Matthew Marvin, Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

MATTHEW¹ MARVIN, HARTFORD FOUNDER (EDWARD^A) was baptized 26 Mar 1600 in Great Bentley, Essex, England, and died bef. 13 Jul 1680 in Norwalk, CT (inventory). He married (1) ELIZABETH ______ bef. 1622 in England. She was born abt. 1603, and died abt. 1642 in Hartford, CT. He married (2) ALICE ______, widow of JOHN BOUTON bef. 1647 in Hartford, CT. She was born abt. 1610 in England, and died bef. 31 Jan 1680/81 in Norwalk, CT.

Matthew Marvin, brother of Founder Reinold Marvin, emigrated from Great Bentley, Essex, England in 1635 on the ship “Increase”, with his wife and children and Founders John Warner and Isaac More. Matthew Marvin was among the so-called “Adventurers Party” of twenty-five men who set out to explore the area that would become Hartford, led by John Steele in October 1635, prior to the departure from Cambridge of the Rev. Hooker’s party in May 1636, and was one of sixteen founders living in Hartford in 1635 prior to the arrival of Hooker’s party.

In the Hartford land inventory of February 1639/40 he held ten parcels: two acres with a dwelling house, other outhouses, yards or gardens located on the west side of the road to the Neck; one acre for another house lot in the Neck of Land; two acres, thirty-four perches on the east side of the Great River; one acre in the Little Meadow; two acres, one rood and fourteen perches of meadow and swamp in the North Meadow; another parcel in the North Meadow of meadow and swamp of fourteen acres, one rood and thirty-six perches; nine acres, two roods and ten perches in the Cow Pasture; twenty acres in the Old Oxpasture; eight acres, three roods and nine perches in the Neck of Land; and four more acres in the Neck of Land. He also had a parcel of eleven acres and thirty-two perches in the Venturers Field which he sold to John Talcott. Before 1653 he had acquired two parcels in Farmington totaling twenty acres.

Called husbandman in Hartford, he was surveyor of highways in 1648, but apparently held no other public offices in Hartford. He removed to Norwalk in 1651, where he was deputy for Norwalk to the Connecticut General Court in 1654. On 19 May 1659 he was freed from watching and training.

The inventory of his estate was taken 13 July 1680.

Recommended genealogy: “Descendants of Reinold and Matthew Marvin of Hartford, CT., 1638 and 1635, Sons of Edward Marvin, of Great Bentley, England”, George F. & William T. R. Marvin, Boston, 1904