William Wadsworth ★

Born Abt in Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, England. 1632: Came from England to America aboard the ship Lyon. He married July 2, 1644, in Hartford, Connecticut. He died Late 1675.

Building Hartford

William Wadsworth crossed the Atlantic aboard the ship Lyon in 1632 and was admitted a freeman of the Massachusetts Bay Colony that November, settling first in Cambridge before moving to Hartford, Connecticut, where he built one of the town's larger landholdings — dozens of parcels acquired piece by piece over four decades, including meadow, pasture, and woodland purchased from neighbors like Richard Lord and Stephen Hart. He served for over two decades, from 1652 to 1675, as one of Hartford's deputies to the Connecticut General Court, and in his later years sat on the colony's Indian Commission and War Committee, helping negotiate the boundary between Stonington and Pequot territory in 1666.

A Substantial Estate

William wrote his will in May 1675, providing an annual income for his wife Elizabeth and dividing his considerable property among his children: his son Samuel received the family homestead, his son Joseph a house and land purchased from Daniel Pratt, and his son Thomas the lands beyond the Great River along with an unfinished barn. William died later that year; his estate was inventoried at over 1,677 pounds — a substantial sum for the period, with more than 1,000 pounds of it in real estate spread across meadows, pastures, and a farm at Hockanum purchased from Governor Haynes.