Musings on the Spencers in Colonial Hartford
My meanders begin in Colonial America; Hartford, Connecticut to be exact. Thomas Spencer, my 9th great-grandfather is one of the town's founders. (See foundersofhartford.org ). I have noted the history of the settlement during the lifetime of my ancestor. Reverend Thomas Hooker was a Puritan and was forced from England by the Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1633, he sailed from Holland to the colonies to escape further persecution, settling in Cambridge. He formed a church with an assistant, Samuel Stone, who had been born in Hartford, a hamlet north of London. In 1635, he decided that the Boston area was too crowded and left for Connecticut with about 100 people from his congregation and some cattle. They started a settlement to the north of the Dutch outpost, House of Hope, from New Amsterdam. Connecticut derives from the Algonquin word, quinnetukut , which means "long, tidal river". Hartford means "deer crossing", so it is thought that Samuel Stone suggested th...