Settlers of Windsor, Connecticut
Links to Stories Below About Ancestor Founders of Windsor
Alexander Alvord & Mary Vore Thomas Holcombe & Elizabeth
Jeffrey Baker & Joan Rockwell Joseph Loomis & Mary White
Thomas Bascomb & Avis Deacon John Moore & Abigail
Captain John Bissell William Phelps & Ann Dover
Thomas Cooper and Sarah Slye Eltweed Pomeroy & Margery Rockett
Thomas & Frances Dewey Philip Randall & Joanne Fush
Thomas Ford & Elizabeth Chard William Rockwell & Susanna Capen
Edward Griswold & Margaret Elder John Strong & Abigail Ford
William Hannum & Honor Capen Richard Vore & Ann Harris
John Porter and Anna White
This is an old postcard scene of "The Mill Pond, Windsor, Connecticut"
The Beginnings of Windsor
From the very beginning, Windsor, Connecticut was packed with Bissell ancestors. For a long time, all the Bissell family knew for sure was that Bissell namesake Captain John Bissell, the operator of the Bissell Ferry across the Connecticut River, had arrived in the early years of the settlement of Windsor, around 1640. On closer examination, it turns out that nearly two dozen of the earliest families in Windsor are 9th and 10th Great-grandparents of the Bissell 3G generation. What we know to date about those ancestors appears farther down below, with the ancestors listed in alphabetical order. (Remember as you read this that all of this territory was called "Massachusetts." What is today Connecticut was not yet separated from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.)
Initially, settlers from Plymouth Colony bought land on the west side of the Connecticut River from the local Podunk Indians, and had a small group establish a settlement (in the area that would later become Windsor) in September 1633, at the junction of the Farmington and Connecticut Rivers.
The Podunk tribe was caught in the middle of a war between the Pequot and the Mohawk Indians and were hoping the Englishmen from the Plymouth settlement would help the Podunks protect themselves. The Plymouth group was led by William Holmes and may have included Jonathan Brewster, son of Plymouth leader William Brewster.
A second group of settlers arrived in the early fall of 1635, having come in the summer on the ship Christian and being mostly single young men skilled at carpentry, sent by English merchant investors including Sir Richard Saltonstall. The Saltonstall group was led by a man named Francis Stiles. This group included Great-grandfather Thomas Cooper, who was apprenticed as a carpenter to Stiles. The Saltonstall group had the best legal claim to the Windsor land, having received the proper grant from the English government. But when they got to Windsor, not only did they find some of the Plymouth group, but they found the vanguard of a third group that included most of the Bissell ancestors.
Deciding "Who's a Founder"
It's an imperfect art to identify exactly when different Bissell ancestors showed up in Windsor, CT. Many of these ancestors moved frequently, for example Elder John Strong who started out on the Massachusetts coast in Hingham, then moved to Taunton, then to Windsor, CT and finally to Northampton, MA. We know that those Bissell ancestors who are now officially considered "founders" of Windsor are included among those listed below, along with an indication of their principal occupation in Windsor. All of these ancestors are listed based on some record indicating they were in Windsor as of a certain date; it's just that not all of them were in town as a matter of record by 1640.
The information about each settler's occupation and their recognition as a "founder" comes mostly from the Windsor Historical Society list, compiled by Sandra McGraw in 2011. The Windsor Historical Society list used a date of the end of 1640 to define each person who is officially a "founder" of Windsor. So does the group Descendants of the Founders of Ancient Windsor. For example, looking at Bissell ancestor Alexander Alvord, there is no record that he was settled in Windsor before the end of 1640 so he's not an "official founder." But his brother Benedict is listed because he came to Windsor before the end of 1640, in 1637. Great-grandfather Alexander Alvord came a few years after his big brother. For my purposes, I generally use a somewhat broader definition and consider someone a founder if they were in a town within about 10 or 15years of its earliest beginnings, and so Alexander Alvord is listed here. The reference sources for the Windsor Historical Society founder research are listed at the very bottom of this page.
Windsor Historical Society, Windsor, Connecticut
This third group of families was mostly Puritans, originally from Devon, Dorset and Somerset Counties in England. They had been founders of Dorchester, Mass., many arriving there in 1630, on the ship Mary & John, and others in the following few years. The Puritans were persecuted in England in the 1620s because of their criticism of Anglican Church doctrines. When the Puritans got control of the English Parliament in 1629, King Charles I dissolved the Parliament. Many Puritans decided at that point it was time to leave England.
As noted in the Joseph Family website about the history of Thomas Dewey, "...dissatisfaction with the government of Massachusetts caused the removal in 1635 of the main body of Watertown [Mass] to Wethersfield [CT], that of Dorchester [Mass] to Windsor [CT], and in 1636 Newtown [Mass] to Hartford [CT].
Another comprehensive source (in addition to the very important The Great Migration Begins, Immigrants to New England 1620-1633) was the Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1684. https://archive.org/stream/memorialhistoryo02trum#page/546/mode/2up/search/windsor
The ancestors I have identified as being in Windsor in its earliest years are listed below in alphabetical order. For some, there may be links to other pages on this website, for example Captain John Bissell, where I've already assembled some information about that person. For a few there is a lot of information, for many others not so much.
These three townships -- Wethersfield, Windsor and Hartford -- formed the nucleus of the Connecticut Colony and at the end of the year 1636 contained about 160 families and 800 persons. So many moved out of Newtown [in Massachusetts] that only eleven families remained." So Hartford, Wethersfield and Windsor were all formed at about the same time.
The initial part of the Dorchester group was led by their Puritan pastor, Rev. John Warham. The Hartford group was led by their pastor, Rev. Thomas Hooker.
From the GreatMigration.org website, "the peak years of the Great Migration lasted just over ten years — from 1629 to 1640, years when the Puritan crisis in England reached its height. In 1629, King Charles I dissolved Parliament, thus preventing Puritan leaders from working within the system to effect change and leaving them vulnerable to persecution. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, chartered in the same year by a group of moderate Puritans, represented both a refuge and an opportunity for Puritans to establish a “Zion in the wilderness.” During the ten years that followed, over twenty thousand men, women, and children left England to settle permanently in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1640, when Parliament was reconvened, attention was redirected from the New World back to the old and migration to New England dropped sharply."
An advance party of men from the Dorchester group trekked through the wilderness to the Connecticut River and what is now Windsor in the summer of 1635, after the Plymouth group had purchased the area from the Indians and just before the Saltonstall group arrived. For a brief time, all three groups claimed Windsor. Ultimately, the Dorchester group stayed and the Saltonstall group (except for some who stayed, like Stiles and Thomas Cooper) gave up their claim. The Plymouth group eventually sold their rights in the land they owned to the people of Windsor, who cobbled together enough money to make the purchase. Included as a signatory on that deed on behalf of the Windsor residents is Bissell 11th Great-grandfather William Phelps. Phelps had come to Dorchester, Mass. with most of the other members of Rev. Warham's church on the ship Mary & John.
Most of the Dorchester, MA group came to Windsor after the advance group had come, with their minister Rev. John Warham, in late 1635. About 60 men, women and children left Dorchester in mid-October 1635 and began the trek through the wilderness to the Connecticut River. Their household goods and provisions were sent by water. They drove their cattle, horses and pigs with them through the woods.
According to the Connecticut Memorial History book, the Connecticut River
"...was frozen over by the 15th of November, and the vessel containing their goods had not arrived. The winter which followed was marked by great suffering. They had insufficient shelter for themselves and their animals, and they could get but part of the latter across the river. [Thirteen of the group left to return to Dorchester, and]...those who remained in Connecticut suffered extreme destitution, being obliged to live on acorns, malt, and grains."
They lost most of their cattle. Eventually, most of the remaining settlers were able to get on a vessel which appeared later in the winter, the Rebecca, and return to Dorchester. Undaunted, in the spring of 1636 they set out again with their pastor Warham. The settlement, which originally was called Matianuck by the Indians, was called Dorchester until the name was changed to Windsor in February 1637.
The "Plan of Ancient Windsor 1640--1654" below shows the location of the properties of most of the early settlers of Windsor. Just to give a sense of how many Bissell Great-grandparents there were in Windsor, imagine it's a nice spring day in about 1650. You are taking a horseback ride on the roads and trails in Windsor and here are the homesites you see (and just to stir your imagination, what is thought to be a drawing of Thomas Holcombe's home as it was first built at that time appears further below as an example). Starting in the Northwest corner on this map below, four miles west of town out in the area called "Poqonnoc" you find the home of Thomas and Elizabeth Holcombe and their 15-year old daughter (and Bissell 3G 9th Great-grandmother) Mary. When Mr. Holcombe was born, Queen Elizabeth I was still on the throne and the Renaissance was just ending. He's well-known in town for having helped write "the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut," the first written Constitution in America.
Just south of there, on Stony Brook, you see the home of George Griswold. In a few years, George will marry Mary Holcombe. Riding down the road to town, along "the Rivulet" (the Farmington River that flows right through the middle of town and into "the Great River," the Connecticut River) you pass the homes of William Phelps, Senior and his son William Phelps, Junior. Mr. Phelps, Junior is one of eight men who were given authority by the Massachusetts Bay Colony Courts to oversee the new "Colony of Connecticut" when Windsor was founded a few years ago.
A few homes below Phelps' house is that of Thomas Bascombe, 10th Great-grandfather and a brick and stone mason. His daughter (and 9th Great-grandmother) Abigail is playing out in the yard, 10 years old -- hard to believe that in 6 years she'll be married to John Ingersoll. Across the road from Bascombe's is the home of Alexander Alvord, on Mill Brook. Further south, on The Road to the Commons, is the home of Richard and Ann Vore, where they raised their children, including two daughters Mary and Sarah, who will both eventually be Bissell Great-grandmothers. Mr. Vore built this house after his first one, closer to the river, was destroyed in the great flood of 1639.
A little further South, near the Little Meadow, are the homes of Thomas Moore and his brother John. John Moore, at age 36 a church Deacon and town Selectman, is one of the leading woodworkers in New England. He is at the center of the network of woodworkers in Windsor that already includes two generations of the Moore, Bissell, Loomis and Griswold families (all of them ancestor families). These woodworkers will lay the foundations that make Windsor the center of New England fine woodworking for the next century. In the doorway, you see his 7-year old daughter Mindwell, who before she is 20 will be married to Nathaniel Bissell, and will become the Bissell 8th Great-grandmother. In just five years, her older sister Abigail will marry Nathaniel's older brother Thomas Bissell.
