George Hubbard, Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

GEORGE¹ HUBBARD, HARTFORD FOUNDER was born abt. 1605 in England, and died 16 Mar 1684/85 in Middletown, CT. He married ELIZABETH WATTS abt. 1640 in Hartford, CT, daughter of Founder RICHARD WATTS and ELIZABETH ______. She was born abt. 1616 in England, and died 1702 in Middletown, CT.

When George Hubbard came to the American colonies is unknown, but he was not, as some have claimed (including Miss Talcott in “The Original Proprietors”), the son of George Hubbard of Milford and Guilford. He appears to have arrived in Hartford rather late, as he did not have a house lot assigned to him, but instead purchased a tiny lot of one rood (about ¼ acre) from Founder Jeremy Adams, on the North side of the road from Founder George Steele’s to the South Meadow. He was a resident of Hartford “by courtesie of the Towne”, and had only two parcels of land besides his home lot in the Hartford land inventory of February 1639/40: three acres in the Forty Acres; and four acres on the east side of the Great River.

He married about 1640 Elizabeth, daughter of Hartford Founder Richard Watts. He removed from Hartford to Middletown soon after his marriage, as his first child Mary was born there 16 January 1640/1. About 1650 he had a commission from the Colonial Government as “Indian Agent and Trader for the Mattabesett District”, which would be renamed Middletown in 1653. He was made freeman in 1654, and when the first Meeting-House in Middletown was built he was selected as its keeper.

Genealogy: “One Thousand Years of Hubbard History: 866 to 1895”, Edward W. Day, New York, 1895 (This is a quite dated genealogy, with an odd numbering system, and difficult sequencing of persons and generations, is lacking in citation, and only follows male lines, but it is, basically, all that is available.)