Captain John Bissell, a Founder of Windsor, Connecticut.
( ... and A Story About John Adams at the Bissell Tavern )
Quick Links for This Page
John Adams' Diary - "...at Bissill's in Windsor"
The Bissell Ferry on the Connecticut River
This is a summary of Captain John Bissell’s life in Windsor, Connecticut. This material is in part extracted from the longer and wonderful The History of South Windsor Connecticut, written by Lori Jean Kremidas and online at the South Windsor town website.
On joining the Facebook group "Descendants of Captain John Bissell of Windsor" in June 2023, I decided to update this information on John Bissell and to correct some information that was apparently not correct.
As one example, in my early review of materials on John Bissell, there is some speculation by early writers on how early he arrived in New England. In Descendants of John Bissell, by Edward Payson Jones (1939), Captain John Bissell is said to have arrived in Plymouth in 1628, from Somerset, England (perhaps Huntington). (Some sources say he was born in Somerset in 1590, but Roger Bissell of the "Descendants" group has established that Bissell was from an area southeast of Birmingham). These dates of arrival in New England are not substantiated in The Great Migration Begins by Robert Charles Anderson, the definitive source for New England's immigrants for years up through 1640, nor in the related The Great Migration Directory, Immigrants to New England, 1620-1640 ("GMD"). In GMD, John Bissell is listed as arriving in Windsor in 1639, based on his appearance in town records that year. His origin is listed as "unknown." The full entry in the book is, "Unknown; 1639; Windsor [Grant 10, 23; CCCR 1:55; WiLR 1:53; TAG 26:84-94, 185-86, 27:100-1, 232-33; Windsor Hist 2:76-77]." There's more below on John Bissell's English origins, as a little bit more is now known about his ancestry and where he was from in England through Roger Bissell's research.
It is said in Stiles' History of Ancient Windsor and in Savage's Genealogical Dictionary that John Bissell the immigrant came to Windsor in 1639 or 1640. A well-written piece by Donald Blauvelt in the "Findagrave" webpage system provides research references suggesting that Bissell was indeed in Windsor by 1640, since the earliest known record placing John Bissell in Windsor is the record of his youngest son (and Bissell 3G generation 8th Great-grandfather) Nathaniel's baptism on 27 Sep 1640. The earliest in which he appears in the Connecticut Public Records is as a juryman in September 1641.
According to "Matthew Grant Record. Some early records and documents of and relating to the town of Windsor, Connecticut, 1639-1703 Hartford: Connecticut historical society, 1930," John was admitted to the Windsor Church 3 May 1640. The same record provides that for "John Bifsell his fonn Nathaniel was Borne in windfor, and Baptifed fept.27.40 ."
John Bissell is said to have been born in England on 30 Oct 1591, but I don't know of the source for that exact date. What his gravestone tells us is that he died when he was "in the 86 yeare of his age." Accordingly, he had turned at least 85 years old by the date on which his gravestone says he was "deceased -- October the 3, 1677" (and at that point was somewhere in his 86th year of life, not yet reaching 86 years old) so for sure his birth is 1591 or 1592.
John Bissell's gravestone in the Palisado Cemetery, Windsor, CT
There has also been confusion in various sources on Bissell history as to what the names of John Bissell's wives were. The explanation for the confusion is interesting but a bit long, so I've put it farther down below on this page. The bottom line is that John Bissell had a first wife, name unknown, with whom he had four sons (Samuel, Thomas, John and Nathaniel) and two daughters (Mary and Joyce) and that first wife died of record in Windsor, CT on 21 May 1641. Since John's youngest son Nathaniel was recorded in 1640 before this first wife died, John had no children with his second wife.
A second wife, also with name unknown, is known to have existed because the death of the wife of John Bissell, Senior was recorded in Windsor in 1665. More details below, but these conclusions as to these two wives were well documented by eminent American genealogist (and, by the way, a Richard Bissell family Cousin!) Donald Lines Jacobus in 1969.
The picture above, (featuring West Simsbury, CT resident and the author's brother Stephen Parker), is from the yard in front of the John Bissell Homestead, looking west towards the Connecticut River. This is the riverbank where the ferry was located on the East side of the river.
