Person:Thomas Gunn (1)

Browse
Thomas Gunn
b.Abt 1605 Devon, England
m. 15 Feb 1601
  1. Thomas GunnAbt 1605 - 1680/81
m. Abt 1638
  1. Elizabeth GunnEst 1638 - 1640
  2. Elizabeth Gunn1640 - 1655
  3. Deborah Gunn1641/42 - 1694/95
  4. Mehitabel Gunn1644 - 1720/21
  5. Quartermaster John Gunn1647 - 1726
Facts and Events
Name Thomas Gunn
Gender Male
Birth[2] Abt 1605 Devon, England
Marriage Abt 1638 Windsor, Connecticut, United Statesto Elizabeth Unknown
Death[2][4] 26 Feb 1680/81 Westfield, Hampden, Massachusetts, United States
Burial[3][5] Westfield, Hampden, Massachusetts, United StatesMechanic Street Cemetery (now called the Old Burying Ground)

There were Gunns in the area of South Molton, Devonshire in the late 1500s and early 1600s. There is even a small town named Gunn in that region. Though the precise birthplace of Thomas is not yet known, it is likely that this is his area of origin. This would be an interesting part of the Gunn genealogy to explore.

Date and place of birth is uncertain, but there are strong clues. As far as birth year is concerned, we know that on 6 March 1666 John Winthrop Jr. treated Thomas Gunn, 61 years of age, in Windsor. His date of birth, therefore, must be 1605

Thomas is on the "C" list of the Mary and John Clearinghouse of possible passengers on the ship Mary and John, which departed from Plymouth bound for New England in 1630. [[2]] There is circumstantial evidence that he was, indeed, one of the passengers. We know that Thomas held land in Dorchester in 1634 and that he migrated to Windsor as one of the “founders” of that town, which included twenty-five men who are listed as passengers aboard the Mary & John. In fact, between the years 1640-54 thirty seven men who were passengers on that ship are listed as heads of households in Windsor. Moreover, listed passengers who were made freemen at General Court on May 6, 1635, along with Thomas, were Aaron Cook, George Phelps, Samuel Allen, and Thomas Hoskins. Two of these, Aaron Cook (b. 1613) and George Phelps (b. 1605), had spent their entire adult lives as neighbors with Thomas, and the three were probably very close friends. They all migrated on to Westfield at the same time and were also founders of that town.

From a young age, then, Thomas moved with this group of former passengers of the Mary and John. Of course he might have been an outsider, but it’s more logical to think he was one of them--one who had shared the dangerous crossing of the ocean, the first harrowing winter and the settlement of Dorchester. And because they were ‘bonded’ by experience, way of thinking, and friendship, they stayed together, and Thomas moved on with them to Windsor and later to Westfield.


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

Image Gallery
References
  1.   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)
    2:323-324.

    THOMAS, Dorchester, freem. 6 May 1635, rem. to Windsor, had Elizabeth wh. d. Aug. 1640; Elizabeth again, b. 14 Oct. 1640, d. young; Deborah, 21 Feb. 1642; Mehitable, 28 July 1644; and John, 8 July 1647; rem. to Westfield, there his w. d. 28 Nov. 1678; and he d. 26 Feb. 1681. Deborah m. 5 Nov. 1659, Timothy Thrall of Windsor; Mehitable m. 22 Oct. 1663, David Ensign, and after bear. five ch. was, for his ill conduct, divorc. and some yrs. later, 1685, was sec. n. of Isaac Sheldon of Northampton.

  2. 2.0 2.1 Anderson, Robert Charles; George F. Sanborn; and Melinde Lutz Sanborn. The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635. (Boston, Massachusetts: NEHGS, 1999-2011)
    Vol. III, pp.170-173.

    Migration 1634, origins unknown.
    Born about 1605. On 6 March 1666 John Winthrop Jr. treated Thomas Gunn, 61 years of age, in Windsor. Thomas must, therefore, have been born in 1605. [Medical Journals of John Winthrop Jr., 1657-1669, manuscript, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts, 631]
    Died Westfield 26 Feb 1680/1 (inventory (HamCCR 1:112)

  3. National Youth Administration. A List of gravestones in the Mechanic Street Cemetery, Westfield, Massachusetts, 1939. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1958).
  4. Westfield, MA: Birth and Death Records.

    AmericanAncestors.org New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2003, (Abstraction of original records, donated to NEHGS by Harold T. Dougherty. "Westfield Birth and Death Records as Obtained From the Files at City Hall, Westfield," donated 1937), p. 3552

  5. Find A Grave.
  6.   For more on Thomas (with both facts and some fanciful guesses about Thomas's circumstances), go to https://www.thomasgunnfamily.com [1]
  7.   See also:
    https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LZPM-4YG
    (May need to sign in. Go to "Family with sources".)
    https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gunn-14