men should be so organized as to enact such laws as would prevent or punish offences not provided for in the Bible. The placing of fire-arms in the possession of the Indians was considered one of the most culpable offences in the Colony, which endangered not only the property but the safety and lives of the English settlers. At this time it was discovered that Henry Stiles had traded a gun with the Indians for corn. Therefore on the 26th day of April, 1636, a court was organized by five of the best men in the Colony-whether they constituted themselves a court or were elected by the people, the record gives no account. The Court con- sisted of Roger Ludlow, as chairman, and Mr. Westwood, John Steel, An- drew Ward, and William Phelps, as his associates. The first act of the
9
INTRODUCTION.
Court was to try Stiles for the offence. He was found guilty, and ordered by the Court to regain the gun from the Indians in a fair and legal way, or the Court should take the case into further consideration. The Court then enacted a law, that from henceforth no one within the jurisdiction of the Court should trade with the Indians any piece or pistol, gun or shot, or pow- der, under such penalty as the Court should see meet to inflict. This was the first court, the first trial, and the first law ever enacted or had in Connecticut.
As the members of the court resided in the three towns before mentioned, they assumed the power (as no law had been enacted by them, and the Mo- saic law had not provided for it,) to appoint and swear constables for Dor- chester, Newtown and Watertown, for the then ensuing year, or until new ones should be chosen. This it appears was considered by the Court as an organization or incorporation of the three towns. For many years after, and long after the Confederation of Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield, all that was done by the General Court to incorporate a plantation or town, was to appoint and swear a constable, and the remainder was left to the inhabitants of the plantation to finish its organization or incorporation. Even as late as 1662-3-4, in many of the towns upon Long Island, also at Westchester, where they were claimed by the Colony, or placed themselves under the government of Connecticut, a constable was appointed or approved by the General Court, and the towns at once became liable to be taxed by the Colo- ny, and had the privilege of being represented at the General Court. The Court thus formed for the trial of Henry Stiles was continued from session to session and from year to year, and was called "The Corte, a Corte, in May, 1637, it is recorded ' Generall Corte,' April 11th, 1639, called ' General meet- ing of the Freemen,'" (The Court of Election.) The day the Charter (which bears date April 23d, 1662,) was publicly read before the people of Connecticut, to wit, October 9, 1662, it is recorded the " General Assem- bly," (under the Charter.) Here the reader will see that the origin of the present General Assembly of the State of Connecticut was the formation of a Court of five men, in 1636, to try Henry Stiles criminally, (without law,) for selling a gun to an Indian.
The General Court soon discovered the propriety of adding a House of Representatives to the first Court formed in 1636, particularly upon great occasions. Therefore in May, 1637, the several towns were represented at the General Court by the name of Committee, by three from each town- and took their seats with the magistrates who had previously constituted the Court. The object at this time of enlarging the number of the General Court, was an event which has never been surpassed in importance to the Colony or State since. It was whether they should declare war against the most war- like and powerful tribe of Indians in New England. The future safety of property and life in the Colony depended upon the result. The Pequots had stolen not only the property of the English, and murdered some of the in- habitants, but had abducted from Wethersfield two young ladies, and carried
10
INTRODUCTION.
them among the Indians by force. But not to add to this interesting narra- tive further. The General Court, feeble as the inhabitants were in numbers, and deficient in means, trusted in God for the result, and boldly declared war against the Pequots. Ninety men were ordered to be raised-munitions of war were at once prepared,-Rev. Samuel Stone was selected as Chaplain for the little but valorous army. They went down Connecticut River in three small vessels, with Captain Mason as commander, (and to be brief,) they met the enemy at the Mystic Fort; and though the colonists lost two, with sixteen wounded, they fought like men who were fighting for the future welfare of the Colony-for the lives of their wives, children, and their own lives and property. When all was closed nearly six hundred Indians lay dead upon the battle ground-about sixty or seventy wigwams burned to the ground, and the Fort in ashes. So valorous and complete was the victory that the Pequots became extinct as a nation. Sassicus fled with a few of his warriors to the Mohawks; others united with other tribes, particularly with the Mohegans.