While Windsor was settled on the west side of the Connecticut River, pastures and eventually homesteads were built on the east side, now known as South Windsor. The Bissell Ferry came into being perhaps as early as 1642 but clearly no later than 1648, when the town voted to give John Bissell the exclusive contract to operate the ferry. (Don Blauvelt cites records reporting that, "...on Jan. 5, 1641/42 Windsor was provided the right [by the colony’s government] to operate a ferry across the Connecticut River. However, not until Jan. 1648/49 was John Bissell, Sr. granted exclusive right to operate the Windsor ferry for the ensuing seven years (Conn. PR, Vol. 1, p. 174-75)."
According to ConnecticutHistory.org, regarding early colonial ferry operations on Connecticut's rivers,
"In return for the right to collect a toll, a willing ferryman promised to provide a boat and operate the service for a given period of years, usually seven. The General Court set the fare for each ferry, with toll rates depending on the nature of the crossing. Tolls were highest at the colony’s two widest crossings, the Thames and the Connecticut Rivers, where a further surcharge was allowed for a winter crossing."
The establishment of the ferry by Bissell led to the family being the pioneers in the settlement of the east side of the Connecticut River. A monograph The Woodworkers of Windsor by Joshua Lane and Donald White (published by Historic Deerfield, Inc. and still available as of 2023 online at AbeBooks.com) provides excellent background on how the several families that constituted the woodworkers of Windsor, including the Bissells, helped each other out, and suggests that the awarding of his first ferry contract was a result of his connection to this group of woodworkers.
"I have spent this morning in riding through Paradise. My eyes never beheld so fine a country. From Bissell's Tavern in East Windsor to Hartford Ferry, 8 miles, is one continued street, houses all along, and a vast prospect of level country on each hand, the lands very rich and the husbandry pretty good..."
So wrote John Adams in his diary in June 1771. In 1655, John Bissell moved the east side landing to its present location, to a site near Bissell’s Hill (today known as East Windsor Hill but actually located in South Windsor), just south of the mouth of the Scantic River. The year 1655 was also the year Thomas Bissell married Abigail Moore, the daughter of Windsor selectman and John Bissell's friend Deacon John Moore. Don Blauvelt reports that the right to run the ferry was granted annually to the Bissells from May 1656 through March 1667/68, then the Bissell contract to operate the ferry was extended for ten more years. The Bissell Homestead pictured to the right was built in about 1658.
Read more about the Bissells in John Adams' Diaries below.
In any event, the Bissells ran the ferry perhaps from 1641 (as indicated in the Historical Marker pictured below) into the late 1700s. There's more information about the Moore - Bissell relationships in the Woodworkers of Windsor (both Thomas Bissell and Nathaniel Bissell apprenticed in John Moore's woodworking shop and Nathaniel later married Bissell 3G generation 8th Great-grandmother Mindwell Moore, John Moore's daughter). The Bissells pioneered the settling of the east side of the Connecticut River, building the house pictured here in 1658-59. John Bissell conveyed this house and the ferry operation to his son Nathaniel in 1662.
According to the Connecticut History website,
"The technology utilized by early Connecticut ferries varied from crossing to crossing. Most were scow-type, flat-bottomed boats that operators poled, rowed, or sailed across the water or, in the case of the Niantic ferry, pulled across using a rope line that spanned the river. A most ingenious crossing was at Windsor. Here a cable-pulley system stretched across the river and was firmly anchored to each shore. The cable passed through a pulley on the side of the ferry scow. After shoving off, the ferryman turned the boat at an angle to the river’s current, whose force moved the boat along the cable line in much the way a sailboat tacked into the wind. On the return crossing, the ferryman simply reversed the angle of the boat to the flow of the water."
(The ConnecticutHistory.org material was written by Richard DeLuca, the author of Post Roads & Iron Horses: Transportation in Connecticut from Colonial Times to the Age of Steam, published by Wesleyan University Press in 2011.) It is not likely that the cable and pulley system described was part of the ferry operation until the later years of the ferry.
