 ORIGIN: Unknown
MIGRATION: 1632 on William & Francis [Hotten 149]
FIRST RESIDENCE: Roxbury
REMOVES: Hartford 1636, Northampton 1656
OCCUPATION: Steward.
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: Admitted to Roxbury church as member #27: "Thomas Woodforde, a man servant, he came to N[ew] E[ngland] in the year 1632, & was joined to the church about half a year after; he afterwards married Mary Blott & removed to Conecticott & joined to the church at Hartford" [RChR 75].
FREEMAN: 4 March 1634/5 [MBCR 1:370].
EDUCATION: He signed his will. His inventory included "books" valued at £1 8s., and in his will he gave the titles of some in a bequest to his daughters.
OFFICES: Appointed to collect money in Hartford for "the maintenance of scholars at Cambridge," 25 October 1644 [CCCR 1:112]. On 18 May 1653 "Tho[mas] Woodford is freed from watching during the pleasure of the Court" [CCCR 1:241]. Hampshire jury, 29 March 1659 [Pynchon Court 240].
ESTATE: In the Hartford land inventory in February 1639/40 Thomas Woodford held ten parcels (the last six of which were acquired by him after the date at the head of the inventory): two acres "on which his dwelling house now standeth with yards, or gardens, therein being, which he bought of Mr. Allin, and was the land of John Barnard"; two acres in the West Field; four acres on the east side of the Great River (annotated "sold Jasper Gunn"); five acres in the neck of land; four acres "at the swamp at Podounck" (annotated "sold Jasper Gunn"); three acres of swamp on the east side of the Great River "with a barn in halves with John Bidall standing thereon, which was sometime the land & half barn of John Clark" (annotated "March the 2, 1655"); two acres on the east side of the Great River "which was sometime the land of John Clark"; "one parcel of upland on the east side of the Great River which was sometime the land of John Clark, containing to the end of Hartford being all his dividend in that long land"; seven acres of upland "given him by the town" (annotated "October the 19th, 1655"); and four acres of swamp on the east side of the Great River "which was confirmed to Isack Shelden as successor to Thomas Woodford by Osias Goodwine" (annotated "sold Andrew Sandford") [HaBOP 175-77].
In his will, dated 26 April 1665 and proved 26 March 1667, Thomas Woodford bequeathed his entire estate to "my three daughters, that is to say I give to my daughter Mary & to her children my eight acre lot next to my son Shelden's lot" and some moveables; to "my daughter Hannah & to her children half my lot in rainbow, & half that I have in Munhan & one acre & a rood in the great Swamp" and some moveables; to "my daughter Sara & to her children if she live to have any children living after herself I say I give to her half my lot in rainbow & half that I have in Munhan" and some moveables; "my house & barn & orchard & homelot with the addition over the brook & the allowance for that in Munhan which join to it ... be divided equally between my three daughters"; "my son Isaak Shelden" to be executor and Mr. Williams and Henry Cunliffe to be overseers; to "my daughter Hannah my new Bible, & my other books as Mr. Button's & Doctor Preston's with the rest & Mr. Bifield's I give them equally amongst my three daughters, desiring the Lord that he would give them a heart to make a good use of them" [Goodwin Anc 2:189-90, citing HamPR 1:82].
The inventory of the estate of Thomas Woodford, taken 12 March 1666/7, totalled £197 19s. 6d., including £119 in real estate: "a dwelling house, barn, orchard, garden," with land adjoining and with four acres over the swamp, £60; "8 acres of land in the 3d Square," £24; "5 acres of mowing land in the Great Rainbow," £25; "2 acres 1/4 in Munhan," £8; and "1 acre 1/4 in the Great Swamp," £2 [HamPR 1:83].
BIRTH: By 1614 based on date of freemanship.
DEATH: Northampton 6 March 1666/7 [Pynchon VR 156].
MARRIAGE: By about 1636 MARY BLOTT, baptized at Harrold, Bedfordshire, 24 December 1609, daughter of Robert Blott [TAG 67:65-67]; she died before 27 May 1662 (date of father's will).
CHILDREN:
| ii HANNAH, b. about 1642; m. Northampton 29 November 1659 Samuel Allen [Pynchon VR 141]. On 27 September 1659 Samuel Allen of Northampton sued John Bliss of Northampton "for unjustly stealing away the affections of Hannah Woodford his espoused wife," but Allen withdrew the suit "for that he found himself defective in his testimony" [Pynchon Court 242]. On 9 July 1660 John Winthrop Jr. treated "Allen, Sam[uel] his wife, Goodman Woodford's daughter, 17½ y. hath been but half year married" [WMJ 425]. |
| iii SARAH, bp. Hartford 2 September 1649 [HaVR 580]; m. Northampton 21 September 1664 Nehemiah Allen [Pynchon VR 142]. |
COMMENTS: Mary Blott was in her late twenties when she married, but all three of her daughters married at an age that was younger than the norm of the time, being from fifteen to seventeen years old at their weddings.
At the end of his entry for Thomas Woodford, Savage, having listed the three daughters given above, entered a caveat: "But from the will of Blott, who died less than two years before Woodford, I must infer, that two other daughters who were dead had belonged to this son-in-law, beside another that requires no little study to form satisfactory opinion as to the living" [Savage 4:639]. Although Robert Blott's will is notoriously difficult to interpret in places, there seems to be no ambiguity with regard to the daughter who married Thomas Woodford, as only one short phrase refers to her: "Edward Ellis my son-in-law, husband to Sarah my daughter, my executor, ... shall pay to my eldest daughter's children, whose names was Woodford of Conniticott, three pounds" [Goodwin Anc 2:199, citing SPR 1:456]. Savage's perplexity is difficult to understand in this case.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE: The best account of Thomas Woodford was prepared by Frank Farnsworth Starr in 1915 [Goodwin Anc 2:183-91]. Briefer treatments were published by Mary Lovering Holman in 1948 and by Donald Lines Jacobus in 1952 [Stevens-Miller Anc 1:407-10; Hale, House 808-09].
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The Great Migration Begins
Sketches
PRESERVED PURITAN
Ancestry Chain: Thomas WODDFORD 1632 Immigrant b.1612, Mary WOODFORD b.1633, Ruth SHELDON (twin) b.1663, Ruth WRIGHT b.1687, Samuel NOBLE b.1722, Lydia NOBLE b.1768, Horace Datus ENSIGN b.1797, Martin Luther ENSIGN b.1831, Harriett Camilla ENSIGN b.1859, George Ensign SMITH b.1898, Camilla SMITH b.1926, Lark, JR.
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