Deacon Richard Butler, Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

RICHARD¹ BUTLER, DEACON, HARTFORD FOUNDER was born abt. 1610 in England, and died 06 Aug 1684 in Hartford, CT. He married (1) ______ ______ bef. 1636 in poss Cambridge, MA. She died abt. 1640 in Hartford, CT. He married (2) ELIZABETH ______ bef. 1641 in Hartford, CT. She was born in England, and died 11 Sep 1691 in Hartford, CT.

Richard Butler emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony about 1633. It is unknown whether he came with his brother William, also a Founder of Hartford, and while it is alleged that both brothers came on board the ship “Hector” in 1632 in “Wisconsin Families: Quarterly Magazine of Wisconsin Genealogical Society”, Vol. 1, 1940, article “Descendants of Richard Butler of Hartford, Connecticut”, Walter P. Butler, edited by Kathryn M. Wilkinson, a source cited in the Ackley – Bosworth Genealogy (which notes that this article has several errors), there is no evidence to support this claim.

He first resided in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he was made freeman 14 May 1634. He removed to Hartford in 1636, probably with the original party with Rev. Hooker.

In the Hartford land inventory of February 1639/40 he held seven parcels, of which six had been granted to him early: two acres with a dwelling house on the corner where the road from George Steele’s to the South Meadow intersected the road from the mill to the country; four acres in the South Meadow: one acre on the east side of the Great River: one rood in the Little Meadow; two acres in the Great Swamp; and nine acres of upland on the west side of the town.

He was Deacon of Rev. Thomas Hooker’s congregation, was Deputy for Hartford to the Connecticut Gourt in the years 1659 and 1660; was on the petit jury 15 June 1643: and on the grand jury 17 May 1660.

The inventory of his estate was taken 2 September 1684.

Genealogy: no published genealogy known