Dr. Thomas Lord, Jr., Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

THOMAS² LORD, JR., DR., HARTFORD FOUNDER (THOMAS¹, RICHARD^A) was baptized 15 Nov 1616 in Towcester, Northampton, England, and died bef. 05 Apr 1662 in Wethersfield, CT (inventory). He married HANNAH THURSTON 28 Sep 1652 in Boston, MA. She was born in England, and died bef. 1670 in prob Hartford, CT.

Thomas Lord, Jr. of Towcester, Northamptonshire, England emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1635 aboard the ship “Elizabeth & Ann” with his parents and siblings (except for brother Richard, who had come over two years before), first residing in Cambridge. He removed to Hartford in 1636, where he was a Founder, as were his father and brother Richard. In the Hartford land inventory of February 1639/40 he held only two parcels: one acre and one rood on which stood his dwelling house with other outhouses, yards or gardens located on the north side of the Little River west of the road from the Palisade to Centinel Hill and immediately west of the house lot of his brother Richard, to whom he sold most of this lot, leaving him with only three roods; and two acres on the east side of the Great River.

Perhaps he had sold most of his house lot to finance his medical education, as he appears to have been the first regularly educated physician in Connecticut, which education he may have received in Boston in some period before 1652, in which year he married in Boston, Hannah Thurston. At a session of the General Court in Hartford on 30 June 1652 the assembly engaged Dr. Lord to continue living in Hartford and practice medicine, setting at the same time what his fees would be. His medical practice was so important to the community that in the same session the assembly freed him from watching, warding and training.

He removed to Wethersfield in 1657, where he wrote his will on 28 October 1661 and died soon thereafter in March 1662. His inventory was taken 5 April 1662, and administration on his estate was granted to Gregory Wolterton, who soon married Dr. Thomas Lord’s widow.

Recommended genealogy: “Genealogy of the Descendants of Thomas Lord, an Original Proprietor and Founder of Hartford, Conn., in 1636”, Kenneth Lord, New York, 1946