Thomas Scott, Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

THOMAS¹ SCOTT, HARTFORD FOUNDER was born abt. 1597 in England, and died 06 Nov 1643 in Hartford, CT. He married ANN ______ bef. 1622 in England. She was born in England, and died 05 May 1675 in Northampton, MA.

Thomas Scott, whose origin and ancestry are unknown, emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634, where he received a grant of land on 4 August 1634, and where in the land inventory of September 1635 he held two parcels.

He was among the so-called “Adventurers Party” of twenty-five men who set out to explore the area that would become Hartford, led by Founder 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: two acres on which his dwelling house stood with other outhouses, yards, and gardens located on the road from the Little River to the North Meadow; one acre in the Little Meadow; two acres, two roods, and thirty-seven perches in the North Meadow; twenty-one acres, three roods, and eighteen perches also in the North Meadow; eighteen acres in the Old Oxpasture; ten acres, three roods, and thirty perches in the Cow Pasture; three acres, one rood, and twenty perches in the Venturers' Field; four acres and twenty-four perches on the east side of the great River; five acres and twenty-four perches in the Neck of Land; ten acres of swamp on the east side of the Great River; and two acres of swamp in the North Meadow.

(It should be noted that in “The Original Proprietors”, Miss Talcott had this Thomas Scott confused with the Thomas Scott of Ipswich.)

He was a Hartford member of the Connecticut Colony committee to regulate the trade in corn in 1638, was on a committee to “view those parts ... which may be suitable for settlement” in the area which became the town of Farmington in 1640, and was on the Connecticut petit jury in 1641 and 1643.

Robert Charles Anderson states that he may have been the brother of Sarah Scott, who married Thomas Graves, who had arrived in Hartford by 1649.

Thomas Scott died on 6 November 1643 while in the process of dictating his last will and testament. The inventory of his estate was taken 6 January 1643/4.

Genealogy: None known.