In 17th Century New England, the Connecticut River played a major role in the newly developing country. The Connecticut River flows between the states of Vermont and New Hampshire and then enters Massachusetts in the western section of the state, flows down through Connecticut before it empties into the Atlantic. Many new Puritan settlements appeared along its banks. Towns like Hadley, Hatfield, Northampton, Springfield, Weathersfield, and Hartford housed our early ancestors. This is a set of notes I made after one trip to Salt Lake City regarding some of those locations.

"Soon after it enters Massachusetts in the north there is Northfield where some of our 17th Century ancestors settled. Further south is Deerfield where at least three generations of Childs lived. Jennie Viola Childs is the only one of our fathers four grandparents with roots in early New England. The other three: Elisha Hughes, Indiana Smith, and Dr. George Denny were from Virginia, Kentucky, and Indiana as far back as we have gone.

Further down the river, but still in Massachusetts is Hatfield, Hadley and Northampton. All three towns are within about five miles of each other. When bridges and roads had to be built between these newly formed towns in the 1640's they called on Cornet Joseph Parsons. "Cornet" was the third ranking person in the early militia that was formed to protect these early towns.

Cornet Parsons became wealthy because of his ability to trade with the Indians for beaver pelts. He was also present during the bartering with the Indians for Northampton. They traded the land for a few hatchets, and beads. The whole history of the Indian people in New England is a sad tale of exploitation by the early settlers, until the Indians finally rose up under their leader, King Philip, son of Massasoit, who had befriended the Pilgrims in Plymouth, but that is another story.

Cornet's wife, Mary (Bliss) Parsons, whose parents lived in Hartford (another Connecticut River town), and whom he married there in 1646, was tried as a witch in Boston in 1676 (another story to be told later).

In Hatfield in 1700 was Samuel Scot and his wife Sarah (ancestors of Jennie Childs). We know that Isaac Graves and his brother were shot and then scalped by Indians in Hatfield in 1677 at the end of King Philip's War. Isaac Graves was Hattie Maud Coulter's ancestor. Isaac's father and mother (Thomas and Sarah (Whiting) Graves had arrived in Salem on the ship "George Bonaventure" in 1629, eleven years after the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth. The following year, John and his pregnant wife, Phoebe (Paine) Page arrived in Salem and John Page was born shortly thereafter in 1630.

Moving from Springfield up the Connecticut River to Northampton in 1656 was Deacon Samuel Wright and his wife Margaret. He had been a Deacon in the Puritan congregation in Springfield from 1638 until 1656 when he moved his family to Northampton. While in Springfield, after Rev. Maxon's departure, he and Deacon Samuel Chapin took turns preaching. In the ancient records of Agawam, later called Springfield, is the writing of Eleazer Hollyoke, "Whereas yesterday being the Lords day, Deacon Wright was chosen to dispense the word of God in this place until some other should be gott for ye work."

Another tract said something to the effect of needing to find a worthy minister "with such smart men as Deacon Wright and Deacon Chapin in the congregation." Deacon Wright is dad's ancestor through Jennie Childs, and Deacon Chapin is mother's ancestry through Sherman Schroder. In the same congregation until he moved to Northampton in 1655 was the second richest person in town, Cornet Parsons, ancestor of Hattie Maud (Coulter) Schroder.

Also in Springfield was Jennie Childs' ancestors Henry and Eulalia (Marche) Burt whose daughter, Mercy, married Deacon Wright's son Judah in Deerfield in 1667. Sherman Schroder's ancestor, Luke Hitchcock, arrived in America in 1635. He and his brother took the freeman's oath in New Haven, Connecticut in 1644 and lived in Weathersfield, Connecticut in 1646 until his death in 1659. His wife, Elizabeth (Gibbons) Hitchcock, originally from Hartford, moved to Springfield with her two sons, John and Luke, where she remarried. Her son John became a Deacon in the church at Springfield and married Hannah Chapin, daughter of Deacon Samuel Chapin, in 1644.