Across the Rivulet is one of the oldest homes in Windsor (and today one of the oldest houses in America), that of 9th Great-grandfather and woolen clothing merchant Joseph Loomis. As your ride takes you past the fortified "Palisado" and north along the Connecticut River, you pass the homes of Jeffrey Baker and Joan Rockwell Baker (one of several links to Notable Cousin artist Norman Rockwell); and of Thomas and Frances Dewey, who got their first Windsor lot in 1640, running from the Main Street in Windsor down to the river, and who a few years ago won a small law suit against Bissell ancestor Thomas Ford. In addition to being a Bissell ancestor, Dewey is the ancestor of Admiral George Dewey, one of America's great military heroes and the only U.S. Navy officer ever to hold the rank "Admiral of the Navy."
Continuing, you pass the homes of other Bissell ancestors, Eltweed Pomeroy, William Rockwell, William Hannum, Philip Randall and finally, near the ferry crossing over the Connecticut River, the home of Captain John Bissell (who eventually establishes his principal dwelling across the river on the east bank and becomes the first pioneer to settle on the east site of the Connecticut River). You take comfort knowing that you can expect to find hospitality at the Bissells, and some water for your horse...
The first division of lands in Windsor must have been very simple, undoubtedly a designation of lots by figures. In September of 1639, the General Court enacted a law that every town in the colony had to choose a town clerk or register who would, at the next General Court in April 1640, record every man's house and land already granted and measured out to him, describing the bounds and quantity of land. And that was to be done for all lands thereafter granted and measured to anyone, and all bargains or mortgages of lands would be accounted to be of no value until they were recorded.
That is why today we have the first volume of the Windsor Land Records (10 Oct 1640) and another, compiled in 1654, called a Book of Records of Town Ways in Windsor. Each family’s house-lot is located in early Windsor.
For the first several years of settlement, there was constant tension with the Indians. There were said to be parts of ten distinct tribes within the 46-mile circumference of Windsor, with many Indians for each one Englishman. According to the histories, the settlers lived in their fortified "palisade," surrounded with a tall wooden wall, and at all times of day and night, whether working in the fields or going to church, they carried their weapons.
There was a major war, the Pequot Indian War, in 1637. In 1643 there was substantial fighting with the Indians and the settlers were required to keep watches posted every night, all night long. In 1646 the Indians did much damage by burning large parts of the settlers property. The Windsor Palisado is described further below.
From the Joseph family history online at http://josfamilyhistory.com/locations/windsor-ct.htm (and relying on the History of Ancient Windsor) comes this description of the Palisado, the small defensive fortress noted on the plan above:
"Upon the breaking out of the Pequot War in 1637, the Windsor people surrounded their dwellings at this spot with a fortification or palisado. This consisted of strong high stakes or posts, set close together, and suitably strengthened on the inside, while on the outside a wide ditch was dug, the dirt from which was thrown against the palisades, and the whole formed a tolerably strong defence...
It was of course necessary to keep a constant guard within the enclosure, to prevent the enemy from climbing over, or setting fire to the palisades. It was the fatigue of supplying these watches that so exhausted the men (as Mr. Ludlow sorrowfully wrote to Mr. Pyncheon, at Springfield, Mass., during the absence of the Windsor men on the Pequot expedition) “that they could scarce stand upon their legs.”
The whole length of this line of palisades was more than three-fourths of a mile, enclosing an irregular parallelogram of considerable extent. From the southwest corner of the burying ground it extended along the brow of the hill overlooking the Farmington river, eastward to the Meadow hill. This south line was 990 feet long. Its west line extended northward 1,139 feet, along the brow of the hill west of the burying ground. Its east line ran along the brow of the Meadow Hill, 1,320 feet northward; and its north line ran across from hill to hill, near the present residence of Mrs. Giles Ellsworth, and was 325 feet in length.
When the first palisado was built, those who had their home-lots within its limits resigned their title for the benefit of the whole community. Matthew Grant, for instance, says that he originally had six acres, but resigned it all up, except where his buildings stood. This was the case with others.
The History of Ancient Windsor gives the following accounts as reasons for settlers coming to Windsor. Governor Bradford, first governor of the Plymouth Colony, had written: "Some of the neighbors in ye Bay, hearing of ye fame of Conightacute River, had a hankering mind after it and now understanding that ye Indians were swepte away with ye late great mortalitie, the fear of whom was an obstacle unto them before, which now being taken away, they began now to prosecute it with great egernes." P. 338. [the "late great mortalitie" may have referred to the Pequot Indian massacre of 1637, or to the small-pox epidemic noted below.]
Another early colonial leader attributed the desire to move to the Connecticut River to "the fruitfulness and commodiousness of Connecticut, and the danger of having it possessed by others, Dutch or English." The epidemic of small-pox which removed the last Indian from the Great Meadow and the Sequestered Meadow in Windsor may have contributed to a feeling that Windsor was now a good place to settle. Rev. Cotton Mather wrote that Massachusetts was "like a hive overstocked with bees, and many thought of swarming into new plantations." There was the inducement of a profitable fur trade. And finally, it was known that the Connecticut Patentees were preparing to take possession of their patent at the river's mouth, which agitated the people of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who still had the Connecticut territory under their control.
The town history of Dorchester also has information about the founding of Windsor.
"The emigration to Connecticut of a large portion of the first settlers of Dorchester, forms an important crisis in the affairs of the plantation ; it deprived it of nearly one half of its population, including the two ministers, Revs. Maverick and Warham, and a large part of the intelligence and wealth which accompanied the first comers. The Dorchester settlers were made acquainted with the rich bottom lands of the Connecticut River valley by an earlier visitor in 1633, and the labor of clearing their own rocky fields in Dorchester daily brought to their minds the advan tages possessed by the former position. A great quantity of valuable furs had reached the Bay from the River Indians, and many of the Dorchester people were engaged in the fur business. It was known that the Connecticut Patentees, Lord Brooke, Sir R. Saltonstall, John Hampden and others, were preparing to take possession of their patent and make a settlement at the lower part of the river... It is not improbable that these wealthy and influential gentlemen sought a more congenial field for their political ambition than the Bay Colony presented to them at that moment.
In the summer of 1635, some Dorchester people had already reached the river and sat down at a place where William Holmes and others, of Plymouth, had erected a trading house two years before (at Windsor), and made preparations for bringing their families and settling permanently and in November 1635, sixty persons, with a large number of cattle, travelled from Dorchester and arrived in safety at the river after much tribulation... The emigration [from Dorchester to Windsor], however, did not cease entirely until 1637. Many persons who had determined to go, were detained a year or two in disposing of their property."
And a Note about Crimes and Criminals
There should also be a special note about some of the religious beliefs of these Puritans in early Connecticut. The Phelps Family History website, noted further below under William Phelps, is an amazing source of information about the early colonies, and especially about Windsor and Simsbury. The written Phelps family history, The Phelps Family of America and Their English Ancestors, Two Volumes, By Judge Oliver Seymour Phelps and Andrew T. Servin, has much interesting information, including the following about some of the legal rules governing the behavior of everyone living in Windsor when it was founded in the mid-1600s. These rules had much of their basis in the Puritan's religious beliefs, but were made part of the criminal laws of Connecticut. Henry Stiles, in his 1891 History of Ancient Windsor noted the following:
"We find capital crimes more numerous than now. It was a capital offence to worship any other than the True God-to practice adultery-or the crime against nature, or rape, or to blaspheme, or to exercise witchcraft-or to steal a man or women-or for children 'unless brought up in unchristian neglect,' to curse or to smite, or to be stubborn or rebellious toward their parents.
"Lying in those days was deemed a peculiarly heinous offence. In 1641 the General Court stigmatized it as a fowl and gross sin,-and Mr. Webster of Hartford and Mr. Phelps of Windsor are requested to consult with the elders of both churches, to prepare instructions against the next Court, for the punishment of the sin of lying."
"In the code of 1650 all persons above the age of 14 years found guilty of lying, are made punishable by fines, stocks or stripes-and punished by parents in presence of officers.
Open contempt for God's holy word or ministers was rigorously dealt with. The 1st. offence with reproof, and bonds for good behavior; The 2nd. 5£, fine, and standing in the pillory on a lecture day, bearing on the breast a paper duly labelled in capital letters, "An open and obstinate contemner of God's Holy Word."
"Absence from church was visited by a fine of five shillings.
Forgery was punished by three days in the pillory--payment of double damage to the injured party, and disqualification as a witness or juryman.
Fornication by fine, whipping or prohibition to marry. For censure of the General Court the stocks, and the whipping post, which were peculiar institutions of the older times.
Branding was a form of punishment not uncommon -- burglarly and highway robbery was blazoned with the letter B-A. 2nd. offence by second branding, and a severe whipping.
Apparently the risk of being accused of criminal behavior didn't discourage Puritans in 1635 and 1636 from showing up in the new Connecticut River colony is substantial numbers. By the end of 1636, in the three villages of Wethersfield, Hartford and Windsor there were a total of about 160 families, about 800 persons.
So here are some brief facts about some of the early Bissell ancestors, generally 9th and 10th Great-grandparents, who settled Windsor in the mid-1600s.
Alexander Alvord and Mary Vore
This history of Bissell 3G generation 8th Great-grandfather Alexander Alvord comes from an Alvord family genealogy completed in the 1860s. Alexander Alvord came to Windsor after his older brother Benedict had settled there. Benedict had land granted to him by 1637. Alexander is first listed in the land records in 1645, when the town gave him a land grant. He is listed as purchasing a lot eighteen rods (approximately 300 feet) wide at about the same time. Alexander married Mary Vore (born 1627) (also spelled Voare) on 29 Oct 1646 and they had three sons and four daughters. Their daughter Sarah married James Warriner, see Myrtie Bisbee Chart 2.5 for genealogical chart.
The family's last name had been "Alford" in England. They were landowners in England and had many well-educated clerics in the family. Benedictus, Alexander and Joanna were siblings and were all early settlers in Windsor, CT. Alexander was born in England 15 Oct 1627, or at least baptized in Bridport, Dorset County at about that same date. His father Thomas Alford and mother Joan Hawkins married in 1618 near Whitestaunton Parish, County Somerset.
An old photo of Whitestaunton Parish, County Somerset in the Southwest part of England on the Bristol Channel. One of the many small hamlets within County Somerset is the village of Alford and it is likely that Alexander Alvord's ancestors came from this village.
Somerset stretches 30 miles east from the Bristol Channel and is the scene of much of the mythic history of England -- the place where King Arthur died, where the Romans fought their way into western Britain, where legend says the first Christian church was built in England and where King Alfred, first great king of England, defeated the Danes. In the words of poet Alfred Lord Tennyson:
"The island valley of Avelon
Where falls not hail or rain or any snow
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it is
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea."
