Family:Henry Smith and Dorothy Unknown (1)

One Wife or Two for Rev. Henry Smith?

"There was published at Hartford in 1856, under the title "Genealogical Notes" by the late Nathaniel Goodwin, for many years Judge of Probate for Hartford, a work which contains the earliest published account of Rev. Henry Smith and his descendants. Judge Goodwin concluded from the terms of Rev. Henry Smith’s will that Smith must have had a wife before his wife Dorothy, who was the mother of the four younger children, born in Wethersfield, since his older daughters were in 1648 married and themselves had children. This opinion has been generally accepted by later writers. We venture to disagree. It is evident that Rev. Henry Smith was in 1636 in the prime of life and not more than thirty-five years of age. His wife, Dorothy, doubtless some years younger than he, could have been the mother of all of his children and we so place them. …"^[2]

1. ↑ Rev. Henry Smith, in Jacobus, Donald Lines, and Edgar Francis Waterman. Hale, House and Related Families, Mainly of the Connecticut River Valley. (Hartford: The Connecticut Historical Society, 1952)
   730-33.

   Rev. Henry¹ Smith … married Dorothy -----. She married second, John Russell.

2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 Brainard, Homer Worthington. The Reverend Henry Smith of Wethersfield. American Genealogist (D.L. Jacobus). (Jul 1933)
   10:7-12.