Edward Culver

d. 1685 · England

Died 1685

Children include John

Edward Culver, who usually wrote his name Colver, was born in England. Nothing ties him to an English parish. He was one of the founders of Dedham, Massachusetts, a town settled in 1636 by families who signed a covenant to live together in peace and to settle their quarrels by arbitration. "Edward Colver" is among the names subscribed to it in the first town book.

He was a wheelwright, a maker of wheels and carts. On 28 November 1637 the town "Ordered that Edward Colver wheelwright shall haue twoe Acres layd out for ye p'sent for imploymt in his trade & after to haue an addicon els wher as shalbe fownd needfull. In the meane tyme to haue free liberty of taking Timber for his trade every mans ppriety Reserved." More small grants followed in 1639, 1642, 1644 and 1645.

On 19 September 1638 he married Ann Ellis at Dedham. Theirs was the second marriage entered in the records of the Dedham church. Ann joined the church on 17 September 1641, and two days later their first child, John, was baptized as "ye sonne of our sister Culver." John had been born on 15 April 1640. Joshua followed in January 1643 and Samuel in January 1645, and Joseph was baptized at Dedham in September 1646.

About 1645 the family moved to Roxbury, near Boston. Gershom was baptized there in December 1648. A daughter died there as an infant on 21 January 1651, and Hannah was baptized on 11 April 1652.

In 1653 Edward went south to Pequot, the new plantation at the mouth of the Thames River that became New London, Connecticut. The town granted land to "Goodman Culver" on 20 November 1653. Goodman was the ordinary title of a householder below the rank of gentleman. He bought the house lot of Robert Burros and set up as a baker and brewer. On 5 May 1662 the town chose him "for the making of bread and bruing of beere for the publicke good." On 9 January 1665 he was licensed to sell liquor on condition that he brewed as well, "ingaging always to have good beere and good dyet and lodging for man and horse." Two more sons, Edward and Ephraim, were probably born at New London in the 1650s.

In 1664 he gave the town homestead to his eldest son John and moved east across the river, to a farm near the head of the Mystic River that the Indians called Chepadaso. It lay on the west side of the river, near Governor John Winthrop's mill. On 25 November 1667 he and Ann deeded land to "our eldest son John," and in May 1676 Edward "Sr." gave land to his son Joseph. By 1681 he was called a wheelwright of Mystic.

In 1681 the governor's son, Major Fitz-John Winthrop, sued him for his land and house. Winthrop claimed they fell inside a tract the town had granted his father in 1652 or 1653. The case went on appeal to the General Court of the colony, and Winthrop won.

Edward was old and failing by then. On 28 July 1682 he gave land to his wife Ann "in consideration of my own age and weakness of memory and understanding." He signed by mark, as he and Ann had signed their deeds for twenty years. He died in 1685, and on 2 June 1685 the county court granted administration of his estate to his son John.

His sons scattered. John lived at New London, New Haven, Stonington and Groton. Joshua settled at Wallingford and Joseph on his father's land at Groton. Gershom went to Southampton on Long Island. Samuel, about 1674, ran away with the wife of a neighbor, John Fish, and is not known to have come back. Edward the younger became a lieutenant at Lebanon and Litchfield.

Children

John Culver 1640-1725

Sources

T. F. Chambers, The Early Germans of New Jersey: Their History, Churches, and Genealogies (Dover, N.J., 1895), p. 297; archive.org earlygermansofne00cham, leaf n412.

W. Herbert Wood and Donald Lines Jacobus, "Additions and Corrections to the Colver-Culver Genealogy", The American Genealogist, vol. 31 (July 1955), pp. 129-144 (archive.org sim_american-genealogist_1955-07_31_3), pp. 129-130.

Don Gleason Hill, ed., The Early Records of the Town of Dedham, Massachusetts, vol. 3 (Dedham, 1892), p. 3, archive.org earlyrecordstow02hillgoog.

Don Gleason Hill, ed., The Early Records of the Town of Dedham, Massachusetts, vol. 3 (Dedham, 1892), p. 37, archive.org earlyrecordstow02hillgoog.

T. F. Chambers, The Early Germans of New Jersey: Their History, Churches, and Genealogies (Dover, N.J., 1895), pp. 297-298 (archive.org earlygermansofne00cham), citing Hinman's Early Settlers of Connecticut, p. 773, and the History of Southampton, p. 228. W. Herbert Wood and Donald Lines Jacobus, "Additions and Corrections to the Colver-Culver Genealogy", The American Genealogist, vol. 31 (July 1955), pp. 129-144 (archive.org sim_american-genealogist_1955-07_31_3), pp. 129-130; Frances Manwaring Caulkins, History of New London, Connecticut (New London, 1895), archive.org historyofnewlond00caul, pp. 309-310 and the town records quoted there; Frederic Lathrop Colver, Colver-Culver Genealogy (New York, 1910), archive.org colverculvergene00colv, pp. 39-44; Don Gleason Hill, ed., The Early Records of the Town of Dedham, Massachusetts, vol. 3 (Dedham, 1892), pp. 3 and 37, archive.org earlyrecordstow02hillgoog.

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Cite: Heirology, "Edward Culver (d. 1685)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/edward-culver-1685-8a67af.