Person:Nicholas Denslow (1)

Nicholas Denslow
b.Bet 1585 and 1590
  • HNicholas DenslowBet 1585 & 1590 - 1667
  • WElizabeth _____Bef 1600 - 1669
m. Bef 1618
  1. Temperance DenslowAbt 1620 - 1681
  2. Joan DenslowEst 1625 - 1676
Facts and Events
Name[1] Nicholas Denslow
Gender Male
Birth[1] Bet 1585 and 1590
Marriage Bef 1618 to Elizabeth _____
Death[1] 8 Mar 1667 Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut

From Peter Kurtz


George McKenzie Roberts published "The Denslow Family in America" in 1946. He claimed that Nicholas Denslow of New England was baptized in Allington, Dorsetshire, England on October 4, 1573 and was the son of Hugh Denslow (alias Bailey) and Joan Way. Roberts says he was the same individual as the "Nicholas Baylie" who married Elizabeth Doling at Netherbury, Dorsetshire on January 24, 1608.

"Great Migration" disputes this claim, citing the huge leap of faith that the Bailey family is really the Denslow family, and also citing chronological problems.

Without dispute is that Nicholas Denslow, father of Joan, migrated to New England. He was a Freeman on March 4, 1632/33. The Windsor land inventory on Dec. 25, 1640 showed him owning five parcels of land. His will was dated March 4, 1666/67 and was signed with a mark.

From the Great MigrationS1:

  • Migrated to Dorchester before 1632, origin unknown. Moved to Windsor 1636.
  • Freeman 4 Mar 1632/3 [ MBCR 1:367]; implies member of Dorchester church
  • Named in Dorchester land transactions, including grant in 1632. [NEHGR 32:58, DTR 2, 11, 18].
  • Held five parcels in the Windsor land inventory on 25 December 1640: homelot of six and a half acres; four acres and a half on the west side of the street; ten acres and a half in the Great Meadow; fifty-three acres in the Pine Meadow; and twenty-four acres in the Northwest Field [WiBOP 32]. (The Great Meadow and Northwest Field parcels are annotated in the margin "Nicolas Buckland.")
  • WILL: In his will, dated 4 March 1666/7, "Nicolas Denslow of Windsor" bequeathed to "my wife ... the use and improvement of my whole estate during her life and when she dies I bequeath to Timothy Buckland my grandchild all my lot lying at Pine Meadow both in the meadow and out of the meadow" and "to Nicolas Buckland my grandchild ... all my housing and homelot entire and all my meadow land in the Great Meadow either pasture or plowing" as well as some movables and "my woodlot"; "the rest of my estate in cattle of all sorts, corn or any movables" to be at my wife's dispose [ Hartford PD Case #1640; Manwaring 1:192]. On 3 March 1669/70 Capt. Aaron Cooke asked for a distribution of the estate of Nicholas Denslow, his wife being a coheir; no action was taken [ Manwaring 1:192]. The inventory of the estate of Nicholas Denslow, taken on 5 June 1667, totalled £329 2s., of which £255 was real estate: "on the east side of the street in housing, orchard and houseland with pasture adjoining nine acres," £90; "on the west side of the street a remainder part of his homelot 4 acres and «," £20; "in the Great Meadow 17 acres," £85; "a woodlot 24 acres," £10; "in Pine Meadow 11 acres," £33; "in upland adjoining 42 acres," £17 [ Hartford PD Case #1640].
  • "Some sources claim various other children for Nicholas Denslow. Stiles ignores the two known daughters, but does include sons Henry and John. These men were not named in the wills of Nicholas or his widow; they may be nephews or more distant kinsmen of Nicholas, but they certainly are not sons. Roberts also includes a son Nicholas, who married in Netherbury in 1634 and remained in England; this man is not named in any New England record, and there is no reason to believe that he was son of Nicholas of Windsor."
References
  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Nicholas Denslow, in Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995)
    Vol 1, p. 526, 528.

    Born probably about 1585-1590, assuming death age exaggerated as usual.;Died Windsor 8 March 1666[/7], aged 90 [ CTVR 22; Grant 84].

  2.   Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England: Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692, on the Basis of Farmer's Register. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1860-1862)
    2:39.

    DENSLOW, NICHOLAS, Dorchester 1630, perhaps came in the Mary and John, or in the fleet with Winthrop, freem[an]. 4 Mar. 1633, rem[oved]. a[bout]. 1640 to Windsor, d[ied]. Mar[ch]. 1667; by w[ife]. Elizabeth wh[o]. d[ied]. 13 Aug. 1669, had no s[ons]. but two d[aughter]s. Joan, wh[o]. m[arried]. Aaron Cook, as his sec[ond]. w[ife]. and Temperance, wh[o]. m[arried]. Thomas Buckland.

Founders of Windsor, CT
Windsor was the first permanent English settlement in Connecticut. Local indians granted Plymouth settlers land at the confluence of the Farmington River and the west side of the Connecticut River, and Plymouth settlers (including Jonathan Brewster, son of William) built a trading post in 1633. But the bulk of the settlement came in 1635, when 60 or more people led by Reverend Warham arrived, having trekked overland from Dorchester, Massachusetts. Most had arrived in the New World five years earlier on the ship "Mary and John" from Plymouth, England. The settlement was first called Dorchester, and was renamed Windsor in 1637.

See: Stiles History of Ancient Windsor - Thistlewaite's Dorset Pilgrims - Wikipedia entry

Loomis homestead, oldest in CT.
Settlers at Windsor by the end of 1640, per the Descendants of the Founders of Ancient Windsor: Abbot - Alford - S. Allen - M. Allyn - Barber - Bartlett - M. (Barrett) (Huntington) Stoughton - Bascomb - Bassett - Benett - Birge - Bissell - Branker - Brewster - Buckland - Buell - Carter - Chappel - D. Clarke - J. Clarke - Cooke - Cooper - Denslow - Dewey - Dibble - Dumbleton - Drake - Dyer - Eels - Eggleston - Filley - Ford - Foulkes - Fyler - Gaylord - Francis Gibbs - William Gilbert - Jere. Gillett - Jon. Gillett - N. Gillett - Grant - Gridley - E. Griswold - M. Griswold - Gunn - Hannum - Hawkes - Hawkins - Hayden - Haynes - Hill - Hillier - Holcombe - Holmes - Holt - Hosford - Hoskins - Hoyte - Hubbard - Huit - Hulbert - Hull - Hurd - Hydes - Loomis - Ludlow - Lush - Marshfield - A. Marshall - T. Marshall - Mason - M. (Merwin) (Tinker) Collins - M. Merwin - Mills - Moore - Newberry - Newell - Oldage - Orton - Osborn - Palmer - Parsons - Parkman - Pattison - Phelps - Phelps - Phillips - Pinney - Pomeroy - Pond - Porter - Preston - Rainend - Randall - Rawlins - Reeves - J. Rockwell - W. Rockwell - B. Rossiter - St. Nicholas - Saltonstall - Samos - M. Sension (St. John) – R. Sension - Sexton - Staires - Starke - F. StilesH. Stiles - J. StilesT. Stiles - Stoughton - Stuckey - Talcott - E. Taylor - J. Taylor - Terry - Thornton - Thrall - Tilley - Tilton - Try - F. (Clark) (Dewey) (Phelps) - Vore - Warham - Weller - Whitehead - A. Williams - J. Williams - R. Williams - Wilton - Winchell - Witchfield - Wolcott - Young
Current Location: Hartford County, Connecticut   Parent Towns: Dorchester, Massachusetts   Daughter Towns: Windsor Locks; South Windsor; East Windsor; Ellington; Bloomfield