Person:Joseph Slafter (1)

From the Memorial of John Slafter ^S1:

Joseph, [son of John], b. perhaps 1698; d. probably about 1787; m. Esther -----; no record of his marriage has been found. The earliest notice we find of him is in 1718, when he was one of twenty-five who subscribed a document sent to the General Assembly of Connecticut, denominated a "petition of us the subscribers, inhabitants of Tolland, relative to Conventry lands." (See Waldo's Hist. of Tolland, p. 18.) After this he resided sometime in Wilmington^N1, and was a signer of a petition for the incorporation of that town, May 14, 1724. The birth of his daughter Esther was recorded in Willington. On the 24th of Sept., 1724, he purchased a tract of land in Mansfield, Ct., adjoining Samuel Slafter's land on the west, and lying on both sides of the great Cedar Swamp Brook. He sold this property about two years afterward, and removed to Killingly, Ct., where he purchased land in 1735, adjoining land already in his possession. Additions were made in 1742 and 1745. He sold an estate in Tolland in 1764; the deed bears the signature of "Joseph Slafter." At how early a period he came into possession of it, has not been ascertained. No date of his death has been found, but his heirs sign acquittance to title in his real estate, June 16, 1788, and he probably died about that time. His farm was in Killingly, near the line of Scituate, now Foster, R.I. A small burial ground near by, bears the family name, where he, and may of his descendants were, doubtless, buried, but no headstones of the early burials are inscribed. Killingly, Ct.

In its introduction (pp. vii-viii), the same book also discusses the variations in the spelling of the surname, as it appears to be in the line of descent of this Joseph that Slafter modulated to Slaughter (and later to Slater):

Joseph ... wrote his name Slafter, in a "petition" to the General Court, dated May, 1718, being then an inhabitant of Tolland (see Waldo's History of Tolland, p. 18), and likewise in the same way in conveyance of land in the same town, as appears by the record in 1764. But in Killingly, where he resided, and in Scituate, R.I., where some of his children were settled, the name in the town records is variously written, sometimes Slaughter, but generally in other ways, as Slatter, Slauter, Slatar, and Slater, for which variations it is evident that the clerk of the town is responsible.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Slafter, Rev. Edmund Farwell. Memorial of John Slafter: with a genealogical account of his descendants, including eight generations. (Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States|Boston: Press of Henry W. Dutton & Son, 1869)
   pp. 9-10.

   number 36, and also pp. vii-viii.

2.   The text here says "Wilmington", but it is certainly a typo and should be "Willington".