John Webster

1590-1661

Born 1590, Cossington, Leicestershire, England

Died 1661

Father: Matthew Webster

Mother: Elizabeth Aston

Children include Anne, Thomas, Lt.

John Webster was baptised at Cossington in Leicestershire on 16 August 1590, the son of Matthew Webster and Elizabeth Aston. His father died when he was two. When his grandfather John Webster died in October 1594, the jury at the inquest found that the boy, aged four years, one month and twenty eight days, was his heir. The inheritance was a house and three virgates of land at Cossington, about seventy two acres, which the family had farmed since about 1535 and owned since 1554.

On 7 November 1609 he married Agnes Smith at Cossington. Her family had been in the village as long as the Websters. Their children were baptised there: Matthew on 11 February 1609/10, Margaret on 21 February 1611/12, William on 25 September 1614, Thomas on 24 November 1616, Robert on 17 November 1619, Anne on 29 July 1621, Mary on 30 March 1623, Elizabeth on 10 May 1624 and Faith on 8 April 1627. Mary and Faith each died within days. He was churchwarden of Cossington in 1618 and again in 1630. In 1634 he sold up, three houses, a cottage and about a hundred acres, for 1,200 pounds, and took his family to New England.

John Webster came into Connecticut probably in 1636 or 1637, and was one of the fathers of that colony. He was a magistrate there, then deputy governor, then governor, and one of the Commissioners of the United Colonies.

He was an influential member of the church at Hartford and took a deep interest in the controversy that agitated that church and others. When the dispute could not be settled, he was one of the leaders of the company that left and founded Hadley in Massachusetts. He was buried there on 5 April 1661.

His son Thomas was the father of Thankful, who married John Bascom.

Parents

Matthew Webster 1564-1592

Elizabeth Aston

Children

Anne Webster 1621-1662

Thomas Webster (d. 1686)

Lt. Robert Webster 1619-1676

Sources

Sylvester Judd, History of Hadley, including the early history of Hatfield, South Hadley, Amherst and Granby (1863), the genealogical register under WEBSTER, read in full text at archive.org, historyofhadleyi00injudd

Edward Doubleday Harris, A Genealogical Record of Thomas Bascom and his Descendants (Boston, 1870), printed pages 13 to 15 and 29 to 30, read in full text at archive.org, genealogicalrec00harr

William Holcomb Webster and Rev. Melville Reuben Webster, History and Genealogy of the Gov. John Webster Family of Connecticut (1915), p. 32, archive.org historygenealogy00webs, leaf n61

William Holcomb Webster and Rev. Melville Reuben Webster, History and Genealogy of the Gov. John Webster Family of Connecticut (1915), p. 16, archive.org historygenealogy00webs, leaf n41

Find a Grave memorial 251389882, Ancient Burying Ground, Hartford, Connecticut, photograph

Find a Grave memorial 15090482, photograph; History and Genealogy of the Gov. John Webster Family of Connecticut (1915), p. 10, archive.org historygenealogy01webs.

William Holcomb Webster and Rev. Melville Reuben Webster, History and Genealogy of the Gov. John Webster Family of Connecticut (Rochester, 1915), archive.org historygenealogy00webs, pp. 16 and 21-35

Webster 1915, p. 10, archive.org historygenealogy01webs; Find a Grave memorial 15090482 (photographs of the slab and the 1999 plaque); Judd, History of Hadley (1863); Harris, Bascom genealogy (1870)

"The Ancestry of Gov. John Webster," The American Genealogist 24 (1948), p. 201, archive.org sim_american-genealogist_1948-10_24_4

"The Ancestry of Gov. John Webster," The American Genealogist 24 (1948), p. 208, archive.org sim_american-genealogist_1948-10_24_4

"The Ancestry of Gov. John Webster," The American Genealogist 24 (1948), p. 211, archive.org sim_american-genealogist_1948-10_24_4

Webster 1915, p. 10, archive.org historygenealogy01webs; Find a Grave memorial 15090482 (photographs of the slab and the 1999 plaque); Judd, History of Hadley (1863); Harris, Bascom genealogy (1870); "The Ancestry of Gov. John Webster," compiled by Mrs. S. H. Skillington from the Cossington parish register and churchwardens' accounts, the Register of the Freemen of Leicester and the Leicester probate registry, The American Genealogist 24 (1948), pp. 197-212, archive.org sim_american-genealogist_1948-10_24_4

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Cite: Heirology, "John Webster (1590-1661)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-webster-1590-1661-560e97.