Person:Simon Mills (1)

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Simon Mills
d.6 Jul 1683
m. Abt 1593
  1. Simon Mills1613 - 1683
m. 18 Oct 1639
  • HSimon Mills1613 - 1683
  • WMary Buell1642 - 1718
m. 23 Feb 1659
  1. Samuel Mills1661 - 1661
  2. Simon Mills1661/62 - 1662
  3. Mary Mills1662 - 1730
  4. Hannah MillsEst 1665 - Aft 1731/32
  5. Simon Mills1667 - Bef 1683
  6. John Mills1668 - 1697
  7. Sarah Mills1670 - 1718
  8. Abigail Mills1672 - 1691
  9. Elizabeth Mills1673 - 1777
  10. Prudence Mills1676 - 1683
  11. Simon Mills1679 - Aft 1760
Facts and Events
Name[1][2][3] Simon Mills
Gender Male
Christening[2] 25 Apr 1613 Barnstaple, Devon, England
Emigration[1] 1639
Residence[1] 1639 Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut, United States
Marriage 18 Oct 1639 Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut, United Statesto Joan Unknown
Alt Marriage 23 Feb 1656 Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut, United Statesto Mary Buell
Marriage 23 Feb 1659 Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut, United Statesto Mary Buell
Alt Death[5] 8 Jun 1683 Simsbury, Hartford, Connecticut, United States
Death[2][6] 6 Jul 1683
Probate[6] 6 Sep 1683 Admin to Relict & Peter Buell

Contents

One Simon Mills, or Two?


Frank Farnsworth Starr - 1915

"On page 59 of the present volume I of Births, Marriages and Deaths of the town of Windsor, Connecticut, is this entry:

'Simon Mills married his wife Jone, Oct: 18th: 1639.'

On page 47 of the same volume is entered: "'Joan the wife of Simon Mills was buried July: 5th: 59.'

On page 59 is written

'Simon Mills and Mary Buel were married Febr: 23d: 1659.'

Mathew Grant, one of Windsor's prominent men and for a time its Town Clerk, made after 1670 a record of events in that town from the settlement, such as births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and others items of importance.

One of the entries begins thus:

'May. 23. 76. A count of Parsons that have dyed in Windsor—to begin'

Then follows under each year a list of names without any date of month or day. In the year '57' is written 'ye wife of simon milles' and in the year '59'—'ye wife of simon milles.'

Because of all the above statements various writers have inferred that there were resident in the town about 1660 two men named Simon Mills, both of marriageable age, presumably father and son. A careful study of the Land Records of the town would indicate that there was but one Simon Mills at that time and there is nothing on the Particular Court Records to alter this opinion. The only evidence to the contrary is the Grant Record of these two deaths. The entry in 1659 is evidently meant for Joan, wife of Simon Mills, who according to the record on the town books was buried July 5 of that year. There is nothing on the Town Records to correspond with the Grant entry of 1657.

The town books also contain a record of the death of the wife of Simon Wolcott on the same date as the Colony Record. Because of this discovery and the lack of evidence on the town and colonial records that there was more than one person in Windsor named Simon Mills, prior to the birth and death of another in 1661, the writer of this sketch is decidedly of the opinion that all the entries before referred to, except that made by Mathew Grant in his Church Record of the death in April 1657, relate to the family of one man only, and this sketch is compiled in accordance with that conviction."[2]


George E. McCracken & Donald Lines Jacobus - 1960

"We are ourselves in complete agreement with the account of the Mills family by the distinguished genealogist, Prank Farnsworth Starr, printed in his Goodwin-Morgan Ancestral Lines (Hartford 1915), 1:111-122, the best study of the first two generations yet to be published. Mr. Starr thoroughly covered at first hand the land, probate and church records of the region, but found nothing to show more than one man of the name at the period in question. He particularly found no instance of the name Simon Mills coupled with either Sr. or Jr., as we should have expected, had there been a father and son with the same name present contemporaneously at Windsor and Simsbury. …

It is our opinion that there was but one Simon Mills involved in these records; that when a young man he married a woman much older than he; that thus he was childless until his second marriage."[3]


George E. McCracken - 1978

"The history of Simon Mills at Windsor has created a controversy. Donald Lines Jacobus and I printed in The American Genealogist 36:127 f. a brief note in which we asserted, counter to the opinions of others, that there was but one Simon Mills in the earliest period of Windsor history. I do not feel that this is the place to enter again into this controversy, nor to present a complete bibliography of all the references. Sufficient is it to note two recent works of considerable importance: Eunice M. Lamb, The John-Simon Mills Line of Windsor and Simsbury, Connecticut, etc. and Katie R. Mills, History of the Simon Mills Family through his son John Mills and grand son Joseph Mills of Simsbury, Conn. (1975)."[1]


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

References
  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Simon Mills, in Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Directory. (Boston, Mass.: New England Historic Genealogical Society, Jun 2015)
    229.

    "Mills, Simon: [Origin] Unknown; [Emigration] 1639] [Resided] Windsor [WiLR 1:75; WMJ 447, 798; TAG 36:126-28, 54:73-75; Goodwin-Morgan 1:111-22; Eunice M. Lamb, The John-Simon Mills Line of Windsor and Simsbury, Connecticut (Burlington, Vermont, 1968)].

  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 McCracken, George E. William Buell & Early Descendants. American Genealogist (D.L. Jacobus). (Apr, Jul 1978)
    54:73-75.