John Bissell was a leader of the Windsor settlement in many ways, including as a leader of the militia (and during King Philip's War at least as a Captain in the militia) and was involved in the Indian wars in Connecticut. In addition to the John Bissell homestead, there are several other buildings and sites still existing in the South Windsor area today, including the Aaron Bissell home, the home of Jemmy Bissell and across the street from that home the Bissell Family cemetery. (There are also, of course, other "Richard Bissell Family buildings" of historical interest, such as the Loomis Homestead.)
For anyone who visits the Windsor area, the main town cemetery behind the church on Main Street (the Palisado Cemetery) in Windsor on the west side of the river has many ancestors buried there, including a marker for Captain John Bissell. As to that title of "Captain," the Don Blauvelt piece speculates that, "While some claim John held the title of Captain, he was relieved of the requirement for military training by the Connecticut Court in April 1645, when he was about 53 years old. Unless one wishes to attach the title of Captain to a public ferryman, there is no record of any military rank for the immigrant in the Windsor or Connecticut records. Also, none of his sons reached the rank of Captain during their lifetimes." This conclusion was reached without the benefit of any conclusive documentation. However, in June 2023 Barbara Bissell-Erway of the Facebook group of people interested in Bissell family history and the descendants of Captain John Bissell of Windsor provided me with information documenting the title of "Captain" for John Bissell. In the book "Soldiers in King Philip's War" Appendix at page 468, the Windsor Troopers (1676) are listed. The entry provides that,
"In an old "Book of Rates," at Windsor is found the following list of troopers: Capt. John Bissell, John Bissell jr., Nathl.Bissell [also one of Capt. John's sons and my wife's 7th great-grandfather], Capt. Daniel Clark, Edward Chapman, Thomas Strong, John Horsford, Anthony Hoskins, Joseph Loomis [another of my wife's great-grandfathers], Nathl. Loomis, John Terry, Capt. Saml. Marshall, John Moses, Thomas Moore [brother of my wife's Great-grandmother and wife of Nathl. Bissell Mindwell Moore Bissell], Mr. John Porter, Mr. Henry Sanders, Mr. Henry Wolcott."
Before They Came to America...
I'm making substantial changes to this item on the Bissell Family History website having just discovered (June 2023) research by Roger Bissell, a leading Bissell family genealogy researcher and an expert on the "Descendants of Captain John Bissell of Windsor" Facebook page. Research on the Bissell family in America can get a bit confusing, in the main because there is a line of Bissells from Rhode Island. That line is descended from a man named John Bysselle, a French Protestant Huguenot born in about 1540 in Alscace-Lorraine, France. This John Bysselle left France because of persecution of the Huguenots by the Catholics then in power, sometime around the time of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.
This John Bysselle is not an ancestor of Captain John Bisssell of Windsor. Accordingly, I have removed from this web page material previously here about why the Huguenots fled France when persecuted by the royal family and the Catholic Church.
[The Rhode Island line of Bissells apparently descended from William (b. 1560) who married Cicely Parker (b. 23 Jul 1581), who had a son William, christened 29 Sept 1583. William’s son John (christened 6 Jan 1611, and NOT the John Bissell who settled in Windsor, CT) had a son Thomas, christened 26 Nov 1643 in England who later came to America and founded the Rhode Island line of Bissells.]
The Captain John Bissell Homestead, Windsor, Connecticut and the Bissell Ferry
The two pictures immediately below are the John Bissell Homestead on the east bank of the Connecticut River in Windsor, CT (really located in what is now called South Windsor, CT). They are provided courtesy of Connie Bissell Schweiger, Goshen, MA.
As the "Bissell Ferry" historical sign below indicates, the Bissell Homestead on the east bank of the Connecticut River at Windsor was built in 1658 and given to his son Nathaniel in 1662. Nathaniel, of course, is the Bissell 3G Generation 8th Great-grandfather.
This Historical Marker located at the Bissell Homestead down on the east bank of the Connecticut River says clearly that the house was sold in 1816, operated as an inn for some time and became the town Poor Farm and town jail by the late 1800s.