Hattie Maud Coulter's ancestors Thomas and Sarah Graves, previously mentioned as living in Hatfield, had a granddaughter, Mary Graves, who married Ensign Eleazer Frary in 1665 in Hadley and the Frarys continued to live in Hatfield until the Revolutionary War (110 years later).

Another contemporary of Cornet Joseph and Mary Parsons in Northampton was another ancestor of Hattie Maud, Nathaniel and Mary (Meekins) Clark, whose daughter Mary Clark married the Parsons' son Jonathan in 1682 in Northampton.

Sherman Schroder's ancestor, John and Frances (Hill) Brownson from Essex, England, had settled first in Hartford where their son Jacob was born in 1640, then ten miles west of Hartford in Farmington. The Brownsons may have known the Hitchcocks when they were in Hartford. The Brownsons lived in Farmington for about three generations until Thomas Brownson married Sarah Hitchcock, of Northampton, in 1725 at which time they moved about thirty-five miles up the Housatonic River in Connecticut where the Brownsons link up with the Bostwicks of New Milford.

Most of the early coastal settlements in Connecticut were founded by Puritans. This was true of Hartford, founded by Hooker. Many of Sherman Schroder's ancestors were early Puritans and came from all over Connecticut.

One of the most noteworthy Puritan preachers was Rev. Peter Prudden. His father died when he was about fourteen and his mother remarried a man from London. This stepfather paid Peter's way to Cambridge. Nearly all college graduates at that time became preachers. Puritan ideas were rampant among the students in the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford at that time.

Many of these Puritan preachers who came to America had been students about the same time in Cambridge. Peter came over in 1637 with some other young Puritan preachers. Theophilus Eaton and John Davenport who cofounded New Haven came with him. After preaching for a while at Weathersfield, Peter took his congregation to New Haven and then in 1639 to Milford which he founded about eight miles west of New Haven. His wife Joanna Boyse, was daughter of a preacher, and had two sisters that married preachers.

Apparently Peter was much in demand as a preacher and his congregation grew rapidly. When he died, seventeen years after the founding of Milford, the famous Puritan preacher, Rev. Cotton Mather said that his death was "a blow to all Christendom in New England"...and the loss..."made the fabric of the Church to shake."

Other Connecticut coastal towns that these early Puritan ancestors settled in were Saybrook at the mouth of the Connecticut River, founded by Capt. Robert Chapman. His sister, Rebecca married William Bushnell of Saybrook. William's parents Francis and Ferris (Quenell) Bushnell from Sussex, England, had been part of those who signed the Guilford (Conn.) Covenant while on board ship coming from England about 1630, and settled in Guilford.

The coastal town of Norwalk is where Richard and Mary (Roscoe) Seamer as well as Matthew and Elizabeth (Gregory) Marvin settled. Their children, Thomas Seamer, married Hannah Marvin in 1653 in Norwalk. All are ancestors of Sherman Schroder.

Just down the coast from Norwalk is Stamford, Connecticut where Frank Montgomery's ancestor, William Mead arrived on the ship "Elizabeth" in 1635. William lived first at Weathersfield and might have heard Rev. Peter Prudden preach there in the 1630's. In 1641 William "removed" to Stamford. His son John Mead married a Hannah Potter in Stamford in 1657. Shortly thereafter they moved to Greenwich, Connecticut in 1660.

Generations of the Mead family apparently stayed in Greenwich at least 120 years. We see Sarah Mead marrying Benjamin Close also of Greenwich in 1785. Their son, Samuel Close left Greenwich and married Nancy Collier in Madison, Indiana in 1822.

The final Puritan ancestor I mention is Arthur Bostwick who left Tarpoley, England for this country and was one of the first settlers of Stratford, Connecticut which is located eight miles west of Milford on the coast. We know he was a land owner in Stratford in 1643. His son John Bostwick, also spent his life in Stratford after arriving from England. John married Mary Brinsmead whose mother was a blacksmith's daughter in Charlestown, Massachusetts (Old Boston) in the 1630's."