Joseph Mygatt, Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

JOSEPH¹ MYGATT, DEACON, HARTFORD FOUNDER (THOMAS^A) was baptized 31 Aug 1595 in Coggeshall, Essex, England, and died 07 Dec 1680 in Hartford, CT (probate). He married ANN ______ bef. 1633 in England. She was born abt. 1602 in England, and died bef. 04 Mar 1685/86 in Hartford, CT (will proved).

Joseph Mygatt/Mygate emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony about 1634, residing in Cambridge by 04 August 1634, and was made freeman 06 May 1635. He removed to Hartford in 1636, and in the Hartford land inventory of February 1639/40 held: six acres on which his dwelling house stood with other outhouses, yards or gardens located on the northeast corner of the intersection of the road from Founder George Steele’s to the Great Swamp and the road to Thomas Richards’s: one acre in the Little Meadow; one acre on the east side of the Great River; four acres and two roods in the South Meadow; five acres in the swamp by the Great River; and nineteen acres of upland. He later acquired an additional six parcels.

He was an innkeeper, licensed to sell strong liquors of by retail on 02 October 1656. He was Deputy for Hartford to the Connecticut General Court 1656 to 1662; was on the Hartford petit jury 1643, 1644, 1646, 1647, 1649 to 1652, 1655, 1658, 1659, 1663, 1666 and 1667. He was on a committee to regulate weavers’ prices 03 June 1644; was selectman 1641, 1647, 1652, and 1660; and was fence viewer in 1650. He was first noted as Deacon 9 July 1663.

He died 07 December 1680, and his inventory was taken 10 December 1680.

Genealogy: “A Historical Notice of Joseph Mygatt, one of the early colonists of Cambridge, Mass., and afterward one of the First Settlers of Hartford, Conn.; with a Record of his Descendants”, Frederick T. Mygatt, Brooklyn, NY, 1853