    "… Simon Mills, baker, who may have been the Symon who was baptized 25 April 1613 in the parish church of Barnstaple, Devon, as fourth child of John Mill by his wife Wilmott Frenshe, who were married there 28 Aug. 1606, as shown by Miss Eunice M. Lamb in her work …

    Simon Mills died 6 July 1683, intestate, but his estate was not finally settled until 1719 after the death of his widow (Manwaring 1:335 f.). The probate papers show that he left a relict, name not stated, and an eldest daughter named Mary Humphries (aged 20), Hannah (18), Sarah (13), Abigail (11), Elizabeth (9), Prudence (7), John (14), Simon (5). A distribution dated 24 July 1691 lists only Mary Humphris, Hannah (wife of Simon Drake), Sarah Mills, Elizabeth Mills and John Mills. The final list consists of signatories to an agreement dated 25 March 1719, namely Samll Humphris Sr., Simon Mills (by mark), John Mills, Joseph Mills, Benjamin Mills, Samuel Tuller, Thomas Ellsworth, Daniel Loomis, Thomas Horskins and Hannah Loomis (by mark). …

    It remains to deny with strong conviction any validity to the claim sometimes advanced that Simon Mills was born in Yorkshire and died at Windsor in 1670, having married on 1 Oct. 1632 a woman probably named Sarah Bissell who died on 16 Sept. 1637."

  3. 3.0 3.1 The Family of Simon Mills, in Starr, Frank Farnsworth. Various Ancestral Lines of James Goodwin and Lucy (Morgan) Goodwin of Hartford, Connecticut. (Hartford, Conn.: The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Press, 1915)
    1:111-22.
  4.   McCracken, George E., and Donald Lines Jacobus. The Mythical? Simon Mills of Windsor. American Genealogist (D.L. Jacobus). (Apr 1960)
    36:127-28.
  5. Simsbury Vital Records [NEHGS], in Connecticut, United States. The Barbour Collection of Connecticut Town Vital Records
    108.

    "Mills, Simon, d. June 8, 1683 [LR1:5]"

  6. 6.0 6.1 Simon Mills, in Manwaring, Charles W. A Digest of the Early Connecticut Probate Records. (Hartford, Conn.: R. S. Peck & Co., 1904-06)
    1:335-36.

    "Probate Records. Vol. IV, 1677 to 1687. Page 130.

    Mills, Simon. Died 6 July, 1683. Invt. £168-07-00. The children: Eldest daughter Mary Humphries age 20 years, Hannah Mills 18, Sarah 13, Abigail 11, Elizabeth 9, Prudence 7 (Decd), John Mills age 14 years, and Simon 5 years of age.

    Court Record, Page 72—6 September, 1683: Adms. to the Relict and Peter Buell.

    Page 78—18 December, 1683: This Court having granted Adms. to the Widow of Simon Mills and Peter Buell on the Estate of Simon Mills, do divide the Estate as followeth:

    To the Relict, of Personal Estate & 1-3 of the Real, £16-00s.-00d; To the Eldest son John Mills, 22-00-00 To the rest of the Children, to each, 11-00-00

    The sons to receive their portions in Land as they come of age, the rest in Reversion after their Mother's decease. This Court appoint John Case and Samuel Willcox to be Overseers.

    Dist. File, 24 July, 1691: Upon an Order of the Court made 18 December, 1683:

    To the Eldest son John Mills, £22-00s-00d; To Samuel Humphrey, husband to Mary the Eldest daughter, 13-16-03; To Simon Drake, husband to Hannah, 13-17-00; To Sarah Mills, 12-02-00; To Elizabeth Mills, 13-00-00

    Page 188—(Vol. VIII) 5 April, 1714: This Court orders the Estate of Simon Mills, late of Simsbury, Decd., shall be dist. and divided to the Children & heirs of the sd. Decd by the Rule and Proportion according to an Order or Decree of the County Court holden at Hartford 18 December, Anno Dom 1683; and for that End do now order and appoint Mr. Joseph Case, Mr. Joseph Phelps and John Slater, of Simsbury, to divide the sd. Estate accordingly, and make return thereof to this Court on or before the 1st Monday of June next.

    A Settlement by Arbitration of the Estate of Simon Mills of Simsbury, who died 1683, made this 25th March, 1719. (Vol. IX, Page __):

    Know all Men by these presents: That we the Undersigned do acknowledge ourselves firmly bound unto each other in the sum of £100 current money or Bills of Credit, and to the true performance hereof we do bind ourselves and each of our heirs firmly by these presents, in Witness whereof we have set to our Hand to stand to, abide by, and in all things stand to the final end and Judgement of Deacon Cornish, Samuel Case & Joseph Case, of Simsbury, Arbitrators indifferently chosen, elected and named by each party to complete and make a final Dist. of the Estate of Simon Mills of Simsbury Decd., and to judge, order, arbitrate and determine all differences that has, shall or may arise concerning the premises relateing to the sd. Estate, according to Justice and Ecquitty, provided the sd. Arbitrators doe bring in their reward under their hands & Seals at, on or before the 6th day of April next ensueing the date hereof. Then this Obligation is to be void & of non effect, otherwise to stand and remain in full force & virtue. In Witness whereof we have set to our Hands & Seals the date abovesd.

    SAMLL HUMPHRIS SEN. LS.
    SIMON X MILLS LS.
    JOHN MILLS LS.
    JOSEPH MILLS LS.
    BENJAMIN MILLS LS.
    SAMUEL TULLER LS.
    THOMAS ELLSWORTH LS.
    DANIEL LOOMIS LS.
    THOMAS HORSKINS LS.
    HANNAH X LOOMIS LS.
    Witness: James Hilliyer Jr., Jacob Tuller."