Some Early Records and Documents of and Relating to the Town of Windsor Connecticut
1639-1703

Hartford
Connecticut Historical Society
1930

Preface
	The documents here printed are among the earliest records of one of three towns which united to
form the Colony of Connecticut.  That the most extended of these documents is a private record and that
some of the others can hardly be designated as official records, does not lessen their interest or value.
Families whose descendants are now to be found in all parts of the country, are here set down with the
utmost care; the names of those who had civil rights in the young colony are given; the method of
governing the new town is shown; ecclesiastical controversies are touched upon, and the taxable worldly
goods of each inhabitant, with their values, are recorded.
	All of these original documents have been in the possession of the Connecticut Historical Society 
for more than three-quarters of a century.
	The data contained in the Matthew Grant record was printed in part in the "New England Historic 
Genealogical Register" in 1851 and was incorporated by Henry R. Stiles, M.D., into his "History of 
Ancient Windsor," the first edition of which was published in 1859.  There is reason for believing that in 
compiling this work, Dr. Stiles did not compare the copy which he used with the original record.  In 1905 
the writer of this note made careful copy of the record, which has been used in the present printing, and the 
"printer's proof" of which has been twice read with the original manuscript.  The whole record is now for 
the first time printed all together in its original form.
	Since the Matthew Grant record was here put in type, comparison has been made with another 
early copy, which is found to contain a few names and dates now missing in the original records and not 
appearing in the early copies which had been previously consulted.  In order to include these names and 
dates in this publication, a number of lines have been reprinted as an appendix.  As there are numerous 
manifest errors in this copy, it is possible that caution should be used in accepting these additions.  Dates 
now missing from the original record have also been supplied from entries made by Matthew Grant himself 
on the early land records of the Colony, now in the office of the Secretary of the State at Hartford.  This 
material was published in 1898 by Edwin Stanley Welles with the title "Births and Marriages and Deaths 
returned from Hartford, Windsor and Fairfield."
A. C. B.