Debbie Booth (the granddaughter of Richard Bissell's sister Barbara and thus a great-granddaughter of Mertie Bisbee Bissell and Herbert Bissell) and her family have visited the Bissell Homestead in East Windsor as well as the Historical Society in Windsor. Debbie has provided good information about the house (including that it served as the Town Farm (i.e., "poor farm) for some time in the late 1800s into the 1900s) and that it also served as the town jail. It still has a sheriff's office and two jail cells in the back. She also provided several pictures detailing information about the Bissell Homestead and the operation of the Bissell Ferry.
See more pictures related to the Bissell Ferry and the Bissell Homestead at the very bottom of this page.
The Bissell Tavern
John Adams (the second President of the United States, 4 Mar 1797 - 4 Mar 1801) wrote about the Bissell Tavern in his diaries (the Internet source for the diaries is listed at the bottom of this page). He apparently stayed there from Friday night June 7 until Saturday morning, June 8, 1771. The entry in his diary begins, "rode along the great River to Windsor, and put up at Bissalls -- i.e. in East Windsor, for the Town of Windsor it seems lies on the West Side of the River."
The Bissell Tavern, which began perhaps as early as the late 1600s and went until at least the time of the Revolutionary War, was not located in this Bissell Homestead house but was located east of the Homestead, up Ferry Lane out on the roadway in South Windsor (see photo of "Old Bissell Tavern" below). Per the Stiles History of Ancient Windsor, at the same time John Bissell was licensed to operate the ferry in 1648, he was also licensed to operate a tavern. We know the Bissell family (apparently the "David Bissell" who was a grandson of Bissell great-grandparents David Bissell and Ruth Warner Bissell) ran a tavern when John Adams stayed there in 1771 and we know that it was a meeting place for patriots during the Revolution.
The official Historic Markers on the road today in South Windsor show that the tavern was out on the highway in South Windsor, at the corner with the road that is today called Ferry Lane.
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One can see John Adams' writing in his diary June 7, here to the left, where it begins, "rode along the great River to Windsor, and put up at Bissall's --
The rest of the entry for June 7, 1771 is the top half or more of this page. He continues about the Bissells, "I begin to grow weary of this idle, romantic jaunt. I believe [it] would have been as well to have staid in my own Country and amused myself with my farm, and rode to Boston every day. I shall not suddenly take such a Ramble again, merely for my Health. I want to see my Wife, my Children, my Farm, my Horse, Oxen, Cows, Walls, Fences, Workmen, Office, Books, and Clerks. I want to hear the News, and Politicks of the Day. But here I am, at Bissills in Windsor, hearing my Landlord read a Chapter in the Kitchen and go to Prayers with his Family, in the genuine Tone of a Puritan." This is wry humor from Adams, wishing he were discussing "Politicks of the Day" rather than having prayers delivered by a Bissell "in the genuine Tone of a Puritan."
The entry for Saturday June 8, 1771, begins,
"Bissill says, there are Settlements, upon this River, for 300 Miles -- i.e. from Seabrook [Saybrook] where it discharges itself. The River, in the Spring, when the Snow melts, swells prodigiously and brings down the Washings of Mountains and old Swamps, rotten Wood and Leaves &c. to inrich the Intervale Lands, upon its banks.
"At eleven O Clock arrived at Wrights in Weathersfield. I have spent this Morning in Riding thro Paradise. My Eyes never beheld so fine a Country. From Bissills in Windsor to Hartford Ferry, 8 Miles, is one continued Street -- Houses all along, and a vast [and here the diary goes to page 39] Prospect of level Country on each Hand, the Lands very rich and the Husbandry pretty good."
A book called Stage-Coach and Tavern Days by Alice Morse Earle has interesting information about the sign that hung outside the Bissell Tavern for a century or more. Ms. Earle writes that the Bissell's Tavern sign was "at Bissell's Ferry, East Windsor" and that it first hung for nearly a century "by the roadside before a house called Bissell's Tavern," then later was hung "on the limb of a big elm tree over the Ferry road."
The description of this sign board notes that what is pictured below is what the sign looked like when the tavern was operated later by Joseph Phelps (likely also a Richard Bissell family Cousin, as William Phelps, Bissell 3G generation 11th Great-grandfather, was a founder of Windsor in 1635). When the Bissells operated the tavern, including a David Bissell in the late 1770's, according to Alice Earle the sign:
"...bore an elaborate design of thirteen interlacing rings, each having in its centre the representation of some tree or plant peculiar to the state it designated. These interlacing links surrounded the profile portrait of George Washington. Above this was the legend, "The 13 United States." Beneath this, "Entertainment by David Bissell, A.D. 1777."
