Person:William Rockwell (8)

Deacon William Rockwell
m. 19 Jul 1585
  1. John Rockwell1588 - 1662
  2. Deacon William Rockwell1591 - 1640
m. 14 Apr 1624
  1. Joan Rockwell1625 - 1683
  2. John Rockwell1627 - 1673
  3. Samuel Rockwell1631 - 1710/11
  4. Ruth RockwellEst 1633 - 1683
  5. Sarah RockwellEst 1639 - 1683
  • HDeacon William Rockwell1591 - 1640
  1. Josiah Rockwell1638 - 1675
Facts and Events
Name Deacon William Rockwell
Gender Male
Christening[1][3] 6 Feb 1591 Fitzhead, Somerset, EnglandSt. James
Marriage 14 Apr 1624 Dorchester, Dorset, EnglandHoly Trinity
to Susannah Capen
Marriage to Unknown
Death[2] 15 May 1640 Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut
Ancestral File Number FN5M-GC

William was an early deacon of the congregation that sailed on the Mary & John, settled in Dorchester, and later founded Windsor. Prior to the establishment of selectmen, he was one of the men signing town orders.

References
  1. Heister, H. Dale, Norman Rockwell’s Real Family Tree, Santa Barbara, CA, 1986.
  2. Windsor Town Records.

    William Rockwell dyed and was buryed May 15th 1640

  3. William Rockwell, in Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995).

    Migration 1630 on Mary & John. First at Dorchester, Windsor 1638.
    Baptized Fitzhead, Somersetshire, 6 February 1590/1, son of John and Honor (Newton) Rockwell [Sir Anthony Richard Wagner, Pedigree of Rockwell and Allied Families: Extracted from the Records of the College of Arms (London, n.d.), p. 2]. (Other sources give the year of baptism as 1591/2 [Rockwell Gen 188-92; M&JCH 17:131-33].)

  4.   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)
    3:558.

    WILLIAM, Dorchester, f. of John the first. came prob. in the Mary and John, req. adm. as freem. 19 Oct. 1630, and was sw. 18 May foll. was one of the first two deac. rem. to Windsor, in its sec. yr. there d. 15 May 1640, leav. wid. Susanna (prob. sec. w. to wh. Hist. of D. gives the surname Chapin), wh. m. Matthew Grant, and ch. John; Samuel; Joan, wh. m. 15 Nov. 1642, Jeffrey Baker; Ruth, wh. m. 7 Oct. 1652, Christopher Huntington; Mary; Joseph; and Sarah, wh. m. 22 Mar. 1658, Walter Gaylord, as his sec. w. Stiles makes Mary m. Jeffrey Mahon; but I doubt the outlandish surname, and suspect the bapt. name was borrow. from the h. of Joan. Of this name, ten had in 1829 been gr. at Yale and one at Dart.

  5.   William arrived on the "Mary and John" in 1630 at Boston, Massachusetts or from Fitzhead, Somerset to Windsor, Conn, 1624 (Boyd (President) p56.

    William was christened 6 Feb 1591, Holy Trinity Church, Dorchester, Dorset, England. He was buried 15 May 1640, Old Cemetary, Sunsetting, Windsor, CT or Palisado Cemetery, Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut.

    Anderson lists five children: Joan, John, Samuel, Ruth and Sarah. About the extra children incorrectly associated with this family he writes:

    "All secondary sources include in this family a son Joseph and a daughter Mary. This is derived from a pedigree prepared in 1731 by Matthew Rockwell, great-grandson of the immigrant [NYGBR 2:99-102]. Mary is said to have married Jeffrey Baker, so this is a simple error for Joan; there is no independent record for a son Joseph, who is in any case said to have died young. There may be some confusion with the children of William Rockwell's brother Richard, who did have a Joseph and Mary among his six children."[1]

    Sources

    Filby, P. William, ed.. Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s. Farmington Hills, MI, USA: Gale Research, 2009. Familysearch.org U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900. Yates Publishing. Gary Boyd Roberts. Ancestors of American Presidents. New England Historic Genealogical Society; Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, USA; 2009. The great migration begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633 - Robert Charles Anderson - P. 1594-1597 Henry Ensign Rockwell, The Rockwell Family in America: A Genealogical Record from 1630 to 1873 (Boston, 1873). Francis Williams Rockwell, The Rockwell Family in One Line of Descent (Pittsfield, MA 1924).
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