Thomas Ford

d. 1676 · Dorchester MA → Windsor CT

Died 1676

Children include Abigail

Thomas Ford's English life is known from the parish registers of Dorset. On 19 June 1616 he married Elizabeth Cooke at Bridport. She was born Elizabeth Charde and was the widow of Aaron Cooke, a joiner, who had been buried there six months before. She brought him a stepson, Aaron Cooke, born in 1614.

He was probably a widower already. At Powerstock, six miles north east of Bridport, a Thomas Ford married Joane Way on 13 December 1610, and a "Joane Forde" was buried there on 10 May 1615. Two Thomas Fords were having children baptised at Powerstock in those years, which makes the entries hard to sort. Donald Lines Jacobus, writing in 1939, found it "tempting to believe" that the emigrant was the one who married Joane Way, and that a daughter Mary or Sarah, baptised in 1612 or 1612/13, was his. The first child of his second marriage was named Joan, which Jacobus called "a compliment often paid to a deceased wife." Robert Charles Anderson is more cautious and gives Dorchester as his origin.

Joan was baptised at Bridport on 8 June 1617 and Abigail on 8 October 1619. By 1623 he had moved fifteen and a half miles east to Dorchester, the county town. Three more children were baptised at Holy Trinity there: Thomas in 1623, who died within a fortnight, Hephzibah in 1625, and Hannah in 1628/9, who lived eight weeks.

Jacobus offered a reason for the move. In 1611 Thomas Forde, a merchant of Dorchester, left the residue of his estate to "Thomas, son of my brother John Forde," and made him executor. Jacobus thought it "not unlikely" that the emigrant was that nephew, drawn to Dorchester by property he had inherited there. It is a suggestion, not a proof.

In 1630 he crossed in the Mary and John with the Dorchester company. With him were his wife, his daughter by his first marriage, his stepson Aaron Cooke and his three young daughters. He asked to be made a freeman on 19 October 1630 and was sworn on 18 May 1631. A freeman of Massachusetts was a church member admitted to vote and hold office.

His daughter Joan married Roger Clap at Dorchester in 1633. In 1636 the family moved to Windsor on the Connecticut. There he sat in the colony's General Court from its first year, served on juries, took charge of a bankrupt's estate and was named to oversee the building of a house of correction. Abigail married John Strong, and Hephzibah married Richard Lyman.

His wife Elizabeth died in April 1643. On 7 November 1644 he married Ann, the widow of Thomas Scott of Hartford. In old age the couple moved up the river to Northampton, where Abigail and John Strong had settled. Ann died there on 5 May 1675, and he died on 9 November 1676. A memorial boulder raised in 1928 in the Bridge Street Cemetery at Northampton carries his name under those of Elder John Strong and Abigail.

Children

Abigail Ford 1619-1688

Sources

James Savage, A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England (Boston, 1860), vol. II, under FORD

The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, prior to the Union with New Haven Colony, ed. J. Hammond Trumbull, vol. I (Hartford, 1850), the undated Particular Court at pp. 102-103 and the Court of Election of April 1644 at p. 103

The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, prior to the Union with New Haven Colony, ed. J. Hammond Trumbull, vol. I (Hartford, 1850), the General Courts of 1637 to 1650 and the Particular Courts of 9 December 1641, 1 June 1643 and 31 October 1650

If Thomas Ford is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Thomas Ford (d. 1676)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/thomas-ford-1676-dc3115.