William Phelps ★
Descent: Meghan Jane Leineweber ← Catherine Raye Lobb ← Patricia Jane Loomis ← Edward Byron Loomis ← Isaac Hayes Loomis ← Juliette Cordelia Hayes ← Nelson Hayes ← Alanson Hayes ← Mabel Phelps ← Abel Phelps ← Joseph Phelps ← Joseph Phelps ← Joseph Phelps ← William Phelps
In brief
1590s–1620s
Born around 1593 in Crewkerne, Somerset, England, and married there on 14 November 1626.
1630s
Sailed aboard the Mary and John in March 1630, landing at Natasket that May as one of Dorchester's founders. Constable, selectman and deputy to the General Court, and a juror in New England's first jury trial in November 1630. Named in 1636 one of eight commissioners to govern the new Connecticut colony, he helped found Windsor and in 1639 helped draft Connecticut's first constitution.
1640s–1670s
A Windsor magistrate and deputy on and off into the 1660s, with a large landholding there. Wrote his will in April 1660 and died at Windsor on 14 July 1672.
Family
Children
With Mary ____
- William Phelpsb. Abt. September 1618, in Crewkerne, Englandm. Isabel Wilson, June 4, 1645, in Windsor, Connecticutm. Sarah Pinney, December 20, 1676, in Windsor, Connecticutd. February 10, 1681
- Samuel Phelpsb. Abt. August 1621 in Crewkerne, Englandm. Sarah Griswold, November 10, 1650, in Windsor, Connecticutd. May 15, 1669, in Poquonock, Connecticut
- Nathaniel Phelpsb. Abt. March 1625 in Crewkerne, Englandm. Elizabeth ____, September 17, 1650, in Windsor, Connecticutd. May 27, 1702, in Northampton, Massachusetts
- ____ Phelpsd. c. January 1623, in Crewkerne, England
With Ann Dover
- Cornelius Phelpsb. Abt. October 1627 in Crewkerne, Englandd. January 1628 in England
- Joseph Phelps · in this lineb. Abt. 1628 in Englandm. September 20, 1660, in Windsor, Connecticutm. January 9/December 19, 1676d. 1684 in Simsbury, Hartford County, Connecticut
- Mary Phelpsb. Abt. November 1628 in Crewkerne, Englandd. November 1628 in Crewkerne, England
- Sarah Phelpsb. Abt. 1632 in Americam. William Wade, June 9, 1658, in Windsor, Connecticutd. July 10, 1659, in Windsor, Connecticut
- Timothy Phelpsb. August/September 1, 1639, in Windsor Connecticutm. Mary Griswold, May 1661, in Windsor, Connecticut
Life story
Founding Dorchester
William Phelps sailed from Plymouth, England, in March 1630 with his wife and children aboard the Mary and John, arriving at Natasket (now Hull), Massachusetts, that May as part of the founding company of Dorchester. He quickly became one of the young settlement's most active civic figures: elected constable in 1631, he went on to serve repeatedly as selectman and as Dorchester's deputy to the Massachusetts Bay General Court through the mid-1630s, and sat on numerous boundary-surveying committees, including one that laid out the line between Boston and Roxbury and another between Weymouth and Hingham. In November 1630 he served on the twelve-man jury that tried Walter Palmer for the death of Austin Bratcher and returned a verdict of not guilty — remembered as the first jury trial in New England.
Founding Connecticut
In 1636 William was one of eight commissioners appointed by the Massachusetts Company to govern the new colony of Connecticut, moving with his family to found Dorchester's namesake settlement, later renamed Windsor. He served for years afterward as an assistant to the Connecticut General Court and, from 1639, as a colonial magistrate — in January of that year joining Roger Ludlow and the other magistrates in drafting Connecticut's first constitution, among the earliest written constitutions in the American colonies. In May 1637 he presided over the court session that declared war on the Pequot people, and in 1639 he helped organize the expeditionary force that followed. He continued as a Windsor deputy and magistrate on and off for another two decades, into the 1660s.
A Windsor Landholder
William built a large landholding around Windsor, including a nine-acre home lot and a fifty-acre great lot with adjoining meadow, and in 1635 began negotiating with Sehat, a Paquannuck sachem, for a substantial tract of land — a purchase he didn't fully pay off until 1665, thirty years later, with additional trucking coats. He survived the great flood of 1639, which damaged his home and land, and in his April 1660 will made his son Timothy joint owner of his estate, with instructions to support his wife and pay set sums to his other children. William died in Windsor on July 14, 1672.
Sources (5)
- Brian Phelps, Phelps Family History in America (https://www.phelpsfamilyhistory.com/research/william/WilliamPhelpsWindsor1630Tree.asp : accessed 6 July 2026), “William Phelps in Windsor, Connecticut”.
- Brian Phelps, Phelps Family History in America (https://www.phelpsfamilyhistory.com/research/william/index.asp : accessed 7 July 2026), “The Origins of William Phelps”.
- Judge Oliver Seymour Phelps and Andrew T. Servin, The Phelps Family of America and their English Ancestors (Pittsfield, Massachusetts: Eagle Publishing Company, 1899); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/phelpsfamilyofam01phel : accessed 6 July 2026).
- Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, 3 vols. (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995), 3:1444-1446; digital images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2496/images/42521_b158320-00134 : accessed 20 July 2026).
- Wikipedia contributors, "William Phelps (colonist)," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Phelps_(colonist) : accessed October 26, 2026).