Major William Whiting, Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

WILLIAM¹ WHITING, MAJOR, HARTFORD FOUNDER was born abt. 1605 in Bridgwater, Somerset, England, and died 24 Jul 1647 in Hartford, CT (will at deathbed). He married SUSANNAH WIGGINS? abt. 1634 in England. She was born abt. 1618 in England, and died abt. 08 Jul 1673 in Middletown, CT (buried).

The ancestry, origin, and when and to where in the American colonies William Whiting emigrated is unknown. He was in the Hartford by 1639, where in the land inventory of February 1639/40 he held: two acres on which stood his dwelling house with other outhouses, yards, gardens, or orchards located on the east side of the road from William Hills’s the Oxpasture; three acres in the South Meadow; forty-four acres also in the South Meadow; another twenty-four acres in the South Meadow; an additional twenty acres in the South Meadow; nine acres of upland on the road from John Moody’s toward Wethersfield; forty-seven acres in the Oxpasture; twelve acres lying in Hockanum; and three acres and fourteen perches of swamp by the Great River.

He was Treasurer of the Colony from 1641 until 1647. In 1638 he was allowed to trade with the Indians, and was appointed with Major Mason and others to erect fortifications in 1642. He was made freeman in Hartford in February 1640, and was made magistrate 1641-1647.

His business was that of a merchant, trading extensively in Delaware, Long Island, Virginia, Piscataqua, and old England.

His first will was dated 20 March 1643, in consideration that he intended a voyage on the sea, and the last addition to his will was made 24 July 1647. His inventory was taken 29 April 1649.

Genealogy: “Genealogical notes of the Whiting family”, 1888, a pamphlet is superseded by “Various Ancestral Lines of James Goodwin and Lucy (Morgan) Goodwin of Hartford, Connecticut”, Vol. 2, Frank F. Starr, Hartford, 1915 (section The Family of William Whiting, but this does not extend past the third generation)