Joseph Bushnell
Joseph Bushnell was born at Saybrook, Connecticut, in May 1651. The 1945 Bushnell genealogy gives the day as 2 May. He was the eldest child of Richard Bushnell and Mary Marvin. His mother had crossed from Essex on the Increase in 1635 as a child of six. His father had been baptised at Horsham in Sussex in 1623.
The family moved to Norwalk in the 1650s. There his father held a lot next to that of his grandfather, Matthew Marvin. His father made his will at Norwalk on 1 December 1659 and was dead by the following July. Joseph was eight. A brother, Richard, was seven, and two sisters, Mary and Marcie, were younger still.
His mother married again within two years. Her second husband was Thomas Adgate, a deacon of Saybrook. The household soon moved to the new settlement at Norwich. A company from Saybrook had founded the town in 1659 and 1660, led by Major John Mason and the Rev. James Fitch, and Thomas Adgate was one of its proprietors. The Norwich clerk later entered the four Bushnell children under a heading of their own: "the Children of Richard Bushnell Deceased who stand in relation vnto the second wife of Thomas Adgate as their mother." Joseph's name heads the list: "Joseph Bushnell was borne in May Anno Dom 1651."
Another of the founders was Sergeant Thomas Leffingwell, later lieutenant. In September 1672 Joseph's sister Mary married Leffingwell's son Thomas. Fourteen months later Joseph married Leffingwell's daughter Mary. The clerk wrote it in one line: "The maryage of Joseph Bushnell with Mary Leffingwell was upon the 28th of November Anno Dom 1673." He was twenty two and she was eighteen.
They had eleven children, all entered in the Norwich town book. Mary was born on 10 March 1675, then Joseph in 1677, Jonathan in 1679, David in 1681, who died the same year, Deborah in 1682, Hariah in 1684, Nathan in 1686, Rebecka in 1688, Abigail in 1690, Rachell in 1692 and Jerusha in 1695. Mary, the eldest, married Elijah Brainerd of Haddam in 1699.
The Bushnell genealogy counts the family among the prosperous households of Norwich. His brother Richard rose further. Capt. Richard Bushnell, Esquire, was a magistrate of the town. He married his stepsister, Elizabeth Adgate, and died on 27 August 1727. It was before Richard, sitting as magistrate, that Joseph brought a complaint against himself in 1708 for killing a buck out of season.
His wife died on 31 March 1745, in her ninety second year. Joseph died at Norwich on 23 December 1746, "in the 96 year of his age." They had been married seventy one years. Their slate headstones stand side by side in the Old Norwichtown Cemetery. His reads: "A man of truth & Faithfulness / He long did perfect love profess."
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Cite: Heirology, "Joseph Bushnell (1651-1746)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/joseph-bushnell-1651-1746-be5f73.