Timothy Stanley, Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

TIMOTHY¹ STANLEY, HARTFORD FOUNDER (ROBERT^A) was baptized 01 Apr 1604 in Tenterden, Kent, England, and died bef. 16 Oct 1648 in Hartford, CT (inventory). He married ELIZABETH MORRICE? bef. 1629, daughter of GEORGE MORRICE?. She was born abt. 1603 in poss Messing, Essex, England?, and died bef. 23 Feb 1678/79 in Hartford, CT (inventory).

Timothy Stanley, brother of Hartford Founders John and Thomas Stanley, migrated to the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1634, first residing in Cambridge, where he was granted six acres in the West End Field, and was made freeman 04 March 1634/5. 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 John Steele in October 1635, prior to the departure from Cambridge of the Rev. Hooker’s party in May 1636. In the Hartford land inventory of February 1639/40 he held nine parcels: two acres on which stood his dwelling house with other outhouses, yards, or gardens located on the road from the Little River to the North Meadow, west of the Little Meadow; two roods and three perches in the Little Meadow; thirteen acres and thirty-nine perches of meadow and swamp in the North Meadow; one acre, two roods and twelve perches on the east side of the Great River; eight acres and twenty perches in the Cow Pasture; twenty acres in the Little Oxpasture; one acre, two roods and thirty-two perches in the North Meadow; three acres, three roods and twenty-four perches in the Neck of Land; and three acres, two roods and nine perches also in the Neck of Land.

His wife appears to have been a sister of Hartford Founder John Morrice, and of Founder Robert Morrice of Hartford, but this is not proved.

Timothy Stanley was on the Connecticut petit jury in 1641, 1642, 1644, 1645, and 1647. He was on the committee to distribute land, 14 January 1639/40, and was Hartford selectman in 1641, 1643, and 1644.

The inventory of his estate was taken 16 October 1648, and the court ordered the distribution of the estate on 7 December 1648.

Recommended genealogy: “The Stanley Families of America as Descended from John, Timothy, and Thomas Stanley of Hartford, CT”, Israel P. Warren, Thurston & Co., Portland, Maine, 1887 (Although dated and lacking in source citation, most of the data presented for the first generations is substantiated by “The Great Migration: Immigration to New England 1634-1635”, Vol VI, R-S, Robert Charles Anderson, NEHGS, Boston, 2009. As is usual in genealogies from this period, this is primarily a patrilineal genealogy.)