In any event, a sign with this shape if not these exact pictures was the sign board for The Bissell Tavern.
There is also a house that's at 1022 Palisado Avenue (on the west side of the river in Windsor) and is on the list of historic homes in Windsor. This house was the "Bissell Stage Tavern," built by Ebenezer Fitch Bissell, Sr. in 1790. According to the website lostnewengland.com,
"This house was built in the early 1790s for Ebenezer Fitch Bissell, Sr. and his wife Esther. They were in their late 50s at the time, and Ebenezer was a veteran of the American Revolution. In April 1775, he and a number of other Windsor men marched in response to the Lexington Alarm, and later in the year he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the 8th Connecticut Regiment. In 1776, this regiment became the 17th Continental Infantry, and Bissell was promoted to captain, serving until he was taken prisoner during the Battle of Long Island in August, 1776. Many American soldiers died in the appalling conditions of makeshift British prisons in New York City, but Bissell survived, and continued serving in the Continental Army after his release.
Ebenezer lived in this house until his death in 1814, and his wife Esther appears to have died around the same time. Their oldest son, Ebenezer, Jr., inherited the house, and operated it as a tavern. The house was located on the main route from Hartford to Springfield, so it was an ideal location for a tavern to serve the stagecoach travelers who passed through here. Variously known as Bissell Tavern and Bissell’s Stage House, the tavern was identified by a sign that featured portraits of Oliver Hazard Perry and James Lawrence, two naval heroes of the War of 1812. Ebenezer opened the tavern about a year after the end of the war, and by the early 1820s it was being run by his son, Fitch Bissell. He operated the tavern until about 1833, a few years before railroads would make the old stagecoach routes obsolete. Ebenezer Fitch Bissell, Sr. is a second cousin to the Richard Bissell descendants of Capt. John Bissell.
The Richard Bissell family's 8th Great-grandfather Nathaniel Bissell, in 1683, married a second wife, Dorothy Fitch, and they had four children. Dorothy's brother James was the Great-grandfather of Ebenezer's mother Jerusha Fitch Bissell.
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This old photo is of the Old Bissell Tavern, in the center of the picture. The building, torn down in the late 1800s, was on the south edge of where Ferry Road (running west to the Connecticut River) came up to Main Street in East Windsor, CT.
It was run for many years by the Bissell's, the last Bissell owner, I believe, being a David Bissell who was a grandson of Bissell 7th Great grandparents David Bissell and Ruth Warner Bissell.
John Bissell's Children
The children of John Bissell, Sr. and his unnamed first wife, the order uncertain, are:
Mary Bissell, born circa 1631 in England, died testate (dying "testate" means the person left a written will; "intestate" means without any will) 11 Sep 1689 at Windsor, CT; m. 12 Apr 1649 at Windsor to Sgt. Jacob Drake, son of John Drake and Elizabeth Rogers, b. circa 1624 in England. He died testate at Windsor, 6 Aug 1689. They had no known children.
Lieutenant, also referred to with the colonial military title of "Cornet," John Bissell, Jr., b. circa 1633 in England, died intestate before 15 Oct 1688 at an undefined place in the Province of New York while in the King’s service. While it is speculation, one might assume that John Junior was a soldier serving in the British forces during "King William's War" or "the Second Indian War," which went from 1688-1697. The War was fought between "New France," French settlers in North America, and "New England," the northern English colonies which had united in 1686 as "the Dominion of New England." This "Dominion" of colonies only lasted three years. On the New England side were the Indians of the Iroquois Confederacy; New France fought alongside the Wabanaki Confederacy. This was the only significant military action going on at this time in colonial America. John Junior had been married 17 June 1658 at Windsor, to Israel Mason of Saybrook, CT, the daughter of Major John Mason and his unnamed first wife, b. circa 1637/38, probably at Windsor, and died after 15 March 1693/94. They had nine children.
