Sgt. Thomas Barber (b. Abt. 21 Dec 1612, d. 11 Sep 1662)
Thomas Barber47 was born Abt. 21 Dec 1612 in Stamford, Lincolnshire, England, and died 11 Sep 1662 in Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut. He married Jane Unknown on 07 Oct 1640 in Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut.
Notes for Thomas Barber: According to Don Barber:
"Before coming to New England Thomas was apprenticed on 18 Dec 1634 for a period of 9 years (until December 1643) under Francis STILES, a master carpenter from Millbrook, Bedfordshire, England. Stiles was contracted by Sir Richard SALTONSTALL to bring apprentices to Windsor, and to build houses in America for Englishmen who were to follow. Thomas Barber at the age of 21 was among the twenty apprentices plus others who sailed with Stiles for New England in the ship "Christian" (John White, Master), which left London 16 Mar 1634 (Julian Calendar), and arrived 3 months later in Boston June 1635. Each of the passengers had a certificate which read in part: "with certificate from St. Mildred, Bread Street, London, and having taken the oaths, to be transported to New England from London in the "Christian". [~ from the Public Record Office, Westminster Hall, London ~] After 10 days at Boston the Christian sailed up the Connecticut River to Windsor, arriving there on the first of July 1635. That same year Thomas was granted a lot of a few acres, extending from Mill Brook, near the old Warham gristmill, north along both sides of Poquonock Avenue. The author's father was born on this same land, and my brother, sister, and I were brought up on this, the original land grant. After 330 years of continuous Barber ownership, the land has now all been sold. The Pequot War in 1637, which according to the settlers was precipitated by the Pequot Indians and their continual harassment of the settlers, the friendly Mohegan Indians, and sometimes the Narragansetts, found Thomas a Sargeant, one of 30 soldiers from Windsor who were enrolled under Major Stoughton for 3 weeks and 2 days. Under the leadership of Captain John MASON, the May 26 1637 night attack on the Pequot fort was a complete surprise to the sleeping Pequots, and a large percentage of the tribe was massacred. Thomas Barber's bravery (he was inside the Pequot Fort at Mystic during the attack, and along with Edward Pattison, “having no time to reload their muskets, slew seven fleeing Indians with axes and knives”), gained him honorable mention from Capt. Mason, and in return for this service, in 1641 he was granted 600 acres of land in Massaco, in the western part of Windsor. Massaco became Simsbury in 1669. On March 28, 1637 Francis Stiles (master carpenter) was ordered to teach his servants, George Chapple, Thomas Cooper and Thomas Barber in the trade of carpentry. The year 1645 found Thomas still an apprentice carpenter. Stiles apparently was slow to finish Thomas's apprenticeship, and needed a court order to force him to do so. Shortly after that Thomas was a free man. At the time of his death in 1662, Thomas may have been making preparations to move to Northampton MA, where he was offered a home lot and 20 acres. Life was apparently not completely peaceful for Thomas1 BARBER. Court records in 1649 show that he was found liable for a debt to William FRANKLIN. Thomas claimed that he had given the money to Thomas FORD to pay to Franklin. Then in 1650 Sargeant Barber was fined 5 pounds and forced to surrender his rank, for the disorderly striking of Lt. COOKE in an argument over church matters; Thomas believed that the church had no right to interfere in temporal matters. This penalty was later canceled when apparently Thomas apologized: "he is affected with his great evil and rash passionate carriage in striking the Lt." Thomas left an estate appraised at over 132 pounds. A deep mystery surrounds Jane, wife of Thomas. He married her in 1640, but the written record by Matthew Grant gives only the name Jane or Joan. Two of Thomas's sons married COGGIN ladies, but there is little sign that Jane was a Coggin, as some have suggested. One report (LDS record) has it that Jane COGGIN, b Bedfordshire ENG 1619 was daughter of John COGGIN, b in Bedford, Bedfordshire about 1593. It has also been suggested that Thomas BARBER married Jane BANCROFT, widow of John BANCROFT who died in 1637. Jane Bancroft had ties to Windsor thru her daughter Anna, b 1627, who married 1647 John GRIFFIN of Windsor and Simsbury, and her son John, born about 1620, who married in 1650 Hannah DUPPER and had a family in Windsor. But Jane BONYTHON who married John BANCROFT was born in 1573, and would have been way too old to have borne Thomas BARBER’s children. This theory against the wife being Jane Bancroft was written up in The American Genealogist, Vol 37, p 164, in 1961 by George E McCracken and more or less disproved at that time. He points out that she would have had to have borne children for too long a time span - highly unlikely, and also she would have had 2 sons named John and 2 named Thomas - also unlikely. Another account has John BANCROFT born about 1596, died 1637, m. Jane about 1622. That would have meant she was born about 1606 or before, making her about 47 in 1653 when Thomas’s youngest child Josiah Barber was born - not impossible, but very unlikel
It has been said by some that Thomas may have married the daughter of one of the Dutch traders at Old Saybrook, or Hartford, and also that the one he married was “the first white woman to land in Connecticut”. One of Francis STILES' sisters was named Jane, born 1605. She married in England and presumably remained there. There was a Jane MORDEN or WORDEN, age 35 (in 1635), on the passenger list of the Christian; however I know nothing further about her. It seems she was too old to have borne all of Thomas's children. There seems as yet no way of knowing who Jane was (an all too frequent problem in genealogy). [~ Windsor Hist Soc:Jay Mack Holbrook, 1992; 1909 Barber Gen; Barbour Index; Lyman Barber Gen; Stiles:Windsor; Lure of the Litchfield Hills ~]"
More About Thomas Barber and Jane Unknown: Marriage: 07 Oct 1640, Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut.
Sgt. Thomas Barber (b. Abt. 21 Dec 1612, d. 11 Sep 1662)
Notes for Thomas Barber: