Person:Matthew Grant (1)

At Windsor, upon being given the responsibility of keeping the town land records, he discovered that the page containing his grants had been "rent out and lost by the former register" and on 11 January 1659[/60?] he set about relisting his holdings "adding some more expressions then is to be seen in the country book, yet not to vary from the true quality and quantity": a home lot of six acres "but in time of danger by the Pequet War neighbors desired to join nearer together so as to be capable to make some fortification then he resigned up his home lot for to be divided into small parcels to build upon only reserved a parcel for himself where he had begun building," leaving him one acre. He also was granted three acres swamp or meadow adjoining to the homelot; five acres in the Great Meadow; on the east side of the Great River twenty-three rods in breadth by three miles in length; twenty-three acres for a woodlot in the Norwest Field; and fifty acres of land.^[5].

In his will, dated 9 December 1681 and proved 2 March 1681/2, Mathew Grant of Windsor "being aged and under present weakness" indicated that "my son Sammuell my eldest son is already satisfied with the portion I made over to him in land already recorded"; to "my son Tehan" to be paid by "my son John" £5 and any debts "owing to me" that he collects; to "my son John with whom I have lived some time ... all my meadow land in the great meadow, also ... my pasture land lying below the hill against Thomas Dible's home lot and my own, also ... my home lot and orchard with the old housing which I built before he came to dwell on it ... also my wood lot ... in the quarter lots ... also all the rest of my estate, excepting my wearing cloths, my son John shall pay to my son Tehan £5 as is already expressed in my will"; to "my daughter Humferryes as a legacy £5 ... also I give her all my wearing clothes"; "my son John" sole executor.^[6]

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7} Matthew Grant, in Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995)
   2:801-04.

   "ORIGIN: Unknown …
   CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: Matthew Grand included himself in his list of those who had been members of the church at Dorchester and remained members of the church after the remove to Windsor [Grant 10].
   FREEMAN: 18 May 1631 [MBCR 1:366]. Connecticut freeman at Windsor, 11 October 1669 [CCCR 2:519] …
   BIRTH: 27 October 1601 [ Goodwin Anc 106].
   DEATH: Windsor 16 December 1681 [ CTVR 55].
   MARRIAGE: (1) 16 November 1625 Priscilla _____ [Goodwin Anc 106]; she died at Windsor 27 April 1644, aged 43 years 2 months [Goodwin Anc 106].
   (2) Windsor 29 May 1645 Susanna (Capen) Rockwell, daughter of BERNARD CAPEN and widow of WILLIAM ROCKWELL [Goodwin Anc 106]. She was born 5 April 1602 [ Goodwin Anc 106] and died at Windsor 13 November 1666 [ CTVR 22].
   
   "On 29 May 1640 "mother Matthew Grant died" at Windsor [Grant 79]. This is all we know for certain of the origins of Matthew Grant." Possible theories have been debunked by J. Gardner Bartlett [Gen Mag 3:63-64]. See also George McCracken's comments on President Grant's ancestry in TAG 51:236, 239, indicating that no competent genealogist had accepted proof of Matthew Grant's parents, although Burke's Presidential Families of the United States had listed the line as valid.

2. ↑ Windsor, Hartford, Connecticut, United States. Records of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, 1638-1925.

   "Mathew Grant, Recorder, dyed December 16th 1681"

3.   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)
   2:292.

   MATTHEW, Dorchester, came in the Mary and John, 1630, with Maverick and Warham, was, we may suppose, therefore of Co. Devon, freem. 18 May 1631, had w. and d. Priscilla, b. in Eng. and here had Samuel, b. 12 Nov. 1631; Tahan, 3 Feb. 1634, rem. 1635 to Windsor, for the first plant. there, was many yrs. its faithful town clk. had John, b. 20 Apr. 1642, but rec. no other ch. and d. 16 Dec. 1681. For sec. w.he had Susanna, wid. of William Rockwell. Priscilla m. 14 Oct. 1647, Michael Humphrey. In the Hist. of W. 635, Stiles, with self-contradict. makes Priscilla to be d. of sec. w.

4.   Matthew Grant, in Lundy, Darryl. The Peerage: A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe.

   (Lists debunked parents, sourced poorly.)

5. ↑ Great Migration Begins, citing Windsor Land Records 1:13
6. ↑ Great Migration Begins, citing Hartford PD Case #2357

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. Stiles – H. Stiles - J. Stiles – T. 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