From 1630-1650, it was the source of many immigrants to the New World. With both parents dead by 1636, the three Alford children were orphans at an early age. It is unclear exactly when they all came to New England -- some speculate that Benedict came to Windsor first, as he had a land grant in 1637 and was a soldier in the Pequot Indian War, then returned to England and brought his siblings back to Windsor.
There are a variety of land transactions recorded involving Alexander, which help establish his location at various times. These include a gift of 42 acres of woodland in about 1646 from his father-in-law "Richard Voar." This parcel was bordered by one owned by Bissell 10th Great-grandfather Thomas Bascomb. On another occasion, in 1653, Alexander and a neighbor who was also a Bissell 10th Great-grandfather, John Strong, granted an easement for a roadway to go through their woods to Poquonock, a small area of houses that was on the outskirts of Windsor. He had a pew in the Windsor church, for which he paid 7s. He moved to Northampton, MA in 1661.
At a Northampton town meeting 20 Feb 1661, he was approved for a land grant from the town in an area called "the Little Rainbow." It abutted property owned by Samuel Wright, Jr. It appears from the Northampton land records that Thomas Bascomb also moved to Northampton, as he again ended up with property bordering that of Alvord. Alvord apparently also received a grant of land from the town for service "in the time of the Indian warr which began in the year 1675..."
Jeffrey Baker and Joan Rockwell
According to The Ricker Collection of Vital Records of Early Connecticut, published in 2006, Jeffrey Baker's birth date is unknown. In 1642, Jeffrey Baker bought Thomas Ford's house and lot. He had another lot granted him west of the roadway in Windsor. [These two lots may be the ones on the Plan noted above, Baker's name across the road from Ford's lot.] Baker married William Rockwell's daughter Joan (often spelled Jone) the same year, on 25 Nov 1642 in Windsor. They had two sons and three daughters. See Mercy Ann Searle Chart 3.2 -- Hepzibah Baker.
Joan Rockwell was baptized 25 Apr 1625 in Dorchester, Dorset, England, the oldest child of Deacon William Rockwell and Susanna Capen. Baker died 7 Jul 1665 in Windsor, CT. Joan then married Richard Ingraham 10 Dec 1668. They had no children. Joan died 16 Sep 1683 in Northampton, MA. Joan and Jeffrey's daughter Hepzibah, the Bissell ancestor, and her husband Eltweed Pomeroy (they were probably married in Windsor) lived in Northampton, MA and had ten children.
Thomas Bascomb and Avis
Thomas Bascomb was probably born about 1605 in Fordington, Dorset, England, the date estimated in The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-35 by the date of his marriage. His wife was Avis, last name unknown. She died at Northampton 3 Feb 1676 (listed in that record as "Advice Bascombe, wife of Thomas Bascombe Senior."). They are Bissell 3G generation 10th Great-grandparents.
Painting by Sidney King, courtesy of Colonial National Historic Park in Jamestown, Virginia. This shows what a colonial-era brickmaker's work yard would have looked like.
The Windsor Historical Society has determined that Thomas' principal occupation, at least in Windsor, was as a brick and stone mason. There were some brick houses being built during the lifetimes of these early settlers in Windsor (some of the Bissell sons homes among them and still in Windsor today). I don't know if Thomas Bascomb was a person who made bricks as well as being a mason, but it is known that from its earliest days, Windsor became a center for brick-making as well as for tobacco growing, beginning in 1640, and for woodworking, which began from the time Windsor was founded. According to the website ConnecticutHistory.org, the discovery of a deposit of clay, approximately two-to-five miles wide, running from modern-day Wethersfield to Windsor Locks, helped facilitate brick construction in the colonies. The Connecticut brick industry started in Hartford in 1635 but made its way to Windsor before 1675. Windsor’s rich clay deposits, when mixed with water and sand, produced high-quality bricks that supported the local industry.
“Thomas Biscomb” is listed as a passenger on the ship Recovery of London, which sailed from Weymouth, England on 31 Mar 1633/4. He was granted 4 acres at Dorchester, MA on 16 Nov 1634 as “Thom: Haskecombe”. He is recorded as being on the First Settlers of Dorchester. He was also recorded in the 1640 Town Records at Windsor in the list of “First Settlers of Windsor, five years after their removal from Dorchester.” Their daughter Abigail was born in Windsor, baptized there 7 June 1640. Abigail was married on 2 Dec. 1656 to John Ingersol. Thomas removed to Northampton about 1661. He was admitted to the full communion of the church at Northampton 14 Jul 1661. He was elected Town Constable there in 1666 and made freeman in 1670. He died there 9 May 1682.
In his will, dated 8 July 1679 and proved 26 September 1682, it provides in part "Thomas Bascom Sen[io]r of Northampton" bequeathed to "my son THomas all my lands of all sorts tgether with my house, orchard & Barn," also "my cartwheels, plough, chains & all other husbandry implements & mason tools" and other moveables; to "my son William Janes ... my cloth suit"; to "my son Robert Lymon my serge coate"; residue to be divided euqally "between my children, viz: my son Thomas Bascom, Hannah Janes & Hephzibah Limon"; "my son Thomas Bascom" to be executor and "my wellbeloved & trusty friends Deacon William Holton & Deacon Medad Pumry" to be overseers."
John Bissell, 9th Great-grandfather, probably arrived in Windsor in 1639 or 1640. His son and Bissell 8th Great-grandfather Nathaniel Bissell was born of record in Windsor in September 1640. The picture at the right is the house John Bissell built on the east side of the Connecticut River and from which he and his sons operated the only ferry across the river. The Bissell family operated the ferry for more than 100 years. There's much, much more information about Captain John Bissell elsewhere on this web page, including the notes in John Adams' diaries about visits to the Bissell Inn in 1770.
Thomas Cooper is listed in the Windsor founder's occupation list as servant and carpenter. Thomas Cooper sailed from London on the Christian, March 16, 1634/35, at the age of 18. He was apprenticed to carpenter Francis Stiles, 35, who had been hired by London investors, including Sir Richard Saltonstall, to establish a plantation in Connecticut. Once in America, the Stiles party made its way to Windsor, CT. where the chosen site for the new plantation was found to be claimed by Plymouth Colony settlers as well as by freelance squatters from Dorchester, Mass., the group that contained so many Bissell Great-grandparents.
An example of the earliest homes built by the first settlers in New England in the 1620's and after.
Much more information about Thomas and Sarah Cooper is in the Settlers of Springfield section of this website. Reference Information about them is in the Ancestors A - L section of this website. Cooper was recruited by William Pynchon to move to Springfield, Mass. to be part of the settlement established there. Cooper appears in Springfield in about 1641, probably the year he married Sarah Slye. Thomas and Sarah are the 3G Generation’s 10th Great-grandparents.
Thomas and Frances Dewey
Thomas Dewey was born in Sandwich, Kent, England in 1603. He died 27 April 1648 in Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut, at 44 years of age. He was buried in Windsor. He married Frances Randall in Windsor 22 March 1639. Frances was born about 1615. After Thomas died in 1648, she married George Phelps 30 November 1648. Frances died September 27, 1690 in Westfield, Hampden, Massachusetts, at 75 years of age. Thomas Dewey and Frances had five children, including Bissell ancestor Anna Dewey, who was born in Windsor 15 October 1643. (Note that Anna's older brother Thomas Dewey II, married Constant Hawes, daughter of Richard and Ann Hawes of Windsor and sister of Bissell 8th Great-grandmother Deliverance Hawes Rockwell Warner Bissell. More on the Deliverance Hawes connection to the Bissells at __.) Most of this information about Thomas Dewey comes from the
http://josfamilyhistory.com/htm/nickel/griffin/sheldon/noble/noble-dewey.htm#tom1 website, the official website of the Saemann-Nickel and Related Families.
Thomas was apparently a dissenter from the prevailing religious rules in Kent, England and came to Dorchester, MA by 1633 and settled with the group associated with Rev. John Warham. Dorchester town records tell that Dorchester was founded when the Dorchester Company ship the Mary & John arrived at Mattapan in 1630. All 140 passengers settled in the area that was renamed Dorchester in September 1630. Dorchester was the site of the first town meeting in America, in 1633.
Thomas was in the Massachusetts Bay area some time before September 1633, for he was a witness in Court, on 3 September 1633, to the will of John Russell, merchant, at Dorchester, Massachusetts. He signed, "Tho. Deawy, O, his mark". The Dorchester Town Records list all the grantees of Dorchester lands prior to January 1636 and contains the names of all the first settlers. Early land records in Dorchester provide two examples of how land was allocated in 1634 and 1635:
"Dec. 1st, 1634. It is ordered that Rodger Clapp, John Hulls, Geo. Phillips, William Hubbard, Stephen French, John Haydon, shall have 8 acres apiece in Roxbury bounds, betwixt the two market Trees, to begin at [the] end which they shall agree off; to go in 40 Rod from the bound of the fresh Marshes are to be excepted from these lots. Mr. Hathorne to have 12 acres, Nicholas Upsall to –, Thomas Duee to have 8 acres with them, Richard Callecott to have 14 acres. Mr. Richards, Richard Callecott, Thom. Holcomb, Thom. Duee are to cast their lotts together next to those above named. Its ordered that all these shall fence in the lotts agaynst the next spring or to leave them to such as will so doe.
"July 5th, 1635. It was granted that Thomas Duee shall have 2 acres of mowing ground, neere the Fresh Marsh, which he hath formerly mowen, in satisfaction for an acre of ground, which he left in common at his house.
Dewey sold this land at the end of that summer as he prepared to move to Windsor.
Thomas Dewey received five different parcels of land granted by the town and recorded in February 1640. These included a seven acre home lot just north of the Palisado and running down to the river, acres in the Great Meadow and a substantial lot for planting on the east side of the Connecticut River, running 3 miles east from the river. He also purchased land, including a parcel from Eltweed Pomeroy. He had jury duty a number of times between 1642 and 1647. He died in April 1648.
This Plimoth Plantation home gives a good idea of what some of the earliest homes in Windsor, CT -- built only 15 or 20 years after the settlers landed at Plymouth in 1620 -- might have looked like on the inside.
INVENTORY OF THE ESTATE THOMAS DEWEY I
Westfield, Massachusetts May 19th, 1648
£ S. D.
