Genealogy Report: Descendants of Thomas Hurlburt
Descendants of Thomas Hurlburt
1.THOMAS1 HURLBURT1 was born Abt. 1610 in Scotland?1, and died Aft. October 12, 16712.He married SARAH ?2 Unknown.She was born Unknown, and died Unknown.
Notes for THOMAS HURLBURT:
Thomas Hurlburt came across the Atlantic, it was supposed, in the year1635, for he was a soldier under Lion Gardiner who built, and had command of the fort at Saybrook, Connecticut.Lion Gardiner, it is said, was an Englishman, and by profession an engineer, and had been in Holland in the service of the ? of Orange, but was engaged by the proprietors of the Connecticut ? issued by Charles II to Lord Say and Seal, Lord Brooke and others, granting a large tract of territory on the banks of the Connecticut river, to ? a fortification at its mouth.Gardiner, said Judge Savage, embarked ? in the Bachilor, of only 25 tons, August 11, 1635, with his wife and female servant, and eleven male passengers, and after a long and tempestuous voyage, arrived at Boston November 28, 1635.It is believed, however, that Governor. Winthrop told that Gardiner sailed in a Norse barque (a sailing vessel of the coast of Norway), July 10, 1635.It is supposed that Thomas Hurlburt was one of the eleven passengers above referred to; but who his parents were, or when or where he was born, we have not been able to learn.We may yet pretty confidently believe that his birth occurred as early as the year 1610, and I am more inclined to believe that he was a native of Scotland than I am able, perhaps, to show satisfactory evidence of such belief.
Mr. Hurlburt while at Saybrook, in an encounter with the Pequot Indians in 1637, was wounded by an arrow.This appears in a letter of Lion Gardiner, written in June 1660, some 23 years after the skirmish with the Indians, addressed to Robert Chapman and Thomas Hurlburt, detailing incidents regarding the Pequot war, as far as came within his personal knowledge.Capt. Gardiner, in the communication named, says that Mr. Robert Chapman, Thomas Hurlburt, and Major Mason urged his to do it, "and having rummaged ? ? some old papers then written it was a great help to my memory."The document laid in manuscript until 1833 (173 years) when it was printed in col.3, 3d Sec. of Mass. Historical Society. Colls.The following is an extract:
"In the 22nd of February, I went out with ten men and three dogs, half a mile from the house (fort), to burn the weeds, leaves and reed upon the Neck of Land, because we had felled twenty timber trees, which we were to roll to the water-side to bring home, every man carrying a length of match with brimstone-matches with him to kindle the fire withal.But when we came to the small of the Neck, the weeds burning, I having before this set two sentinels on the small of the Neck, I called to the men that were burning the weeds to come away, but they would not until they had burnt up the rest of their matches.Presently there starts up four Indians out of the fiery weeds, but they ran away.I called to the rest of our men to come away out of the marsh.
"Then Robert Chapman and Thomas Hurlburt, being sentinels, called to me, saying there came a number of Indians out of the other side of the marsh.Then I went to stop them, that they should not get the woodland; but Thomas Hurlburt cried out to me that some of the men did not follow me, for Thomas Rumble and Arthur Branch threw down their two guns and ran away; then the Indians shot two of them that were in the reeds, and sought to get between us and home, but durst not come before us, but kept us in a half moon, we retreating and exchanging many a shot, so that Thomas Hurlburt was shot almost through the thigh, John Spencer in the back into his kidneys, myself into the thigh, two more shot dead.But in our retreat, I kept Hurlburt and Spencer still before us, we defending ourselves with our naked swords, or else they had taken us all alive, so that the two sore wounded men, by our slow retreat, got home with our guns, when our two sound men ran away and left their guns behind them."
Gardiner does not mention his estimate of the number of the assailants, but Underwood, in his history, says there were "a hundred or more."
Mr. Hurlburt was by trade a blacksmith, and after the war with the Pequots, he located and established himself in business at Weathersfield, New London County, Connecticut, and was one of the early settlers of that place, as well as first blacksmith.A single extract from the colonial record would seem to indicate that he was a good workman and charged a good price for his work: "March 2, 1642 Thomas Hallibut was find 40 shillings for encouraging others in taking excessive rates for work and ware."But this fine appears to have been 'respited' February 5, 1643, upon Peter Bassaker's trial to make 'nayles' with less loss and cheaper rates.
He seems to have been a man of good standing in the place; he was Clerk of the "Train Band" in 1640, Deputy to the General Court, Grand Juror and also Constable in 1644.It appears on the records that he received various tracts of land in the several divisions of the town, which were recorded together in 1647.In 1660 the town of Wethersfield granted Thomas Hurlburt Lot 39, one of the "four score acre lots" (in Naubuc, east side of the river), which he afterward sold to Thomas Hollister.For his services in the Indian wars, the Assembly voted him a grant of 120 acres of land October 12, 1671.It is supposed that Mr. Hurlburt died soon after the last named date, as no evidence appears that the land was set off to him during his life.In that early day of the colony, land was plenty and cheap, and no attempt appears to have been made to avail himself of the bounty, nor even by his sons.It was not until 1694, on the petition of John Hurlburt, Jr., of Middletown, a grandson of the settler and soldier, that it was set off.
It is told, and the tradition is not an unreasonable one to credit, that the house in Weathersfield, New London County, Connecticut, where Miss Herriet Mitchell resides in 1888, stands upon the site of the first Hurlburt who lived in the settlement.(Miss M. is said to be the sixth generation from the ancestor Thomas Hurlburt).The house of the early settler, as tradition gives, had peculiar attractions for the Indians, whether with the purpose to inspect the architecture of the edifice, or else to get a view of the proprietor of the mansion, for he had been an Indian fighter formerly, I cannot say; but often, when in the village, they were to be seen looking curiously in at the windows.
The Christian name of the wife of Mr. Hurlburt was Sarah, but nothing further is known; no date of birth, marriage, nor death.The dates of birth of five of their six sons are missing; whether there were any daughters or not, is not known.During the contention that existed in the church of Wethersfield, the early records of both the town and church, it is understood, disappeared.
Children of THOMAS HURLBURT and SARAH ? are:
2. | i. | THOMAS2 HURLBURT, JR., b. Abt. 1640, Wethersfield, Hartford County, Connecticut; d. September 1689. | |
ii. | JOHN HURLBURT3, b. March 08, 1641/423; d. August 30, 16903. | ||
iii. | SAMUEL HURLBURT3, b. Abt. 16443; d. Abt. 17123. | ||
iv. | JOSEPH HURLBURT3, b. Abt. 16463; d. July 13, 17323. | ||
v. | STEPHEN HURLBURT3, b. Abt. 16493; d. Unknown. | ||
vi. | CORNELIUS HURLBURT3, b. Abt. 16543; d. Unknown. |