Joseph Lomas

Born Abt in England. April 11, 1638: Departed from London, England aboard the ship Susan and Ellen captained by Edward Payne. He married June 30, 1614, in Shalford Parish Church, Essex County, England. He died November 25, 1658, in Windsor, Connecticut.

The Immigrant Ancestor

Joseph Loomis worked as a woolen-draper in Braintree, Essex, England, before sailing for New England in April 1638 aboard the Susan and Ellen, arriving in Boston that July with his family and a substantial shipment of household goods packed in barrels, hogsheads, and firkins. He settled first in Dorchester, Massachusetts, then moved to Windsor, Connecticut, by 1639, where he was granted land on “The Island” near the mouth of the Farmington River — the site of Connecticut's first English trading post. Over the 1640s and 1650s Joseph maintained a running, itemized barter account with his neighbor Henry Wolcott, trading apples, peas, venison, and a day's labor of his oxen back and forth in small sums of shillings and pence, the ordinary currency of frontier life.

A Windsor Farm, Divided

Joseph served repeatedly on Windsor juries through the 1640s, hearing cases of slander, debt, and probate, and was once fined for trespass after his livestock damaged a neighbor's corn. He died in Windsor on December 2, 1658, without a will; his estate, valued at 178 pounds ten shillings and including two mares, three colts, a parlor tapestry, and a small library of five books, was divided evenly among his children by their own agreement.