One howse and barne Wth the home lott, in quantity about one
acre & quarter, to the foot of the hill. 40 00 00
one prcell of meadow adioyneing thereunto, about 7 acres 20 00 00
another prcell in the great meadow 4 acres & one quarter 13 00 00
another prcell in the great meadow 3 acres & one quafter 10 00 00
another prcell in the great meadow abut 5 acres, 8 rodde& halfe 15 00 00
two prcells of vpland about 29 ac. & halfe 20 00 00
one yoake of oxen 15 00 00
two mares & a colt 18 10 00
two cowes and on young beast 12 00 00
one soue & two piggs, 1 0 0; Ite: 2 stocks of bees, 2 10 00 3 10 00
5 acres of corne vppon the grond 05 00 00
7 other acres of corne vpon the grond 05 00 00
in bedding, bedsteed and lyning 09 10 00
his weareing cloathes, 5 10 0; Ite: pewter, 1 8 0 06 18 00
a chest, a boxe, a cubberd 00 11 00
one fowleing peece, suord, pouder & bullits 01 15 00
Wedges, & betle rings, 0 4 0; Ite: axes, spads & other tools, 1 10 0 01 14 00
pots kettells of brass & iron 07 00 00
hempe & flax, 1 £; Ite: a saddle & pillion, 1£ 4s 02 04 00
meal, trow, tables, payles & small things 02 01 00
a table board, 0 6 0; a syth, 0 5 0 00 11 00
part in a sawe & shott mold 00 06 00
a cart, plowe, harowe, howes and other things 03 10 00
Som £213 00 00
The estate was distributed by the Court on 17 October 1648:
-
To his Relict [widow] – £60
-
To his eldest sonne by name Thomas Dewy – £30
-
And to the other five children £20 a piece – £100
“The daughters portion of £20 to bee paid her at the age of 18 yeares, and the severall sonns portions to bee pd. to them at the age of 21 yeares; the Relict giving in suffitient security to the children before her marriage againe for theire severall portions.” Provision was made for the childrens’ portions at the court on 6 June 1650. Various distributions of land were made later.
Thomas Ford & Elizabeth Chard
Thomas Ford, Bissell 3G 11th Great-grandfather, was a "First Settler" of Dorchester, MA, having arrived in the Mary and John in 1630. Thomas Ford's exact origins are unknown; it's likely he was from Bridport, England, which is in Dorset. On December 13, 1610, Thomas married Joan Way in the village of Powerstock in Dorset; she died in May 1615. He married a second wife, Elizabeth Chard, widow of Aaron Cooke, on June 19, 1616 in Bridport. (Due to this marriage, children of Thomas and Elizabeth were half-brothers and half-sisters to the son of Aaron and Elizabeth.) Between 1617 and 1629, Thomas and Elizabeth had five children — four daughters and a son who died as an infant. Elizabeth also had a son from her first marriage.
In 1623, Thomas was living in Dorchester, England. He was a member of Holy Trinity Church, whose pastor was Reverend John White, a key organizer for the Puritan migration to America (he recruited settlers from various places in the south of England even though he himself never went). A meeting was held on October 15, 1629, "at the Deputyes House." Twenty-five members of the council which financed the planters were there and "Mr. Ford with divers others of the genalitie." The meeting was to discuss a plan where the settlers would trade in furs in order to reimburse the financial backers. The idea was to provide furs for their first seven years in New England, something that was apparently never carried out.
As noted in James Holcombe's history of early Windsor, from their first arrival aboard the Mayflower in 1620 through 1629, only about 300 Puritans had survived in New England, scattered in several small and isolated settlements. In 1630, their population was significantly increased when the ship Mary and John arrived in New England carrying 140 passengers from the English West Country counties of Dorset, Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. These included several families first settling Windsor, including Ford, William Phelps and others. It was one of the first of eleven ships that year, later called the Winthrop Fleet, to land in Massachusetts. Between 1630 and 1640, approximately 20,000 colonists came from England to New England, most of them families with some education, leading relatively prosperous lives.
The first ship sent over was the Mary and John, and Thomas was on board with his family. The passage was £5 for each adult, £10 per horse and £3 per ton of freight. The ship landed on a strand of beach just outside of Boston harbor called Nantasket, and the passengers had to find another boat to take them the rest of the way. The place they finally settled became the town of Dorchester, Massachusetts. Thomas became a freeman in Dorchester on May 18, 1631. Within a few years, he moved on to the new settlement of Windsor, Connecticut. He was one of four men who purchased a large tract of land from the Indians. In 1637, he was also granted fifty acres in Simsbury. While living in Windsor, he was representative to the General Court in 1637-1640. Thomas' wife Elizabeth died on April 18, 1643 at Windsor.
(Sources for this information on Thomas Ford include ancestorbios.blogspot.com and from there additional information from: The history of the descendants of Elder John Strong, of Northampton, Mass., Benjamin Woodbridge Dwight, 1871; The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Robert Charles Anderson, 1995; The Memoirs of Roger Clap, 1731; and Lymanites.org – The Lyman Family website.)
Thomas Ford married his third wife, Ann Scott, the widow of Thomas Scott, on November 7, 1644. Elizabeth and Thomas had a daughter together. In 1645, Thomas moved to Hartford and established a tavern in the house of his wife's former husband; it was located on the southwest corner of State and Front Streets. He sold the tavern in 1652. From the Hartford Courant newspaper, there is this bit of history about Ford's Tavern:
This is a drawing of a tavern that was located in Boston early in New England's history. While probably larger than the tavern that was operated by Thomas Ford in Hartford, it at least gives some idea of what Ford's Tavern in Hartford might have looked like.
"The harsh, strait-laced image of the Puritans notwithstanding, public taverns were such an important part of the life of 17th-century Connecticut that Colonial towns were required by law to have them.
In fact, the only places approved outside the home in those days were the tavern, full of warm and informal camaraderie, and the Congregational church, bound by rigid formality and discipline. In 1644, the General Court, sitting in Hartford, ordered the towns to pick ``one sufficient inhabitant to keep an Ordynary, for provision and lodging, in some comfortable manner that such passengers or strayngers may know where to resort. . . .'' (Ordynary, or Ordinary, meant a tavern or eating house that served drinks as well as regular meals at a fixed price to all.)
In 1644, the General Court, sitting in Hartford, ordered the towns to pick ``one sufficient inhabitant to keep an Ordynary, for provision and lodging, in some comfortable manner that such passengers or strayngers may know where to resort. . . .'' (Ordynary, or Ordinary, meant a tavern or eating house that served drinks as well as regular meals at a fixed price to all.)
Connecticut's first such public house for the refreshment of the locals and the comfort and entertainment of travelers was opened in Hartford in 1645 by Thomas Ford.
A few months later, John Sadler's residence in Wethersfield was approved as the second Ordinary. Both Ford's and Sadler's taverns pulled in such a crowd in those first years that the General Court limited patrons' time at the bar to half an hour in 1647. Three years later, the legislators banned two men by name from the premises and held the innkeepers responsible for the drunkenness of all their clients."
By 1655, Thomas was a constable back at Windsor. Thomas and Ann moved to Northampton, Massachusetts in 1659. She died there on May 5, 1676. Thomas died later that year on November 28th. He was buried at Bridge Street Cemetery in Northampton. Famous descendants of Thomas Ford include Jedediah Strong Smith, First Lady Lucy Hayes, Princess Diana, Nathan Hale, Bess Truman, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover Cleveland, Frederick Remington, O. Henry, Patricia Arquette, Cliff Arquette, Glenn Close, Dorothy Gish, Lillian Gish, Sarah Palin, Lee Meriwether, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Shirley Temple and Mike Huckabee. The daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth who is the Bissell ancestor was Abigail Ford, b. 8 Oct 1619 in Bridport, England. Abigail married John Strong (Abt. 1610-1699) before 1637. She died 6 Jul 1688 in Dorchester, MA.
Edward Griswold and Margaret
Edward Griswold was an attorney, was involved with the legislature in early Connecticut and according to the Windsor Historical Society was a also a woodworker.
He was born circa 1607 at England. He was the son of George Griswold and Dousabel Leigh. Edward Griswold was baptized on 26 July 1607 at Wooten Wawen, Warwickshire, England. He married Margaret (?) circa 1628 at England. He apparently was in Windsor, CT by 1640.
He may have come to Connecticut with George Fenwick (step Great-grandmother Elizabeth Fenwick Day's brother), the founder of Saybrook, CT and involved with administration of a large grant of land (the Warwick Patent) in southern Connecticut. Griswold may have been one of the legal representatives of those merchants and Lords in England administering this grant.
By 1649, Griswold had a grant of land in Poquonoc, a few miles north of the Palisado, and along with a few other families developed a small settlement. His house was on a knoll overlooking Stony Brook on the west and the Tunxis River on the south and east.
As noted on the website GreatMigration.org, "Motivated primarily by religious concerns, most Great Migration colonists traveled to Massachusetts in family groups. In fact, the proportion of Great Migration immigrants who traveled in family groups is the highest in American immigrant history. Consequently, New England retained a normal, multi-generational structure with relatively equal numbers of men and women. At the time they left England, many husbands and wives were in their thirties and had three or more children, with more yet to be born...Great Migration colonists shared other distinctive characteristics. New Englanders had a high level of literacy, perhaps nearly twice that of England as a whole. New Englanders were highly skilled; more than half of the settlers had been artisans or craftsmen. Only about seventeen percent came as servants, mostly as members of a household...Unlike colonists of other regions, the Great Migration colonists were primarily middle class, and few were rich or poor. English emigrants primarily in search of economic betterment were unlikely to settle in the Massachusetts Bay Colony; the potential rewards were not great. Similarly, those already rich saw little opportunity to increase their wealth in a harsh region with no obvious cash crop. Emigrants seeking to realize the greatest economic opportunity would choose to go elsewhere, in effect excluding from New England those who placed material concerns first. The result of this exclusion was a remarkably homogeneous population, with colonists sharing similar backgrounds, outlooks, and perspectives."
In 1650, Griswold was involved in building what became known as "the Old Fort" for William Pynchon, the founder of Springfield, MA. He represented Windsor in the General Court of Connecticut from about 1658-1661. He was a Justice of the Peace in Windsor and a deacon of the church. Griswold was also a juror in at least two witch trials which resulted in the hangings of two married couples convicted of being witches.
In May of 1663, the Colonial Assembly gave a group of men the right to settle on the land between the Hammonassett and Menunketesuck Rivers, 32,000 acres located between the New Haven Colony to the west, and Saybrook and the Connecticut Colony to the east. They needed thirty initial settlers, and the assembly required them to make provisions for a church. Griswold and his younger children moved to this new settlement in 1663, deeding his Windsor property (while keeping a small lifetime annuity from the property for himself) to his older sons George and Joseph. In 1667 the name of the settlement was changed from Killingworth to Kenilworth (Griswold's hometown in England). In the 1800s, the name of the southern half of the town was changed to what it is today, Clinton, Connecticut. Griswold continued to be active in government, representing his new town to the colony's government until 1689. He was a leader in his town, in his church and in the Connecticut Colony. In 1678 when the County Court appointed a committee to see what could be done toward a Latin School at New London, Griswold represented Killingworth among seven towns selected to develop the school.
