John Moody, Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

JOHN¹ MOODY, HARTFORD FOUNDER (GEORGE^A) was baptized 08 Apr 1593 in Moulton, Suffolk, England, and died bef. 06 Dec 1655 in Hartford, CT (inventory). He married SARAH COX 08 Sep 1617 in Bury St. Edmonds St. James, Suffolk, England. She was baptized 17 May 1598 in Bury St. Edmonds St. James, Suffolk, England, and died 04 Nov 1671 in Hadley, MA.

John Moody emigrated from Moulton, Suffolk, England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1633, first residing in Roxbury where he was made freeman 5 November 1633, and was Deputy to the Massachusetts General Court for Roxbury in 1635.

He removed to Hartford by 1639 where he was granted six parcels as shown in the Hartford land inventory of February 1639/40: four acres on which stood his dwelling house, outhouses, yards and gardens, located on the corner of the road from John Moody’s to the Oxpasture and the road from George Steele’s to the South Meadow; twenty-six acres of upland; six acres in the South Meadow; four acres also in the South Meadow; two roods in the Neck of Land; and four acres in Hockanum. He later acquired an additional two parcels of land.

He was selectman in Hartford in 1639 and 1640, and was lieutenant of the Hartford train band in 1640. His sister Francis married in England, Thomas Kilbourn, one of the founders of Wethersfield.

He died in Hartford sometime between the date of his will, 25 July 1655 and the date of the inventory of his estate, 6 December 1655.

Genealogy: no published genealogy known (“Descendants of John Moody of Roxbury, Massachusetts and Hartford, Connecticut”, a short, unpublished typescript by an unknown author, deposited in the Connecticut State Library in Hartford in 1928 exists, but has no of citation of proofs of any sort, and only deals with the line of John³ Moody.)