It will therefore be seen that what is now styled the Senate, originated, as · · has been stated; and the formation of the House of Representatives origin- ated in the necessity of having more councillors in the declaration of war against the Pequot Indians. After which meeting of the Committee, in 1637, the Committee met in the General Court as the House of Representa- tives, and the two houses were styled the Commissioners and Committee un- til after the union of Windsor, Hartford and Wethersfield, in 1639, when the government was formed by adding a Governor and Deputy Governor. The Upper House was styled the House of Magistrates, and during 1639 the Lower House retained the name of Committee; but in April, 1640, the Lower House, or popular branch, was styled the House of Deputies.
From the organization of the General Court in the Colony, in 1636, to the confederation of the three towns upon Connecticut River, in 1639, being three years-there was no other court in the Colony, except the Particular Court of 1637, which did little business. The General Court took cognizance of divisions in churches-of all criminal offences-of all civil matters-the ap- pointment and confirmation of all officers in the jurisdiction-declared war- regulated commerce-formed and governed the militia ;- indeed every thing in the Colony came under their supervision. They ordered that no young unmar- ried man unless a public officer, or he kept a servant, should keep house alone, except by licence of the town, under a penalty of twenty shillings per week ; and that no head of a family should entertain such young man under a like penalty, without liberty from the town. The object of this law probably was, to compel early marriages, to aid in settling the colony, and to prevent their keeping bad company.
As early as 1640, the General Court intended that the inhabitants should measure their apparel by the length of their purses-the court being the judg- es. The constable in each town was ordered to take notice of all persons, and if he judged any person exceeded their rank and condition in life, in
11
INTRODUCTION.
their attire, to warn them to appear before the Particular Court to answer for the offence. All excess in the price of labor, in 1640-41, was expressly forbidden by law. All artificers and other laborers were priced, as well as the labor of horses and oxen. Most of the penalties attached to the criminal laws, were accompanied with flogging and pillory ; so much so that a law was enacted in 1643, which made it imperative upon all the towns on Connecti- cut River, to appoint a whipper to do execution upon offenders.
As Massachusetts and Plymouth were settled a few years earlier than Con- necticut, and had become somewhat organized as a government, many of their laws were copied into the code of laws enacted by Connecticut. Labor and dress were regulated by law in those colonies before it was in this. Their laws upon these subjects were much more severe than in this jurisdiction. They had a law that ladies' dresses should be made so long as to cover their shoe buckles. They prohibited short sleeves, and ordered the sleeves to be lengthened to cover the arms to the wrists. They forbid by law, immoderate great breeches, knots of ribbon, broad shoulder bands, silk roses, double ruffs and cuffs. Even as late as 1653, John® Fairbanks was solemnly tried for wearing great boots. He was acquitted on trial. The colonies were poor, and it appears the object of the law was to prevent all kinds of extravagance, and to compel the inhabitants to govern their living, strictly by their means.
As there were no printing presses in the colony or country in the early settlement of Connecticut, the laws enacted at each session of the General Court, were promulgated to the inhabitants of each town, by copies of the laws being made out by the Secretary of the Colony, and sent to the consta- bles of each town, and read by them at public meetings to the people. This inconvenient practice was continued in the Colony nearly forty years, until 1672. This year all the laws in force were prepared and sent to Cambridge to be printed, and bound with blank paper interspersed in the book, to enter laws which should be afterwards enacted. It was a small folio. The book is now a curiosity of ancient days. Its introduction to the public is vastly bet- ter fitted for Watts' Psalms, than a code of laws. After the book was print- ed, the General Assembly ordered that every family in the Colony should have a law book. The blank pages in the book were not filled until nearly thirty years after. The New Haven Colony at a much earlier period, pro- cured a code of laws to be printed for that Colony, of about one hundred pages, entitled " New Haven's Settling in New England, and some Laws for Government; published for the use of that Colony." This early and first volume of laws was printed in London, for the New Haven Colony. I know of only two copies extant of the edition of five hundred that were printed .- RECORDS OF CONN., WINTHROP'S JOUR., DR. TRUMBULL.
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