Land records in the Connecticut Secretary of State's office show land grants in favor of Edward Griswold, the principal ones being 200 acres and 100 acres given by the town of Killingworth. He was a large land holder. The land he was granted at Poquonoc had 20 and a half acres. He died in 1690. He is a Bissell 3G 10th Great-grandfather, his son George the 9th Great-grandfather.
William Hannum and Honor Capen
An interesting sketch of William Hannum by Robert Charles Anderson, the leading genealogist of the New England colonial immigrants, makes the point that Hannum was not as active in civic affairs as most immigrants to the New World. The vast majority of immigrants, he says, were neither extremely wealthy nor extremely poor. Most were in the middle ranges of the social strata, many practicing trades and most who did not being styled yeomen or husbandmen, reflecting their status in England as comfortable farmers who tilled a substantial amount of land. In New England, most married and had a number of children. They were given substantial grants of land, in most instances far more than they had held in old England. They joined the church and were made freemen. They were frequently called to hold office, whether as jurymen, constables or selectmen.
Anderson notes that Hannum first appeared in Dorchester records late in 1635. He probably purchased his house lot, and sold his land and moved to Windsor in 1637. With his wife Honor Capen he had six children between 1637 and 1647. Very few public records mentioning Hannum are found. He apparently never held any public office; he only went before the Court once, to petition to be released from military training in 1661; there is no record he was a freeman or that he was a member of a church. The only record of him is his testimony in the 1656 Mary Parsons witchcraft trial, noted below.
I
The image above is the testimony of Honor Capen Hannum and William Hannum offered as evidence in the August 1656 trial that Mary Parsons was a witch. There is complete information about Mary Parsons' trials at The Goody Parsons Witchcraft Case.
In comparing Hannum with another immigrant, William Hatch who was much more active in the public record, Anderson says, "William Hatch and William Hannum were in many respects typical New England immigrants of the Great Migration, but their personalities could not have been more difficult...Hannum apparently made every effort to avoid conflict with his neighbors and, on the one occasion when he did become involved in a dispute [the Parsons trial], made it very clear that he would rather not be."
The details about the Mary Parsons witchcraft lawsuits are from the Northampton, MA "Historic Northampton Museum and Education Center" website on the trial that resulted from Mary Parsons suing Sarah Bridgman for slander, based on Bridgman's accusations that Parsons was a witch. The case put on by Bridgman in defense of the slander claim against her was simply that, in fact, Parsons was a witch.
"Chief among her [Mary Parsons'] offenses is the death of William Hannum's cow. William Hannum testified that,
"Mary came to my house about the yarn that she missed and then we had a falling out about it and some discontented words passed on both sides: this was in an evening, and as I take it in March last and that evening all my Cattle were well for ought I could see by them, the next morning One cow lay in my yard, ready to die as I thought: which when I had considered I endeavored to get her up and at length got her to stand: but she languished away and died about a fortnight after, though I took great care night and day to save her, giving her wholesome drinks eggs etc. and this Cow being young was hefty before this very time."
Such accusations, indicating that Mary was responsible for damage to livestock and property, appear frequently in the record, and were intended to "prove" that Mary was involved in witchcraft.
Thomas Holcombe and Elizabeth
There is substantial information about Thomas Holcombe and his wife Elizabeth, Bissell 10th Great-grandparents, in The Great Migration Begins, v. 2 at p. 964-67. His date of birth is estimated at 1609, based on the date of his marriage; Elizabeth was born in 1617, based on a record of her age in 1669 being 52.
Holcombe arrived in Dorchester, MA in 1633. He was made a freeman 14 May 1634.
This drawing of Thomas Holcombe’s original house in Poquonock, near Windsor, CT, is thought to have been created in the 1840s. Holcombe was on this land (spelled "Paquannick" in the Windsor land record) by 1640.
He owned books and so is presumed to have had some education. His first two children were born in Dorchester, then eight born in Windsor.
Thomas and Elizabeth came to Windsor by 1636. He had been granted an eight acre Great Lot at Dorchester 1 Dec 1634. He sold 21 acres in Dorchester, including houses, in August 1635 when moving to Windsor. In Windsor, his first house lot (likely granted in 1636) was directly on the west bank of the Connecticut River, between the lots of Thomas Gunn and Philip Randall. By 1649 (and perhaps as early as 1640) at Poquonock he had twenty acres for homelot and meadow (located next to George Griswold's, near Indian Neck and Stony Brook), along with many more acres of meadow and woodlands adjoining. At his death 7 Sep 1657, he owned 11 acres in home lot and orchard, 4 acres adjoining the home lot, 22 acres of meadow, 83 acres of woodland and in an area called Tinker's Farm or Tinker's Swamp (jointly purchased with Edward Griswold) 80 acres and a barn. At the time of his death, his youngest son was 9, his youngest daughter 6. Elizabeth died 7 Oct 1679 in either Windsor or Simsbury.
The Bissell 9th Great-grandmother, Mary Holcombe, was born about 1635 or 1636 in Dorchester. She married George Griswold 3 Oct 1655 in Windsor and died in Windsor 4 Apr 1708.
Holcombe apparently was a representative from Windsor in the early governance of the Connecticut colony (still under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Colony) and likely was an active participant in the January 14, 1639 general meeting at Hartford at which the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut were written and adopted.
Some of the information about Thomas Holcombe comes from Descendants of The Founders of Ancient Windsor Through Five Generations, The Family of Thomas Holcombe, compiled by James Hallowell Holcombe, Jr., 2006.
Joseph Loomis and Mary White
Joseph Loomis, his wife Mary White and their five sons and three daughters sailed to the New World on the Susan and Ellen from London 11 April 1638, landing in Boston 17 July 1638. They built a home on the Farmington River in Windsor in 1640 which still stands today. Joseph was active in community affairs. Joseph and Mary are Bissell 3G generation 10th Great-grandparents.
The Loomis House in Windsor was first built in 1640 by Joseph Loomis. The post-card drawing above and the 2014 photo below both show the original part, the smaller "ell" off to the right-hand side of what later was built as the main part of the house. This house is one of the oldest timber frame houses in America and is pre-dated by only two or three years by a few other New England homes. It is the oldest timber frame home in Connecticut. The original smaller part obviously has its own fireplaces and chimney and was two stories in the classic New England colonial "salt box" style, with apparently a small attic (note the small window at the very top of the "ell"). The larger main portion was built in 1688 by Great-Uncle Deacon John Loomis, grandson of Joseph Loomis, Sr. and son of Bissell 9th Great-grandfather Joseph Loomis, Jr. (born about 1615 in Messing, England) and brother of 8th Great-grandfather Stephen Loomis. There is some thought that the very first shelter built by Joseph Loomis, Sr. in 1639 may have been a dug-out cabin which has recently been excavated near the Loomis Homestead house, but in any event the oldest portion of this Homestead house dates from the 1640s.
Joseph, Sr. was born probably before 1590 at Braintree, in Essex county, England and died in Windsor Connecticut on 25 Nov 1658. He married, on 30 June 1614, Mary White at Saint Michael's church in Messing (the parish church of Shalford?), a small village near Braintree, County Essex, England. Mary was baptized on August 24, 1590, at Shalford, England (only a few miles from Braintree), daughter of Robert and Bridget (Allgar) White, of Messing. She died on 23 Aug 1652 at Windsor, Hartford County, Connecticut.
Joseph Loomis, Jr., born 1 Mar 1614/15 in Braintree, England, acquired his own land from the town 3 July 1643, in the amount of four acres, adjacent to his father's land. He also later purchased land on the east side of the Connecticut River (where most of the Bissells had settled). He married his second wife, Bissell 9th Great-grandmother Mary Chauncey, on 28 June 1659. Their son Stephen was born 1 Sep 1668. Joseph Loomis, Jr. was made a freeman in 1654. He is recorded as having contributed to the Connecticut Relief Fund for the Poor of Other Colonies in 1676. He was a member of the Windsor Troop of Horse in King Phillip's War in 1675-76 and was granted payment on account of his service.
Joseph Loomis, Senior, was a woolen merchant (often called a "woolen draper") in England before becoming to America. Tax records in England in the 1620s and 1630s suggest he was a prosperous man, a merchant engaged in the purchase of cloth from the many weavers who wove on hand looms in their cottage homes. (His father-in-law, Robert White, was also apparently well-to-do, as he left substantial bequests of money in his will.) Joseph had a store in Braintree, Essex, Eng., (northeast of London) stocked with cloths and other goods which a draper usually dealt in. These products he sold both wholesale and retail to tailors and consumers in general. Many weavers from Flanders, what is today the Dutch-speaking area of northern Belgium, had settled in the Braintree area in the 1500s and it was a center of cloth manufacturing. One source suggests that the original spelling of the Loomis name was probably LOOMYS (and in one source Lummys) and that Joseph was probably of Dutch ancestry.
Joseph Loomis was a representative from Windsor to the Connecticut Courts in 1643. The other early notation of him in the Windsor records is the admission of his oldest son John to the church in Windsor 11 Oct 1640.
Most of this information about the Loomis family is from the "JosFamilyHistory.com" website, and is based on several primary references including:
Loomis, Elias. The Descendants of Joseph Loomis in America and his Antecedents in the Old World (New Haven, CT: Tuttle, Morehouse and Taylor, 1875 and published by the author, 1909) pp. 25-26;
Gary Boyd Roberts. 1995. Ancestors of American Presidents. New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, pp. 28, 240;
Albert D. Hart, Jr., "Loomis Family Genealogy." Home Page: Our Folk at http//www.renderplus.com/hartgen/htm/loomis.htm; and
Rothery, Deborah. Our Family Tree (Portand, Ore.: typescript 1990) p. 71.
The Loomis family likely arrived in Windsor with the Rev. Ephraim Huet party on 17 Aug 1639. He received on the 2nd of February 1640 from the Connecticut Plantation, 21 acres adjoining the Farmington River, on the west side (Town Records, Vol. 1). Located on a slight elevation above a bend of the Farmington River, the Loomis family homestead was built on land called the “Island” near the mouth of the Farmington River, so called because at every heavy rain it became temporarily an island by the overflowing of the Connecticut River.
The lawns of the Loomis House today, at the bend in the Farmington River near where it joins the Connecticut River.
The house is preserved on the grounds of the The Loomis Chaffee School, 4 Batchelder Road, in Windsor, Connecticut. It was on this piece of land that the Plymouth Colony trading post had been established by Capt. William Holmes in 1633, the first permanent English settlement in Connecticut.
