My Culver ancestry begins
with my fifth great-grandmother, Mary
Culver, daughter of Joseph
and Mary (Eddy) Culver of Groton,
Connecticut. Mary Culver was the great-great-granddaughter of
Edward Culver, the immigrant ancestor of this family, who
came to America from England with the Winthrop Fleet of 1635.
Edward Culver was one of the first settlers of Dedham, in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, and "of an enterprising and
energetic spirit", as Valerie Dyer Giorgi describes him
in her Colver-Culver Family Genealogy.
In 1653, eighteen years after Edward Culver arrived
in New England, he moved his family to the Pequot Country (what is now New
London) in the colony of Connecticut. According
to Frederick Lathrop Colver,
Edward Colver "early took part in the Indian wars, fighting against the
Pequot Indians in 1637, and from that time on was noted as an Indian scout,
being on terms of friendship with some of the tribes, who accompanied him on
his scouting expeditions."
Frederick Colver asserts that King Uncas of the Mohicans "held Edward
Colver in great esteem, and named his son after Colver's second son,
Joshua."
In the first Pequot War, which took place in 1637,
Edward Colver "was sent by
Colonel John Mason, who commanded the little band of ninety whites, to
enlist the help of the Mohicans, with the result that Uncas brought one
hundred and fifty of his warriors to take part in the battle.
At daybreak on June 4, 1637, they surprised the Pequots in their
stronghold and utterly exterminated them, with the exception of a few who
escaped and fled to the Six Nations in New York Province."
For his services to the British crown, Edward
Colver was given two grants of land, "one of two hundred acres in
1652-3, and another in 1654, of four hundred acres.
These grants were situated about four hundred miles north of the
scene of the battle, the two hundred lot being near the head of the Mystic
river and the other about two miles further to the northwest. This was called by the Indians "Chepadas," and
remained in the family for generations…"
According to Valerie Dyer Giorgi, Groton historians
agree that the old Wightman Burying Ground, where many Colver-Culver family
members are interred, lies within the land that was granted by the King to
Edward Colver for his efforts in the Indian Wars.
In 1678, Edward and his wife, Ann, deeded the Chepadas
(Intersection of Trails) farm to their sons, Joseph and
Ephraim. This farm remained in the hands of a line of three Joseph Culvers
until the death of Joseph Culver III (Mary
Culver's father), after which the land was divided amongst his heirs,
including Mary Culver and her husband, William
Heath.
My
line of descent from Edward Culver and his wife, Ann Ellis,
is as follows:
Direct Descendants of
Edward Culver
1 Edward CULVER Abt. 1610 - 1685
& Ann ELLIS 1619 - 1678
2 Joseph CULVER 1646 - 1731 & ANN _____1650-1665
- 1708-1716
3 Joseph COLVER 1680 - 1747 & Mary STARK 1669-1676
- ca. 1769
4 Joseph CULVER 1711 - 1776 & Mary EDDY 1710-1720
- 1755-1758
5 Mary CULVER 1751 -
Abt. 1848 & William
HEATH Abt. 1750 - 1794
6 Amos HEATH 1786 - 1848
+ Mary CHAPMAN 1797 -
1886
7 Sarah HEATH 1822 -
1905 + Francis B. CLARK
1814 - 1875
8 Levi N. CLARK 1863 -
1934 + Carrie E. LARKHAM
1855 - 1933
9 Sarah H. CLARK 1884 -
1955 + Frank R. BURDICK
1885 - 1960
10 Bertha M. BURDICK 1912 - 1976
Colver - Culver Genealogy, Descendants of Edward Colver of Boston, Dedham & Roxbury,
Massachusetts, & New London & Mystic, Connecticut, 1635-1909, by Frederick Lathrop Colver. 1910.
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You are listening to the English folk
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