Thomas Crumpe, Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

THOMAS CRUMPE, HARTFORD FOUNDER was born in England, and died bef. 05 Mar 1644/45 in Hartford, CT (probate) d. s. p..

Thomas Crumpe was a servant of Gov. Edward Hopkins, to whom he left all his property. As a “non-person”, no records of him appear in Hartford, except a lawsuit in September 1644 in which “Tho: Steyton pl. agt Tho: Crumpe deft, in an ac.of Slaunder.” (Suits regarding slander were extremely common in early Hartford). This charge is recorded in “The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut prior to the Union with New Haven Colony, 1665”, J. Hammond Trumbull, Hartford, 1850, pg. 102, and an order for “Andrew Bacon and George Graves, on the 5th day of March, 1644, testified in Court, when he was sicke, not long before his death, asking him how he would dispose of his Estate, he said, his debts being paid, his master would doe wth yt as he pleased. Ed: Hopkins Esqr, Govr, is admitted to administer the Estate of Tho: Crumpe, late of Hartford, Deceased.”

This order is repeated verbatum in Manwarings Early Probate, Vol. 1, pg. 6.

It being logical that Thomas Crumpe had been with Gov. Hopkins long enough to desire his master to inherit his estate in 1644, that Crumpe was in Hartford probably since 1636.

He had no apparent spouse or children.

Hinman in “A Catalogue of the Names of the Early Puritan Settlers”, pg. 768 claims a George Crump who died in Hartford in 1644, but this compiler can find no evidence for this.

Genealogy: none