Deacon John Moore
According to The Great Migration Begins, John Moore arrived in Dorchester in 1630. He was recorded there as being made a freeman 18 May 1631 and was a witness to a document in 1633. His birth date is estimated as 1603 based on the date of his marriage in about 1628. He was a leading woodworker in Windsor and a church deacon there. See more about his woodworking activities at the Woodworkers of Windsor.
John Moore is listed as "probable" to have arrived in Dorchester on the Mary and John in 1630. He was probably the brother of a Thomas Moore who was in Dorchester (and who was also a witness to the 1633 document) and who had parcels of land in Windsor adjacent to those of John Moore. John and Thomas were admitted as freemen in Dorchester on 18 May 1631. Moore's wife was "Abigail" but we know nothing else of her family. Moore was a "fence viewer" in Dorchester in 1634 and again in 1636/7. He was a selectman in Dorchester 8 Nov 1637.
Moore moved to Windsor about 1638 and in the Windsor land inventory of 24 Feb 1640/41, Moore held parcels by grant from the town of a six-acre homelot; 36 acres "towards Hartford"; land across the "Great River" "seven rods by three miles in length"; three acres in the "Plimoth meadow" and several more acres in the Great Meadow; 30 acres in the woods; and another five acres west of his house.
Moore was a Deputy from Windsor to the Connecticut General Court for many years, first in September 1653 and then every year from 1661 through 1677. He died 18 Sep 1677 and left the bulk of his property to his son John, with the remainder divided equally between his four daughters. His daughter Abigail married Great Uncle Thomas Bissell 11 Oct 1655 and seven years later his daughter (and 8th Great-grandmother) Mindwell Moore married Nathaniel Bissell on 25 Sep 1662.
William Phelps and Ann Dover
Most of the information here about William Phelps comes from www.phelpsfamilyhistory.com.
William Phelps, Bissell 11th Great-grandfather, was born about 1600 and came from Crewkerne in Somerset, England, a town in existence since before the Norman Conquest in 1066. He came on the Mary and John, departing London in March 1633/34 at age 35 with his wife Ann Dover, 33, and children William, Jr., 11; Samuel, 10; Nathaniel, 5; and Joseph, 1.
In 1634 in Dorchester, he was involved in helping settle a boundary dispute between Dorchester and Boston. From Dorchester records it is noted, "William Phelps, one of the earliest settlers of Dorchester, and among the first grantees of land ; applied for freemanship, October, 1630; one of the first selectmen in 1633; Deputy with Stoughton and Hull in 1634. He removed to Windsor in 1636, and was member of the first Court of Magistrates in Connecticut."
Phelps was made a Freeman in Dorchester. Besides the right to vote, freemen enjoyed advantages in the division of the lands ; and before the representative system commenced, they were all members of the General Court. The principal qualification for this privilege seems to have been church membership. The names of the first twenty- four Dorchester freemen included William Phelps, Thomas Ford and William Rockwell.
In October, 1633, the following order passed, with Dorchester being the first town in New England to establish the form of town goverment. The leaders of this town were the first New England "Selectmen." This act acquires historical importance from the fact that the example was followed the next year by the other settlements, and led to the law of the General Court, passed in 1636 and regulating town governments, which continued in force.
"MONDAY, OCT. 8, 1633. Imprimis It is ordered that for the general good and well ordering of the affairs of the plantation, there shall be every Monday before the Court, by 8 o clock A. M., and presently by the beating of the drum, a general meeting of the inhabitants of the plantation at the meeting house, there to settle and set down such orders as may tend to the general good as aforesaid, and every man to be bound thereby, without gainsaying or resistance. It is also agreed that there shall be twelve men selected out of the company, that may, or the greatest part of them, meet as aforesaid to determine as aforesaid; yet so far as it is desired that the most of the plantation will keep the meeting constantly, and all that are there, though not of the twelve, shall have a free voice as any of the twelve, and that the greater vote both of the twelve and the other shall be of force and efficacy as aforesaid. And it is likewise ordered, that all things concluded as aforesaid shall stand in force and be obeyed until the next monthly meeting, and afterwards if it be not contradicted and otherwise ordered at said monthly meeting by the greatest vote of those that are present as aforesaid."
The names of only seven persons selected to be in the smaller group are recorded and three of those names are Bissell ancestors: William Phelps, Thomas Ford and Eltweed Pomeroy.
William Phelps was also one of seven men named a few years later to a commission by the Massachusetts Company (the company that initially governed the New England colonies, including the areas that today are Rhode Island and Connecticut) to govern the new colony of several towns along the Connecticut River when they were founded. [Note that Great-grandfather and founder of Hartford, CT Andrew Warner was also one of these seven.] This is a transcript of the original order, preserving most of the peculiarities of the language at that time:
"March 3rd, 1636
A Commission granted to seuall Persons to govern the people att Conecticott, for the space of a year, now next coming, an Exemplificacon whereof ensueth:
Whereas vpon some reason & grounds, there are to remove from this o' comonwealth & body of the Mattachusetts in America, dyv's of o' loveing ffriends, neighb's ffreemen & members of Newe Towne, Dorchester, Waterton, & other places, whoe are resolved to transplant themselues & their estates vnto the Ryver of Conecticott, there to reside & inhabiite, & to that end dyv's are there already dyv's others shortly to goe, wee, in this present Court assembled, on the behalfe of o' said Members & John Winthrop, Jun', Esq. Goner appoynted by certain noble personages & men of qualitie, interested in the said ryvr web. yet in England, on their behalfe, have had a serious consideracon there [on] & think it meete that 'where there are a people to sitt down & cohabite, there will followe, upon occaZon, some cause of difference, as also dyvers misdeameanrs web will require a speedy redresse; & in regard of the distance of place this state and goumt cannot take notice of the same as to apply timely remedy, or to dispence equall iustice to them, & their affaires, as may be desired; and in regard of the said noble psonages, and men of quallitie, have something ingaged themselves & their estates, in the planting of the said ryver & by vertue of a patient, doe require jurisdicion of the said place & people, & neither the mindes of the said psonages [they being writ unto] are as yet knowen, nor any manner of gount is yet agreed on, & there being a necesitie, as aforesaid, that some present goumt may be observed, wee therefore thinke mee[te] & soe order that Roger Ludlowe, Esqr., William Pinchon, Esq., John Steele, William Swaine, Henry Smythe, William Phelpes, William Westwood & Andrew Warde, or the greater pte of them, shall have full power and aucthoritie to hear and ...
... determine in a iudicial way, by witnesses vpon oathe examine, wth, [in] the said plantacon, all those differences, wch may arise between ptie and ptie, as also, upon mis-demeanr, to inflicte corporall punishmt, or imprisonmt, to ffine & levy the same if occacon soe require, to make & decree such orders, for the present, that may be for the peaceable & quiett ordering the affaires of the said plantacon, bothe in tradeing, planting, building, lotts, militarie dissipline, defensiue in warr [if neede so require], as shall best conduce to the publique good of the same, & that the said Rodger Ludlow, William Pinchon, John Steele, Will- Swaine, Henry Smyth, Will- Phelpes, William Westwood, and Andrew Warner, or the greatr pte of them shall have power, under the great' pte of their ha[nds] at a day or days, by them appoyncted, upon convenient not[ice], to convent the said inhabitant, of the said towns to any convenient place, that they shall think meete, in a leagall and open manner, by way of Court to pleede in execute[ing] the power and authoritu of aforesaide, and in case of presnt necessitie, two of them joyning to geather to inflict corporall punishmt, upon any offender, if they see good and warentable ground so to doe. Provided always that this commission shall not extend any longer time than one whole year, from the date there of, and in the-mean time it shall be lawful for this Cort, to recall the said psens if they see couse, and if soe be ther may be a mutuall, and settled govunt- condecended unto, by and with the good likeing and consent of the said noble psonages, or their agent, the inhabitants and the commonwealth, provided also, that this ma not be any prejudice to the interest of these noble personages in the sd. ryver and confined there of within their small lymitts.
Transcribed from The Phelps Family of America and Their English Ancestors, Two Volumes by Judge Oliver Seymour Phelps and Andrew T. Servin. (Eagle Publishing Company of Pittsfield, Mass., 1899) Original spelling and punctuation preserved. Vol. I, p 75-76.
According to the PhelpsFamilyHistory.com website, William's son Nathaniel, Bissell 10th Great-grandfather, was born in England about 1627. Nathaniel came to New England with his parents and their five other children, at the age of three, residing in Dorchester six years and then in Windsor where he grew to manhood and purchased, of his brother Samuel, the Orton place opposite his father's for his own occupation.
He married Mrs. Elizabeth "Eliza" Copley (born between 1620 and 1623) on September 17, 1650, in Windsor, CT. Mrs. Copley was married first to Thomas Copley, by whom she had at least two children. About 1654, Nathaniel made claim to a division of land in Northampton and shortly removed to the new settlement, with his wife and several children being among the earliest arrivals, although he paid slip rent in Windsor as late as Jan. 4, 1659.
Elizabeth (Griswold) Copley deserves special recognition. She was a young widow with two children when she came to Windsor, CT from England, probably in the late 1630's. She and her first husband Thomas Copley had two children born in England before he died in 1634. Her parents, Edward Griswold and his wife Margaret, and her sister Sarah had emigrated to America to Dorchester, MA and then to Windsor, CT in 1636. She presumably came to Windsor shortly after that. Her father Edward is the Bissell ancestor who settled in Windsor and is an ancestor of both Eunice Olcott and Mercy Ann Searle. Elizabeth's name is first mentioned in America on 17 Sep 1650 when she married Nathaniel Phelps (he was 26 years old) in Windsor. (His brother Samuel married Elizabeth's sister Sarah about two months later in 1650.)
Nathaniel was chosen Constable, being the first person in the town of Northampton actually elected to that important office, according to records available, serving after Robert Bartlett had officiated in that capacity. He signed the petition for a Minister and with his wife, signed the church covenant; served as tithing-man and was one of the first deacons, honored and respected by his fellow-men. With others, he contributed land for disposal for town needs and made a subscription to Harvard College, in 1673.
Deacon Nathaniel, his sons, Nathaniel, Jr. and William, were admitted as freemen, by the General Court at Boston, May 11, 1681, after having taken the Oath of Allegiance before Major Pynchon, on Feb. 8, 1679. Colonial records show that his wife, with several young women, was fined for indulging in vain and extravagant display.
In 1675 and 1676, King Philip's war was waged; and, from 1688 to 1698, the first French and Indian War was carried on, during the reign of the English Monarchs, William and Mary. Nathaniel, with the other pioneers, had to participate in the common defense against their enemies, especially in their desperate defense of Northampton, during the attack by Philip's men, March 14, 1676.
