Richard Lyman, Sr., Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

RICHARD¹ LYMAN, HARTFORD FOUNDER (HENRY^A) was baptized 30 Oct 1580 in High Ongar, Essex, England, and died bef. 06 Sep 1641 in Hartford, CT (inventory). He married SARAH ______ abt. 1611 in prob High Ongar, Essex, England. She was born in England, and died aft. Jan 1641/42 in Hartford, CT (will presented in court).

Richard Lyman emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from High Ongar, Essex, England, arriving in November 1631, taking up residence in Roxbury. He was made freeman 11 June 1633.

He removed to Hartford with Rev. Hooker’s party in 1636. In the Hartford land inventory of February 1639/40 he held six parcels: three acres and one rood on which stood his dwelling house, outhouses, yards and gardens, located on the south side of the road from George Steele’s to the South Meadow; eight acres of upland; another twenty acres of upland; seven acres in the South Meadow; an additional two acres in the South Meadow; and six acres of swamp on the east side of the Great River. However, in his will he only mentions two parcels of land aside from his house lot, so it is reasonable to assume that only the first three lots cited in the inventory were his, and the remainder were those of his son Richard.

When he arrived in Hartford he was 56 years old, and held no known public offices. His will was dated 22 April 1640, his inventory was taken 6 September 1641, and his will was proved 27 January 1642/3; the first probate recorded in Hartford. He had died prior to 3 March 1640/1 when his thirty acres were called the property of Richard Lyman, deceased.

Genealogy: “Genealogy of the Lyman Family, in Great Britain and America”, Lyman Coleman, Albany, 1872 (The English ancestry section of this genealogy should be ignored, and the balance of it used with caution, crosschecking data with other sources.)