Mary Betts, Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

MARY¹ ____, WIDOW BETTS, HARTFORD FOUNDER was born in England, and died bef. 19 Jul 1647 in Hartford, CT. She married JOHN BETTS in England. He was born in England, and died aft. 1627 in poss. Oxford, England or on the voyage to America.

Mary Betts, widow, known as “the School Dame”, owned land “by the courtesie of The Towne”. Her home lot of 2 acres was located on the south side of the road from the Meeting House to the Mill, just to the north of the Little River, which she purchased from Seth Grant. She received four acres in the division of 1639 – 40.

Though the name of her husband John is known (as discussed in the “Boardman Genealogy”, page 139, by virtue of the baptismal record of their son John in Claydon, England), his date and place of birth and date and place of death are unknown.

Her precise date of death is unknown, she left no will, and there was no known probate of her estate.

Genealogy: “Boardman Genealogy”, Charlotte Goldthwaite, Case, Lockwood & Brainerd Co., Hartford, 1895 (Although this genealogy was published in 1895, it is extraordinarily thorough and well annotated. However, for the Betts family, there is little beyond the third-generation, with the exception of the descendants of Samuel Boardman, who married the widow Betts’ daughter Mary.)