Perhaps add something here about the 1676 raid on Northampton during King Philip's War.
Eltweed Pomeroy and Margery Rockett
Eltweed Pomeroy was born in England, baptized in Beaminster, County Dorset, England on 4 Jul 1585. In 1629 Eltweed married Margery Mary Rockett. (There was also a Rockett family that arrived early in Dorchester, at the same time as Eltweed and Margery, and may have been her relatives.) Their first son Eldad was born at Plymouth, County Devon, England. The three are believed to have arrived in Dorchester, Ma in 1632.
He took the oath of freeman on 4 Mar 1632/33 in Dorchester, Suffolk County, Massachusetts. He was made a selectman of the Dorchester town government in 1633 and also served as a constable in Dorchester. Eltweed and Margery's children Mary and John were born at Dorchester. Eltweed was a blacksmith by trade.
Eltweed and his family moved with Mr. John Warham's congregation to Windsor, CT in 1638. The couple had five additional children all born at Windsor; Medad, Calib, Mary, Joshua and Joseph. He owned two houses, one in the Palisado and the other on the Sandstone Road after 1638 there. He sold Thomas Nowell a parcel of land and his home lot in the Palisado on 4 Aug 1641. His opinions must have been reasonably well respected, as he was chosen for his town to determine the price any weaver should receive for yarn on 3 Jun 1644. Margery is believed to have died in 1655 just 3 years after the birth of their youngest child Joseph. He lived with his son Medad in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1671. He died in Mar 1673 at the home of Medad at the age of 87. Tradition said Eltweed went blind and died 2 years after moving in with his son.
Pequot Indians had stolen and killed Eltweed's mare in Windsor. He came before the magistrates requesting help in restitution from the Pequotts on 11 Apr 1639. He was paid for the loss of the mare with wampum in the sum of Ten pounds on 4 Aug 1654. He was satisfied with the amount the Court allowed him. Wampum was used as currency by both the Indians and the English during this period. Eltweed
The information on Eltweed Pomeroy is from a Pomeroy family website, http://www.plefka.net/Family/Family78.htm
Some of this information about colonial blacksmiths is from glogster.com. A colonial-era blacksmith worked with iron to make and repair tools people needed for farming, household tasks and other trades. When roads were established, a smith also fixed carts and wagons. Other craftsmen greatly respected the blacksmith because they all depended on his work. Blacksmiths also made all kinds of household utensils and things like hinges, nails and door handles.
John Porter, Jr. and Anna "Rosanna" White
John Porter, Windsor Founder. Woodworker, juror, constable. IS THIS PORTER, JR. OR HIS FATHER???
See also Robert White and Bridget Allgar and their Four Daughters.
Philip Randall and Joane Fush
Philip Riley Randall was born in about 1590 (based on estimated date of marriage) at Allington, Bridport Parish, Dorset,England. He died 6 MAY 1662 in Windsor, CT. He married Joane Fush, born 1578 at DorsetEngland. Joane died24 AUG 1665 at Windsor,CT, at age 87. Philip's exact arrival date in New England is uncertain (he may have come on the Goodwin) but he was granted four acres of land in Dorchester, MA in August of 1633. This information is from The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633 by Robert Charles Anderson, who also notes that Randall moved to Windsor, CT in about 1636. He was definitely recorded as being in Windsor, CT by 1640. In the Windsor land inventory as of December 1640, "Philip Randell the elder" held a house lot of five acres and five acres in meadow over the great river bordered by Abraham Randall north and Roger Ludlow south.
The Windsor historical society lists him as a founder, noting that his trade was as a blacksmith and that he served in various civil offices in the community and was a juror in the court system. At his death, an inventory of his estate included "all his smith's tools for his trade."
Philip and Joane had several children. Their daughter Frances, Bissell 3G generation 10th Great-grandmother, first married someone whose last name was Clark (perhaps Joseph Clark). After his death, she married Thomas Dewey and it is their child Anna Deweywho is the Bissell ancestor. After Dewey died in 1648, Frances married George Phelps (who had been married to Frances' sister Philury, born in 1618, until Philury died, also in 1648.) Frances Randall was born about 1624 at Allington, Dorset, England and died 7 SEP 1690 at Westfield, MA. Frances and George Phelps had several children.
William Rockwell & Susanna Capen
William Rockwell (son of John Rockwell and Honor Newton and grandson of William Rockwell and Mary Wyke -- see Searle Chart 3.2) was born 1591 in Fitzhead, Somerset, England and died May 1640 in Windsor, CT. He married Susan Capen 14 April 1624 in Holy Trinity Church, Dorchester, England, daughter of Bernard Capen and Joan Purchase.
His grandfather William Rockwell was born 1543 in Fitzhead, Somerset, England, and died 1577 in Fitzhead, Somerset, England. He married Mary Marion Wyke 1562 in Fitzhead, England. His father John Rockwell was born 1560 in Fitzhead, England, and died February 1636/37 in Fitzhead, England. John married Honor Newton 19 July 1585 in Fitzhead, Somerset, England.
[While the following historical information is not confirmed, some genealogy says that "this family is said to trace its origin to Sir Ralph De Rocheville, one of the Norman knights accompanying the Empress Maude to England when she laid claim to that kingdom, and who finally joined Henry II, and received three knights of land in Co. York, upon which the family have since resided, their seat being at Rockwell Hall near Borough bridge in that county. Sir John Rockwell of this family is mentioned in English history as the rescuer of the Earl of Northumberland, and Lord Percy from the Earl Douglas's party at the Battle of Halidon Hill, in the reign of Henry IV."]
William was a church deacon in Windsor and his son John was a woodworker. He is listed on the ship's list as "certain" to have come on the Mary and John in 1630 at age 39 with wife Susanna Capen, 28, and children Joan, age 5 (b. 25 Apr 1625 in England); and John, age 2 (b. 18 Jul 1627 in England). Joan is the Bissell 10th Great-grandmother.
From the Dorchester, MA history, it notes that William Rockwell was made a freeman in 1630. He was the first deacon, with Mr. Gaylord, of the Dorchester Church and signed the first land grants of the plantation. He had land granted him near what is now Savin Hill in Dorchester on 27 June 1636 and by this it appears that he did not go to Windsor with the first Company in 1636. Another source ("Search For The Passengers of The Mary and John 1630; Volume 7, p. 111; The Mary and John Clearing House, Burton W. Spear; 1987 Toledo, OH) notes that William moved his family to Windsor, CT in 1637. The house he built was two miles from the dwellings of the other settlers. The frame had been raised before the family came, and they stayed with friends until the boards could be brought from the saw mill to cover the house. It was a one story house, with a large chimney in the center, and was for many years the place of entertainment and a place for all town and religious meetings of the infant settlement.
From Genealogies and Biographies of Ancient Windsor, at p. 646-650, it notes that The History of Dorchester, p. 17, speaks of William Rockwell in a list of "several gentlemen, past middle life, with adult families and good estates." He was a deacon in the church formed by Rev. Mr. Warham and his friends in the New Hospital at Plymouth, England in 1629 and which came over to Dorchester, MA in 1630. The website rockwell.org says that William was a yeoman (land-owning farmer) ; was one of the first three selectmen of Dorchester; was with Revs. Warham and Maverick, and his fellow deacon, William Gaylord, approved to lay out the first land grants at Dorchester; and was one of the 24 freemen who took the oath of fidelity 18 May 1631.
He was on the jury, 9 Nov 1630, of the first manslaughter case in the colony. This was the case against Walter Palmer, a resident of Salem, MA. According to the Walter Palmer Biography at www.walterpalmer.com,
On September 28, 1630 there was recorded a "Jury called to hold an inquest on the body of Austine Bratcher." It found "that the strokes given by Walter Palmer, were occasionally the means of the death of Austin Bratcher [his full name was Augustine Bratcher and he was a servant headed for work on the farm of a Matthew Craddock in Mystic, CT], and so to be manslaughter. Mr. Palmer made his psonall appearance this day (October 19, 1630) & stands bound, hee & his sureties, till the nexte court." At a court session of "a court of assistants, holden att Boston, November 9th 1630" numerous matters were taken up and disposed of, including the trial of Walter Palmer and one other item of interest: "it is ordered, that Rich. Diffy, servt. To Sr. Richard Saltonstall, shal be whipped for his misdemeanr toward his maister." "A Jury impannell for the tryall of Walter Palmer, concerning the death of Austin Bratcher: Mr. Edmond Lockwood, Rich: Morris, Willm Rockewell, Willm Balston, Christopher Conant, Willm Cheesebrough, Willm Phelpes, John Page, Willm Gallard, John Balshe, John Hoskins, Laurence Leach, /The jury findes Walter Palmer not quilty of manslaughter, whereof hee stoode indicted, & soe the court acquitts him." A story written and copyrighted in 1997 by Richard W. Bratcher notes that, "Thomas Fox, also a servant for Mr. Craddock claimed that the Court had taken bribes in the Bratcher case. He was punished by that same court in March of 1631."
Note that the jury also included Bissell Great-grandfather William Phelps.
He and Deacon Gaylord were appointed administrators on the estate of John Russell in Dept 1633; as a deacon of the church, he signed all acts and orders of the plantation prior to 1635. He had land granted to him at Dorchester near Savin Hill, 27 June 1636. In printed Town "Records of Dorchester" (pub 1880), p. 18 under date of 17 Dec. 1635, he is granted "half an acre of ground next to Mr. Stoughton's, neere the fish-house, to build him a house, with conditions that if he goe away and leave the Plantation, he leave the sayd house and ground to the Plantation in paying him the chardge."
He and Deacon Gaylord were appointed administrators on the estate of John Russell in Dept 1633; as a deacon of the church, he signed all acts and orders of the plantation prior to 1635. He had land granted to him at Dorchester near Savin Hill, 27 June 1636. In printed Town "Records of Dorchester" (pub 1880), p. 18 under date of 17 Dec. 1635, he is granted "half an acre of ground next to Mr. Stoughton's, neere the fish-house, to build him a house, with conditions that if he goe away and leave the Plantation, he leave the sayd house and ground to the Plantation in paying him the chardge."
In 1636, 22 June, his house is referred to (pp. 22, 23, History of Dorchester) as "where Goodman Rockwell now dwells"; and 5 July, 1636, has 8 acres given him on Indian Hill; also (pp 24, 30), allusion is made to his "lott in the common." The History of Dorchester states that "emigration (to Conn) did not entirely cease until 1637; many were detained a year or two in disposing of their property." The above would seem to show that he did not go with the Warham party from Dorchester in the spring of 1636. It is probable that he went in the spring of 1637, since no mention of him occurs after 2 Jan., 1637, in the Dorchester Town records; nor does his name occur in the Dorchester division of lands "in the Neck and Cowes Pasture," 18 March 1637.
