Samuel Wakeman, Hartford Founder

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Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

SAMUEL1 WAKEMAN, HARTFORD FOUNDER (FRANCISA) was baptized 25 Sep 1603 in Bewdley, Worcestershire, England, and died 1641 in Old Providence Island, Bahamas. He married ELIZABETH ______ bef. 1630 in England. She was born abt. 1608 in England, and died bef. 1665 in Hartford, CT.

Samuel Wakeman emigrated from Bewdley, Worcestershire, England aboard the ship “Lyon”, arriving in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in November 1631. He was the brother of Hartford Founder Priscilla Wakeman (wife of Hartford Founder Thomas Richards), of Esther Wakeman (wife of Hartford Founder Thomas Selden), Martha Wakeman (who married William Davis, a founder of the New Haven Colony), of Ann Wakeman (who married Adam Nichols, a founder of the New Haven Colony who died in Hartford), and of John Wakeman, another founder of the New Haven Colony who also died in Hartford.

He first resided in Roxbury, where he was made freeman 7 August 1632, and was Deputy to the Massachusetts General Court from Roxbury 6 May 1635. Soon thereafter he removed to Cambridge, where he held a parcel of land in the land inventory of 10 October 1635.

He removed to Hartford later by 1636 as he was chosen as constable in Hartford 26 April 1636. In the land inventory of February 1639/40 he held: two acres on which his dwelling house stood, located on the road on the south side of the Little River; seven acres in the South Meadow; six acres Hockanum; three acres and three roods in the Great Swamp; six acres in the swamp by the Great River; twenty-three acres of upland; another twelve acres of upland; and a further twelve acres and two roods of upland.

He was a merchant, and was a joint undertaker in the 1640 voyages of the “Charles” of Bristol and the “Hopewell” of London. In the summer of 1641 he was sent to Old Providence Island in the Bahamas with goods to buy cotton, and upon arrival in the harbor the ship he was on was fired on by Spanish guns. His thighs were sorely wounded and he died 10 days later. His estate was settled on Nathaniel Willett, (who would become Samuel’s widow’s husband) on 4 Dec 1645.

Genealogy: “Wakeman Genealogy, 1630-1899”, Robert P. Wakeman, Meriden, CT, 1900 (this genealogy primarily deals with the descendants of John Wakeman, brother of Samuel. The descendants of Samuel Wakeman are presented in the second generation, and only to the third generation in the case of Samuel’s son Ezbon).

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