Person:Thomas Morehouse (2)

THOMAS MOREHOUSE

According to “Families of old Fairfield” Thomas died 1658, wife’s name unknown. He had three children including Samuel who married Rebecca Odell.

Partial confirmation of the above story includes NEHGR Vol98, P75, Vol49 P475 and Vol113 P301. And “The Early Settlement of Stamford, Conn 1641-1700” 1990 by Jeanne Majdalany. The corn story is a little misleading; The New Haven Colony had earlier purchased the land from the Indians for 100 bushels of corn and then later sold the same land to the group of Puritans who would first settle there. The name Thomas Morehouse is on the list of the 29 Puritan families which settled Rippowam (The Indian name) in 1641. The name was changed to Stamford in 1642. I have not found a confirmation that he was with Sir Richard Saltonstall and that he was from Yorkshire. Saltonstall had led a group of immigrants to settle at Watertown in 1630. Perhaps Morehouse came later as there is no record of him before 1635.

This entry from “The History of Fairfield” by Elizabeth Hubbell Schenck 1889 discusses his will, although I do not have a transcript of the will: Thomas Morehouse was at Wethersfield, says Savage, in 1640. He was among the first to receive a grant of seven acres in Stamford. He is found at Fairfield before 1653, where he had purchased the house & home-lot of John Barlow on the Ludlow Square. He was granted land by the town on the west side of the Uncoway River & present Black Rock Bridge, where he ran a grist mill on the creek which empties into the river between Seely's Neck & the Old Mill hill He m Isabella d of Ralph Keeler of Norwalk. His will is dated 8 Aug 1658 in which he leaves 1/3 of his estate to his wife Isabell; a double portion to his eldest son Samuel, homestead, mill & mill-lot, which he was not to sell without the consent of the town; & further distributes his estate among his sons Thomas, John, Jonathan & ds Mary & Ann He mentions daughter Hannah, to whom he had aIready given a full portion. The marriage to Isabel Keeler is an apparent error as his son Thomas married Isabel Keeler, the daughter of Ralph Keeler.

1.   Morehouse, William Henry. Thomas Morehouse, families of old Fairfield, Morehouse family history. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1977).
2.   Schenk, Elizabeth Hubbell. The History of Fairfield County, Connecticut.
3.   The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society)
   49:475, 98:75, 113:301.
4.   Majdalany, Jeanne, and Edith M Wicks. The early settlement of Stamford, Connecticut, 1641-1700. (Bowie, Maryland: Heritage Books, 1990, c1991).
5. ↑ 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)
   3:231.

   "THOMAS, Wethersfield 1640, perhaps was at Stamford next yr. but in 1653 at Fairfield."

6.   http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nancyelder/Morehouse.htm.

   "Thomas Morehouse, recognized as the emigrant ancestor of most of the American Morehouse families, was in Watertown, Massachusetts, about 1635; at Wethersfield, Connecticut, 1640; at Stamford, Connecticut, in 1641, where he was one of the original settlers who purchased the townsite from the Indians for one hundred bushels of corn. He came from Yorkshire, England, with the migration of Puritans conducted by Sir Richard Saltonstall. He settled permanently at Fairfield, Connecticut, prior to 1653 and became prominent in its development--owning the tide-water mill and being sent as a member to the General Court (Legislature) at Hartford. He left four sons--Samuel, Thomas, Jonathan and John--who at an early date became the heads of the numerous branches and descendants which settled in New York, New Jersey, Ohio and the West. Thomas Morehouse, the first, died at Fairfield in 1658, leaving a will. It is estimated that over two hundred of his descendants served in the Revolutionary war."