Quartermaster Thomas Bissell, b. circa 1635 in England, died testate at Windsor 31 Jul 1689; married 11 Oct 1655 at Windsor to Abigail Moore, daughter of Deacon John and Abigail Moore, born 16 Jun 1639 at Windsor. She died at Windsor purportedly 31 Jul 1728. They had twelve children.
Samuel Bissell, b. circa 1637 in England, died testate at Windsor 3 Dec 1700. Married first 11 Jun 1658 at Windsor, Abigail Holcomb, daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Holcomb, bapt. 6 Jan 1638/39 at Windsor, CT. She died at Windsor 17 Aug 1688. They had nine children together of this first marriage. Samuel married second, sometime after Abigail's death in August 1688, Mary Buell, the daughter of William Buell and Mary Post and the widow of Simon Mills, who had died intestate at Simsbury, CT 6 Jul 1683. There were no children from Samuel’s second marriage, Mary having had 10 children with her first husband. She died testate at Windsor 24 Jun 1718.
Joyce Bissell, b. circa 1639 in England, d. after 8 Sep 1689 when she is named in her sister’s will of that same date. Married 17 Nov 1665 at Windsor to Samuel Pinney, son of Humphrey Pinney and Mary Hull, b. 30 Mar 1635 at Dorchester, MA. He died after 13 Dec 1689 when he was appointed an administrator of his sister-in-law Mary (Bissell) Drake’s estate. Three children of the family.
Nathaniel Bissell (8th Great-grandfather in the Richard Bissell family), b. 24 Sep (bap. 27 Sep) 1640, at Windsor. Died testate at Windsor 12 Mar 1713/14. Married first, Mindwell Moore, daughter of Deacon John and Abigail Moore. Mindwell was born 10 Jul 1643 at Windsor. She died at Windsor 24 Nov 1682. Nine children of the family. Nathaniel married second, 14 Jul 1683 at Windsor, Dorothy Fitch, who died at Windsor 28 Jun 1691. They had four children. He married third, some time after June 1691, Deliverance Hawes. She died intestate 12 Jun 1718. No children by this third marriage for each. Deliverance had seven children by her first two husbands (John Rockwell and Robert Warner). SEE Searle Chart 3.2 for a little more information on Deliverance Hawes Rockwell Warner Bissell. Her daughter Ruth Warner came into the Bissell family as a step-daughter to Nathaniel Bissell and a step-sister to Nathaniel and Mindwell's children, including their son David Bissell. When they came of age, Ruth and David married. Ruth and David are the 7th Great-grandparents of the Richard Bissell family 3G generation.
The Rest of the Story About John Bissell, Sr.'s Two Wives...
Records are not clear about John Bissell's wives' names, with some sources suggesting the name of his first wife was Mary Drake. As noted earlier above, the best conclusion is that there is no record telling the name of either the first or second wife. Here's some of the details as laid out (no pun intended) on the findagrave website http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=5091692 edited by Don Blauvelt:
"Stile’s first version in his “History of Ancient Windsor” (1859) contains a poor outline of the structure of the Bissell family of Windsor, Conn. He gave John Bissell only one wife in this version. Savage, Hinman, Cutter and others also misrepresent the initial Bissell family structure. Stiles’ more familiar second version of his “Ancient Windsor,” in two volumes (1891 and 1893), does not correct the errors [regarding the Bissells] made forty years earlier in 1859. He continued to give the immigrant only one wife in Vol. II (1893 Genealogies). However, in Vol. I (1891 History) he added an obscure reference apparently contained in the 1662 deed to son Nathaniel of his housing at present-day East Windsor that proves the immigrant had two wives.
John Bissell, the immigrant, had six known children, all by his first wife who died of record at Windsor, CT May 21, 1641. According to the Matthew Grant Records, Grant was aware of only one child born to the immigrant at Windsor, and as John’s youngest son is recorded at Windsor prior to the death of his first wife, there were no children by his unnamed second wife. Some writers give the first wife the name of Mary and still others claim she was named Mary Drake. But, neither variation has any proof and it is quite likely Mary Drake has been confused with the married name of John Bissell’s daughter, Mary (Bissell) Drake.