Elder John Strong & Abigail Ford
Bissell 10th Great-grandfather Elder John Strong was born about 1610 in Chard, Somerset, England and originally came to Dorchester, MA. in 1635 on The Hopewell. He was a Freeman and had five acres of land in Hingham, MA. in 1635. He settled as a founder of Taunton, MA, was a Freeman of the Plymouth Colony in 1638 and was the first Constable of Taunton the same year. He was Deputy from Taunton to the general court at Plymouth, 1641 to 1645. He was appointed with four others to superintend the settlement at Windsor, Conn. in 1646 and eventually was one of the founders of Northampton. He died in Northampton 14 April 1699.
His second wife and Bissell 10th Great-grandmother was Abigail Ford, who came to America with her family on the Mary & John in 1630 and whom he married in about 1635, was baptized 8 Oct 1619 in England and died in Northampton 16 July 1688. John and Abigail had three children in Hingham, Mass., three in Taunton, seven in Windsor, CT. (including Bissell 9th Great-grandmother Mary Strong, born 26 Oct 1654) and three children in Northampton, from June 1661 through December 1665. There's a little bit more information about Strong on the Settlers of Northampton page.
Richard Vore and Ann Harris
Richard Vore was born in Crewkerne, Somerset, England, birthdate unproven but perhaps about 1600. The Randall family website, (a family that shares both Richard Vore and and Captain John Bissell as direct ancestors) observes that because "...Richard Vore was freed from "training, watching and wardeing" in 1660 [on May 17, by the Court] we may conclude that he was 60 years of age or thereabout" in 1660. He died 22 Nov 1683 in Windsor. His wife was Ann. Her maiden name may have been Harris, but the best information I have comes from "Bobbie," a reader of this page who advises that Ann's last name was likely Sachias. They were married in 1630, she was probably born somewhere between 1599 and 1610 in England. She died in Windsor 7 Dec 1683. Some web genealogies show his father as Thomas, born 10 Mar 1570 in Crewkerne; his mother as Alice, born in Forland, Somerset; and Thomas' father as John, of Crewkerne, who died there in 1570 at age 20. Richard and Ann had four daughters, Mary, Sarah, Lydia and Abigail. Only the last one, Abigail, was born in Windsor.
It's important to pay attention to clues about DNA here, because Richard and Ann Vore are two times Great-grandparents for the Bissell descendants. Their daughter Mary married Alexander Alford and Mary's line of descent goes another seven generations and ends up with Myrtie Bisbee as their descendant. Their daughter Sarah married Benjamin Parsons on 6 Oct 1653 and Sarah's line of descent goes eight generations and ends up with Herbert Bissell also as their descendant. Myrtie and Herbert married and had Richard Meredith Bissell, where the Vore blood lines were re-united.
Looking at those two lines of descent, by the way, one notes that Amia Pierce, daughter of Benjamin Pierce b. 1745/6 and Priscilla Merritt, married Levi Stebbins (Mary Vore's 2nd great-grandson) and Amia's sister Tirzah Pierce married Solomon Bissell (Sarah Vore's 3rd great-grandson. So those two Pierce bloodlines would also meet again four generations later in Richard Bissell. And Priscilla Merritt and Benjamin Pierce (b. 1745/46) are also two-time Great-grandparents of the Bissells.
Vore must have been close to Rev. John Warham, the minister who had led his parishoners from Dorchester, MA to Windsor. The Windsor land records note that Rev. Warham requested the privilege of building a small house upon Vore's land for Mary Jones:
"Whereas Richard Vore upon Mr. John Warham's request, formerly gave him liberty to build a little house upon his land joining the north end of his (Vore's) then and now dwelling house for the use of his kinswoman Mary Jones to dwell in during her life, and at her death to give it to the said Richard; and the said Mary Jones being now deceased; this is to testify that I John Warham do hereby alienate assign and set over the said house I builded as aforesaid to Richard Vore of Windsor in the County of Hartford, Conn. Etc. Dated Dec. 15, 1666."
The early Stiles history of Windsor suggests that Richard Vore and his family were in the first group of settlers to Windsor by 1636. The first house built by Richard Vore at Windsor was on the Island Road but a flood in the Spring of 1639 caused him to move to higher ground. The year of the flood, the ice in the Connecticut River had begun breaking up on March 5th. The next week brought storms and heavy rains which lasted almost two weeks, through the 18th of March. By the night of March 22nd the river was "as high then as ever known by the Indians and many were drowned out and great numbers of cattle were drowned."
The town granted Richard a two acre home lot on 25 December 1640 where he built his next house on higher ground. The town also granted him an additional 42 acres plus 26 acres in the woods. Not long after his oldest daughter's 1646 marriage, Richard gave her new husband, Alexander Alvord, the 42 acre parcel of land. This doubtless was the following plot which was not recorded till 1640 )I:146; Stiles). More of his property holdings follow that first notation:
[From 1640, December 25]: "Richard Voare hath graunted from the plantation for his homelott two acres and fifteene rodd, in breadth five rodd, in length sixty-foure, bounded by Rodger William south, the Mill highway north."
There is recorded also one acre of meadow . . . "allso 42 acres of land bounded by Jonathan Gillett south . . . allso in the little necke 3 acres bounded north by the rivulet and west by Jonathan Gillett . . . allso in the woods 26 acres bounded east by the Common and west by the Common . . . allso betwixt the pyne playne 30 acres bounded south by the common."
The "homelott" was located on the east side of present Broad Street (where the Academy stood in 1893.) It extended east to the Island Road 64 rods. He resided here in 1682. The "little necke" item above was the meadow at the junction of the rivulet and Mill Brook and is called upon the record "Voare's Point."
[Note that the "Voare's Point" referred to here shows up on the Windsor Land map above, just north of where Mill Brook goes into "the Rivulet," what we know today is the Farmington River. There was a ferry across the Rivulet at this point, and it may have been the ferry noted in early Windsor records as having been built by Deacon John Moore. This was not the Bissell Ferry, which was on the Connecticut River.]
On 11 Oct 1669, Richard Vore appears in the Windsor Census of freemen of this date, there being 113 listed under this heading: "A list taken of all the freemen that live within the limits of Windsor, in reference to the order of the General Court, May 13: 1669, requiring ye same." Listed in the same report was John Bissell, Sr. The church records of Deacon John Moore indicate that Vore paid his church levy due on 10 Feb 1674. In 1675 he is recorded as having paid the tax due from his family for their use of a ferry across the small "rivulet" that flowed near Windsor into the Connecticut River. (This was not the Bissell Ferry, which crossed the big river.) In 1676 he contributed funds to support the poor who had suffered losses in the ongoing King Philip's War. This same year, Richard and Ann lost two of their daughters. Sarah died in Springfield in January 1676, following the birth of her ninth child and his oldest daughter Mary died in Northampton, possibly also from complications of childbirth. In 1681, he bought another small lot with a house on it.
On 1 July 1683, he made his Will:
"The Last Will and Testament made by me Richard Vore of Windsor, being at present perfect in memory not knowing how soon God may take me out of this world doe in order to that advice which God hath given me in his Word, viz: Set thy house in order, doe hereby dedare my mind and wfll respecting that small portion of outward estate which the Lord hath blest me with as followeth: "I doe make my well beloved wife Ann Vore to be my sole executrix to my estate, and my Will is that during her natural life she shall possess and enjoy my houseing and lands lying and cituate in the Township of Windsor, as also my goods, household goods and other estate, more particularly my house and home" lott on the north side of the Rivulett, with orchard, fences, yards, or what else belongs thereto, as also my land lying in a place called the neck, counted 3 acres.
"Secondly: My Will is that after the death of my wife (If she shall survive me), my daughter, Abigail, now wife of Timothy Buddand, if the be living, shall enjoy my house and homelott, yt provided my Will and that neither my daughter, nor her husband shall have any power to alienate or dispose of the same or any part thereof, but shall keep and preserve it intire; yet they may enjoy the benefitt and proffit that may be raysed thereof so long as my daughter shall live, and after her decease it shall belong to her children, if any living; if not, the sd homested shall belong to my other daughters or their children.
"Thirdly: I give to my daughter Cooke, the wife of Nathaniel Cooke, 5 shillings in addition to what I have already given her with her husband, also my land lying in the Neck, after the death of my wife.
"Fourthly: I doe give to Thomas Alvard, son to my daughter Mary Alvard deceased, 5 shillings.
"Fifthly: I give to the eldest child of my daughter, Sarah Persons, dec'd, who was wife to Benjamin Persons of Springfield, 5 shillings.
"Sixthly: My Will is that my household goods and chatells of all sorts not disposed of which I have by Will left to my wife for her use, she hath hereby full power to dispose of them, as she shall see cause, amongst my children.
"I request Captain Benjamin Newbery; John Moore and John Loomis, Sr. to be Overseers, and that they be helpfull to my wife in case of my death.
Richard Vore
Samuel Mather and John Loommis, Sr. (IV:161-2; CC).
Fifty days later, Windsor's Town Clerk noted in the town records, "Richard Voar Dyed August: 22nd: 1683".
The material here about Richard Vore was in part from One Bassett Family in America: The Vore Family, by Buell Burdette Bassette; pp. 768-771; New Britain, Connecticut; 1926 (HeritageQuest).
Windsor's original land has been used to spin off no fewer than 20 other Connecticut towns, in whole or part, from Litchfield and Torrington to the west, to Tolland in the east. Historically, Windsor's economy has been dominated by two pursuits: tobacco farming and brickmaking (since 1675). In its heyday, there were more than 40 brickyards in Windsor. The last one disappeared in the 1960's. The first tobacco crop was planted in 1640 with seeds brought to Connecticut from the Virginia tobacco plantations.
All the sources used for the research on the "founder list" for Windsor and their occupations can be found in the Windsor Historical Society Library.
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Stiles, Henry. History and Genealogies of Ancient Windsor
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Hinman, Royal R. Early Puritan Settlers of the Colony of Connecticut
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Allen, Orrin P. The Allen Memorial: Descendants of Samuel Allen of Windsor, Connecticut
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Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633
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Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut
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Lane, Joshua W. and Donald P. White. Woodworkers of Windsor
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Thistlethwaite, Frank. Dorset Pilgrims
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Ritter, Kathy A. Apprentices of Connecticut 1637-1900
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Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England 1634-1635
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Published family genealogies at the Windsor Historical Society
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Family genealogy reference files at the Windsor Historical Society
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