Ancestors

Thomas Lord

Thomas Lord was born about 1585, the only son of Richard Lord, a husbandman of Towcester in Northamptonshire, and his wife Joan. He had three sisters, Elizabeth, Ellen and Alice.

His parents died within three weeks of each other in the autumn of 1610. His mother was buried at Towcester on 22 September and his father on 16 October. His father's will left him "all my Lands tenements & hereditaments whatsoever in Towcester" and made him sole executor. It was proved on 7 February 1610/11.

Thirteen days later, on 20 February 1610/11, he took out a licence at Peterborough to marry "Dorothy, daughter of Robert Bird of Towcester". They married at Towcester on 23 February. Dorothy was twenty-two.

They lived at Towcester for the next eighteen years at least, and eight children were baptised there. Richard was baptised on 5 January 1611/12, Anna on 18 September 1614, Thomas on 15 November 1616 and William on 27 December 1618. Robert followed on 12 May 1620, John on 21 January 1623/4, Amy on 30 November 1626 and Dorothy on 1 July 1629.

On 29 April 1635 he sailed from London in the ship Elizabeth and Ann with his wife and all the children except Richard, the eldest, who had gone ahead to New England. The ship's list called him a smith. After a year or more at Cambridge or Boston he joined the Rev. Thomas Hooker's company, which went overland in 1636 to settle on the Connecticut River. He was one of the original proprietors of Hartford. His house lot lay on the bank of the Little River, at the corner of what are now Wells Street and Main Street. He was a man of standing, and the records give him the title Mr., a mark of respect.

His daughter Anna married Thomas Stanton about 1637, in the year Stanton settled at Hartford. Stanton was the colony's interpreter in dealings with the Indian nations.

The last mention of him in the Hartford records is on 29 January 1643/4. He probably died that year, and certainly before 1648. No will or record of his estate survives. Dorothy lived on at Hartford for another thirty years and died in the spring of 1675.

His sons made their own way. Richard became a trader and a captain of the Connecticut troop of horse, sat as a deputy for Hartford, and was a patentee of the royal charter of 1662. He died at New London in 1662. Thomas practised physic and was retained by the colony to set bones up and down the river towns. William settled at Saybrook. Robert was living in London in 1675. John went to Virginia.

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

Cite: Heirology, "Thomas Lord (1585-1644)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/thomas-lord-1585-1644-50c3b1.