John Slafter

Born in Great Britain.

Founding Willington

John Slafter emigrated from Great Britain and settled first in Lynn, Massachusetts, before moving to Mansfield, Connecticut, in 1716, where he purchased a hundred acres along the Willimantic River. He and several partners bought roughly 28,000 acres in northern Mansfield around 1718, and further land north of the town in 1721 that was incorporated, along with other purchases, into the new town of Willington in 1724; John received a deed to the mansion-house property where he lived out his life, a hilltop farm overlooking the river whose cellar walls and an old apple tree reportedly still stood as late as 1862. He served as Willington's first grand juror, reelected for several years, and as tithingman, responsible for enforcing Sabbath observance, and openly protested the appointment of one of the town's early ministers. According to family tradition, while still living in Massachusetts John once came home to find two Indigenous men threatening his family in his house; he ordered them out, and when they refused, knocked one down, and both fled. John transferred his land to his sons Moses and Benjamin in 1739.