On this point, in 1969, the eminent genealogist, Donald Lines Jacobus, wrote: “May I try to set the record straight once again? [The imigrant] John1 Bissell [Sr.] did indeed die in 1677; there is no authority that I know of for calling his wife Mary Drake. A nameless wife, perhaps the mother of his children, died in 1641; he thereafter had another nameless wife, whose death, as wife of John “Sr.”, was recorded in 1665...(New England Historic Genealogical Society Register 123:278-279).” John Bissell’s second wife died of record at Windsor Mar. 29, 1665 [“the wife of John Biffell senor dyed”]. Per Stiles in 1891, in 1662 when John Bissell was in excess of 70 years old he gave to youngest son Nathaniel his housing at present-day East Windsor:
The aforementioned death of the immigrant’s second wife has been consistently confused as the date that the wife of John Bissell, Jr., died. This caused Stiles to give John Junior an unnamed second wife as the mother of his youngest children. [In fact] John Bissell junior’s wife, Israel Mason, outlived her husband. This error is more fully outlined in the Israel (Mason) Bissell Findagrave memorial page. The earliest in which the immigrant John Bissell appears at Windsor is in the record of youngest son Nathaniel’s birth at Windsor, on Sept. 24, 1640. The earliest in which he appears in the Connecticut Public Records is as a juryman in Sept. 1641. He was a juryman for numerous sessions of the Particular Court during the mid-1640’s until he was a elected a deputy to the Connecticut Court from Windsor in Sept. 1648. He served as a deputy from Windsor almost continuously until 1656."
About John Bissell's Will
Manwaring’s abstract of John Bissell’s estate, citing Hartford Probate District vol. III, p. 194, provides in part:
John Bissell of Windsor. Inventory of L.520-16-03 taken Oct. 22, 1677 by Daniel Clarke, Benjamin Newbery and Return Strong.
Will dated Sept. 25, 1673: “I John Bissell of Windsor doe make this my last Will & Testament: I give to my daughter Mary, the wife of Jacob Drake, L.10 [Ten Pounds]; to my daughter Joyce, wife of Samuel Pinney, L.30; I give to my son John L.50. The remainder of my estate after my just debts and funeral charges are paid, with 20 shillings a piece to each of my grand children naturally descending from my foure sons and two daughters, I bequeath to my four sons John, Thomas, Samuel and Nathaniel. The remainder of my estate to be equally divided. I appoint my sons John and Thomas Bissell to be executors. I desire Deacon John Moore and Daniel Clark to be supervisors...John X. Bissell LS.
Witness John Moore, Senior, Daniel Clarke.
Court Record, p. 165- 6 Dec 1677: will approved.
This Historical Marker is located on Main Street in South Windsor, just off Route 5 (John Fitch Boulevard) and Sullivan Avenue, where "Ferry Lane" goes west down to the Connecticut River and the John Bissell Homestead down by the water.
This Historical Marker is located down Ferry Lane near the Bissell Homestead house down by the eastern shore of the Connecticut River.
John Bissell's Headstone
The inscription on John Bissell, Sr.’s headstone is:
HEARE LYETH
THE BODY OF JOHN
BISSELL DECEASED -
OCTOBER THE: 3, 1677
IN THE 86 YEARE OF -
HIS AGE.
[i.e., he was 85 when he died but part way into his 86th year]
Burial is at the Palisado Cemetery, Windsor, CT.
Find A Grave # 5091692
This photo of the Bissell Ferry on the Connecticut River is probably from the very early 1900s, before the ferry stopped operation in 1917.
The three pictures above and the two to the sides here were taken by Debbi Booth, a descendant of Captain John Bissell and Nathaniel Bissell, on a tour of the privately owned Bissell Homestead in East Windsor, CT.
Self-explanatory I think, but to the left is the very wide front door of the home; three different parlors and their fireplaces; and a hutch with china.
The website for the John Adams diaries is http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=D17&bc=%2Fdigitaladams%2Farchive%2Fbrowse%2Fdiaries_by_date.php. Excerpted on this page are John Adams diary 17, 16 April - 14 June 1771, Pp. 37 and 38.