Reverend Samuel Stone

  Noted events in his life were:

• Immigration, 1633, New England.

• Residence: Cambridge, Hartford County, Connecticut.

• Family Origin. ⁵⁶⁶ "Samuel came from England on the Good Ship Callie Griffin, (300 tons), which arrived at Boston Sep. 4, 1633." Rev. Thomas Hooker was among the passengers; both he and Samuel Stone were considered "two ministers of celebrity." In 1636 they led a group of 100 to Hartford, CT. "When Mr. Hooker died in 1647 Mr. Stone became the sole pastor (of the Center Church) and continued in the pastorate until his death." His is the second oldest monument (of smooth red table stone) in the ancient burying ground in the rear of the church. Baptism: Sedgwick Family Papers Page: Appendix, Stone

• Biography. ⁵⁶⁷ Samuel Stone

Samuel Stone was a 17th century Puritan Minister who, together with Thomas Hooker, established the American town of Hartford, Connecticut.


Samuel Stone was born on 18th July 1602, the third son of John and Sarah Stone (nee Rogers), who lived in Fore Street, Hertford. He was baptised on 30th July of that year at All Saints Church and lived on the site now occupied by Baroosh, formerly Barclays Bank.

In 1620 he left the town to study at Emmanuel College in Cambridge, from where he graduated. He was ordained on 8th July 1626 at Peterbough and a year later became curate at Sisted, Essex. Shortly aftwards his wife, Hope (nee Fletcher) gave birth to their first daughter, Sarah.

Stone was a Puritan. The Puritans were Protestants who wanted to purify the Church of England of its' ceremony and other aspects that they thought were Catholic. They wanted the powers of the lordly bishops reduced and condemned priestly vestments, church ornaments and music. They wanted the church restored to its' ancient purity and simplicity. This attitude put them in confrontation with The Crown and they were supressed.

In 1620, the same year that Samuel Stone left Hertford for Cambridge, a band of Puritans called The Pilgrim Fathers crossed the Atlantic in The Mayflower and founded the settlement of New Plymouth.

Seventeen years later, in 1633, another ship named Griffin made a similar journey, with Samuel Stone on board, together with his friend Thomas Hooker. They arrived in Boston on 4th September 1633 and a few weeks later Stone became Teacher of Church. The following year he became a Freeman.

An area some 100 miles to the South-West had long been inhabited by native Algonquin Indians. At the same time as Stone and Hooker were arriving in Boston, the Dutch were establishing a fort and trading post called House of Hope, located at the end of the navigable portion of the Connecticut River.

In 1636, Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone led their congregation from New Towne (now Cambridge, MASS) and formed a colony at House of Hope, making peace with the local Indians and renaming the town they called Saukiog as Hartford.

In the following years Stone's wife, Hope, had two more daughters - Rebecca and Mary. Hope died in 1640 and in the following year he married again to Elizabeth Allen.

Samuel Stone died on 20th July 1663, aged 61

• Biography. Samuel - b. Jul. 18, 1602, Hertford, Herts., England; bap. Jul. 30, 1602, All Saints, Hertford, Herts., England; d. July 20, 1663, Hartford, Hartford Co., CT. Graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and ordained 8 Jul. 1626 at Peterbough, he was curate at Stisted, Essex, England June 13, 1627 to Sep. 13, 1630. Arrived at Boston, Suffolk Co., MA Sep. 4, 1633 in the 'Griffin.' Teacher of church at Cambridge, Middlesex Co., MA Oct. 11, 1633, and freeman May 14, 1634. To Hartford, Hartford Co., CT 1639, where he received a gift of land in 1640 from John STONE. See note following concerning John STONE of Guilford, CT. Rev. Samuel was Chaplain to troops in Pequot War 1637 and pastor of First Church, Hartford, Hartford Co., CT. His first wife, Hope FLETCHER, died in 1640, and he married second before July 1641 Mrs. Elizabeth ALLEN (d. 1681). Elizabeth, as widow of Rev. Samuel STONE, married third about 1673 George GARDNER. Elizabeth GARDNER was a witness to the 1675 will of William WADSWORTH. Children of of Samuel and Hope STONE: John; Rebecca married Timothy NASH; Mary married Joseph FITCH; and Sarah married Thomas BUTLER. Children of Samuel and Elizabeth STONE: Joseph died young; Lydia died young; a son died young; Abigail died young; Samuel did not marry; and Elizabeth married first William SEDGWICK (divorced), and second John ROBERTS.

