John Lee, Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

JOHN¹ LEE, HARTFORD FOUNDER was born abt. 1620 in England, and died 08 Aug 1690 in Farmington, CT. He married MARY HART bef. 07 Feb 1657/58 in Farmington, CT, daughter of STEPHEN HART and _____ ______. She was born abt. 1638 in Hartford, CT, and died 09 Oct 1710 in Northampton, MA.

John Lee, whose ancestry is unknown, came to the American colonies onboard the ship “Francis” as a ward of Hartford founder William Westwood. Robert Charles Anderson in his Great Migration article on John Lee is uncertain that this John Lee was the same as the John Lee who married in 1658 in Farmington, Connecticut. Anderson provides the arguments that link the John Lee of the “Francis” and the John Lee of Farmington (note particularly that the dates of birth are very approximately the same), but is too cautious to say they are the same. It seems to this compiler unlikely that they are, in fact, not the same. This conclusion is supported in the NEHGR article on him in Volume 28, in which it is asserted that the John Lee of Farmington was the same as he who came with William Westwood. Gary Boyd Roberts states in the NEHGR Vol. 136, 1982, pg. 99 that John Lee of Farmington was the same as the passenger list of the “Francis”. The probable reason that there is no record of him is that he was a servant to William Westwood, and was, as such, a “non-person”. There is no mention of him in Westwood’s will, which there would not be for a servant rather than a relative.

His inventory was taken on 30 October 1690.

Genealogy: “John Lee of Farmington, Hartford Co., Conn. and His Descendants”, Leonard Lee & Sarah Fiske Lee, Meriden, CT, 1897