May 14, 1634, Deacon Stephen Hart was admitted as a freeman in Cambridge. Then in 1635 he moves with Rev. Hookers group to and area now called Hartford. He was one of the original proprietors and built his home near the ford he discovered where you could cross the Connecticut river at a low stage of the water. Thus the town was named "Hartsford," which soon just became Hartford. Born in 1605, Hart was now thirty years old, and along with Hookers group had taken much of the cleared pasture and meadow from the Indians. On March 04, 1635, Westwood takes the freemans oath at Newtown, and on September 05, 1635 was sworn in as constable of the Plantation Connecticut. Then by March of 1636 Westwood was given a commission to govern the people of Connecticut in the first court. The first general court had great power. It acted as both the court and the legislature under the Mosaic Laws of the Church.
July 1636, on Block Island just off the coast of Connecticut, members of the Narragansett tributary tribe kill Captain John Oldham. In retaliation, John Endicott sets sail out of Boston for Block Island and he and his men spend two days setting fire to the Indian huts, destroying food reserves and shooting their dogs. By winter of 1636 the Indians return the white mans attack, and besiege Fort Saybrook and attack the Wethersfield settlement.
In the winter and early into 1637 Westwood and his court declare war on the Pequot Indians. On the 10th of May Captain Mason set sail down the river with three ships and seventy men. Then on May 26, 1637, under the command of Captain John Mason the Puritans joined with 90 men from the Mohegan and Narragansett tribes to surround the Pequot Village of Misstuck (Mystic). Within one hour 700 men, women and children are put to death by sword and burned to death as the entire village was burned. On there return the Puritan soldiers were granted a lot known as a Soldiers field.
Why am I telling you this story about The Pequot War? Because Deacon Stephen Hart is my ninth Great Grand Father and he was there killing the Pequot Indians and burning down Misstuck village in the name of the Lord.
He had a daughter, Mary Hart who married John Lee. We are descendants from this branch of the Lee family. Not from Robert E. Lee of the Virginia Lee's, but that story is for another posting.
Here is the pedigree which links me to Deacon Stephen Hart, my 9th Great Grand Father, the proprietor of Hartford Connecticut, and to the Lee family descendants of John Lee.
Deacon Stephen Hart (1602 - 1683)
is your 9th great grandfather
Daughter of Deacon Stephen
Son of Mary
Son of David
Son of Jedediah
Son of Elias Jedediah
Son of Daniel
Daughter of Ede W
Daughter of Dorothy Ann
Son of Helen Desdemonia
Son of William Rider
You are the son of Donald James
I want to thank Google for making available on Googlebooks the Lee Family Genealogy 1634 - 1897 By: Leonard & Sarah Marsh Lee. The book is more than 700 pages, but if you get a chance, at-least read the introduction.