• Biography. ⁵⁶⁸ REV. SAMUEL STONE, son of John Stone, a freeholder of that place. was b. in Hertford, Co. Herts (usually at that time sounded Hartford); bapt . July 30, 1602, in the church of All Saints; entered at Emmanuel Coll., Cambridge, 1620; A.B., 1623; A.M., 1627. Recent discoveries show that a Samuel Stone, probably this one, was curate at Stisted, Co. Essex, near Chelmsford, from June 13, 1627 to Sept. 13, 1630. He came to New England with Cotton, Hooker, and other men of note, in the Griffin, arriving at Boston, Sept. 4, 1633; chosen Teacher of the church at Cambridge, Oct. 11, 1633; freeman, Mass., May 14, 1634; removed to Hartford in 1636, where he was an original proprietor, and in 1639 his home-lot was on the north bank of the Little River, between those of Rev. Thomas Hooker and Elder William Goodwin. He served as chaplain to the troops under Capt. Mason in the Pequot War, 1637. His wife d. 1640, before Nov. 2 or 3, when Mr. Hooker mentions her death in a letter to Rev. T. Shepard, saying that she "smoaked out her days in the darkness of melancholy. He m. (2) before July, 1641, Elizabeth Allen, of Boston. After Mr. Hooker’s decease he was the sole pastor of this death, July 20, 1663. Inv. £563. 1. His widow m. (2) George Gardner, of Salem, afterward of Hartford, and d. in 1681. Ch. : i. John (son of the 1st wife) graduated, Harvard College, 1653; "he had no Commencement part when his class took their second. degree, having perhaps previously gone. to England, where he received the degree of M.A. from the University of Cambridge. After the Restoration a Mr. John Stone was silenced at Hellingley, in Sussex. Was this the graduate? His name was starred on the College catalogue before 1700. ii. Joseph, bapt. Oct. 18, 1646; not mentioned in his father’s will. iii. Lydia, b. Jan. 22, 1647/8; d . young. iv. Son, bapt. April 29, 1649; prob. d. young. v. Abigail; b. Sept. 9, 1650; d. young (?). vi. Samuel, was at Harvard for a time about 1659, but left before graduation. He was colleague with Rev. Gershom Bulkeley, at Wethersfield, 1666-1669, and again in 1676; he also preached at Simsbury and Middletown, and perhaps other places, but fell into intemperate habits, was excommunicated from the church, and wasted his whole estate. He never married; d. Oct. 8, 1683; he was among his companions first at one, and then at another Taverne, and thence went in the evening to a friend’s house (that of Henry Howard, who m. Sarah Stone), when his discourse was very bitter and offensive to some present; but going thence, the night being very dark, was found the next morning dead in the little River that runs through the town; having missed the bridge. He fell down upon the Rocks, and thence rowled or some way gott into the water at a little distance and there lay dead at break of day. vii. Elizabeth, m. (1) William Sedgwick, of Hartford; (2) John Roberts, of Hartford, who removed to New Jersey (q. v.). viii. Rebecca, m. about 1657, Timothy Nash, of New Haven, who removed i to Hartford (q. v.). ix. Mary, m. Joseph Fitch, of Hartford, before 1663 (q. v.). x. Sarah, m. Thomas Butler, of Hartford.

Samuel married Hope Fletcher about 1620. (Hope Fletcher died before 3 Nov 1640.)

Samuel next married Elizabeth Allen, daughter of John Allen and Unknown, in Jul 1641 in Hartford, Connecticut. (Elizabeth Allen was born about 1605 in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts and died about 1682 in Hartford, Connecticut.)