Person:John Deming (1)

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

John Deming (21 November 1705) was an early Puritan settler and original patentee of the Connecticut Colony

1.   John Deming, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
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)
   2:35.

   JOHN, Wethersfield 1635, one of the chief sett. rep. very often from 1649 to 61, nam. in the chart. of 1662, m. Honour, d. of Richard Treat, had John, b. 9 Sept. 1638; and others. His will of 26 June 1690, with pro. 1705, names s. John; Jonathan, 1639; Samuel, 1646; David; Ebenezer; and five ds. ws. of John Morgan (whose name prob. was Rachel); of Richard Beckley; of John Hurlbut (wh. was Mary); of Thomas Wright; and prob. Sarah, w. of Samuel Moody, beside some gr.ch.

3.   Faust, Donovan. A Family History: The Ancestors of Thomas Wilson Faust.

   John Deming immigrated before 1635 from Colchester, England to Watertown in the Massachusetts Bay Colony where his aunt Elizabeth Deming and her husband Nathaniel Foote had settled two years before. Shortly thereafter, he was among the group of settlers from the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth Colonies who migrated to the area that is now Connecticut and was a founder in early 1635 of Wethersfield. It was the first white settlement in that part of the country. Two other settlements, Windsor and Hartford, followed later in the same year; all were only a short distance apart. These groups had left Massachusetts because of their discontent with the autocratic character of the Puritan government there.
   
   It was a bold move by this handful of settlers as the often hostile native Indians in the Connecticut area numbered more than six thousand. In no other part of New England were the Indians so numerous in proportion to the territory as in the Connecticut River valley where these hardy pioneers built their villages. In 1636, the Footes also came to Wethersfield where Nathaniel ultimately became the largest landholder in the colony, owning in all more than four hundred acres.
   
   John Deming, also known as "John The Settler", qualified as a freeman, a designation restricted to one who was twenty-one years of age, a respectable member of the Congregational church and, after 1671, possessed at least 30 English pounds in property. Only freemen had the right to vote or hold office. Also, only those holding the highest civil and military offices, ministers and school teachers were allowed to use the prefix "Mr." (pronounced master) and their wives "Mrs." (pronounced mistress). All other infidels were known as "goodmen" and "goodwives". John Deming was one of only four in Wethersfield entitled to be addressed with the Mr. prefix.
   
   In 1637, he married Honour Treat. She came to Wethersfield with her family from Watertown, Massachusetts in 1637 where they had lived for two years after immigrating from Pitsminster in Somersetshire, England. Honour was the fifth of Richard and Alice Gaylord Treat's ten children. Her father was a merchant. The Treat family was connected in some way with Taunton Manor in Somerset, as her great great grandfather and great great great grandfather were listed in the official register of the manor. Her grandfather and earlier ancestors spelled the name Trott. Her mother's family, the Gaylords, also lived in Pitminster but had originally come from France where the name was spelled Gaillard and the lineage traced back to 1495.
   
   Shortly after their marriage, trouble with the natives ensued. The hostile Pequot Indians, who lived some distance away, ambushed the settlers as they were heading to the Great Meadow to work in the fields. Nine of the colonists were tomahawked to death and two women taken captive. In reprisal, one of the Indian villages was burned. Their head chief Sassucus then mobilized his warriors and the short Pequot War followed. The colonists were joined by the friendly Mohican tribe, who were enemies of the Pequots, and proceeded in June of 1637 to burn alive between 600 and 700 Pequots near Mystic. Most of the survivors were captured and sold into slavery in Bermuda. This horrifying incident led to the virtual extinction of the Pequots as a people. Although the natives near Wethersfield were mostly peaceful, several other tribes some distance away were not and often preyed upon the village. For ninety years after the first settlement, there was scarcely an hour in which its inhabitants could travel in the forests, work in the fields or lie down in their beds at night without apprehension of attack.
   
   After the sad and bloody episode of the Pequot War, the Demings embarked upon raising a family of eleven children between 1638 and 1659. Lands had been granted to John in Wethersfield in 1636 and 1641. The parcel acquired in 1641 became his homestead and was recorded as "a house, barn and five acres of land, bounded by High Street to the west, the Great Meadow to the east, Thomas Standish's homestead on the north and Richard Crabbe's homestead on the south." He eventually owned considerable land in and around Wethersfield, much of which was given to his sons before he died.
   
   John is believed to have been a rope maker along with his sons John, Jr. and David. But, like most in the colonies, he also planted crops and raised livestock to provide family sustenance. And each family made most of its own clothing, household utensils and tools. By the time he died, agriculture had expanded to the point that produce was being exported to other markets, primarily the West Indies.
   
   Deming, his siblings and in-laws were among the most prominent families in the early history of Connecticut. In this regard, he is listed as one of the sixteen grantees of the Great Charter of Connecticut signed by King Charles of England in 1662 officially organizing the Colony. The charter specified an amazing set of boundaries. They were defined as "extending from Massachusetts south to the seas (Long Island Sound) and from Narragansett Bay west to the Pacific Ocean." The lack of knowledge of what lay to the west had led to specifying a remarkable tract 73 miles deep by 3000 miles wide!
   
   In addition to signing the petition requesting a charter for the colony, Deming and his family also held many offices between 1642 and 1667. He was the Constable of Wethersfield, served on several juries, was a deputy during 50 sessions of the General Court of Connecticut (similar to today's legislative assemblies) and, interestingly, was appointed to a committee "to give the best safe advice they can to the Indians." His wife was the sister of Robert Treat who served as Deputy Governor and Governor of the colony for many years and his aunt, Elizabeth Deming Foote, following the death of her first husband, married Thomas Welles who became Governor nine years later. Of course, these colonial governorships were not of the stature that the office would assume when Connecticut became a state, over a hundred years in the future.
   
   In the last recorded act of his life, John Deming signed a codicil to his extensive will in 1692; but the will was not probated until 1705, leading to the conclusion that he may have died shortly before that time. If so, he would have lived an eventful and contributive 90 years.

4.   Report on Genealogical Research Efforts of Leigh and Sadie Clark in New England October 1967.
5.   Thomas Welles, in Anderson, Robert Charles; George F. Sanborn; and Melinde Lutz Sanborn. The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635. (Boston, Massachusetts: NEHGS, 1999-2011)
   7:291.

   … John Deming {1636, Wethersfield}

6. ↑ Richard Treat, 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)
   766.

   "… m. John Deming, of Wethersfield, Conn., who d. perhaps late in 1694, certainly before 25 Apr. 1695. He was Deputy, Dec. 1645, Oct. 1646, Sept. 1649, May 1650, May and Sept. 1651, May and Sept. 1652, Apr. and Oct. 1653, Apr. 1654, May 1655, Oct. 1656, Feb. and May 1657, May and Oct. 1658, May and Oct. 1659, May and Oct. 1660, May and Oct. 1661, Oct. 1667, May and Oct. 1668, May 1669, and Oct. 1672; and in 1662 was named as a Patentee of the Royal Charter. He was brother of Elizabeth, wife of Nathaniel Foote, and afterward the second wife of Gov. Thomas Welles; her will, appointing him an overseer of her estate, called him 'my beloved Brother.'"