Henry Wolcott, Sr. (1578-1655)

(Exerpted from the Wolcott pages of "The History of Ancient Windsor Vol II" by Henry R. Stiles.)

The register of the parish of Lidiard St. Lawrence, adjoining that of Tolland, Co Somerset, England, contains the following: "Henry, ye sonne of John Wolcott, was baptized the VI of December 1578"; and "Henry Wolcott & Elizabeth Saunders (of Lydiard St. Laurence, b. 1584), were married 19 January, 1606."

This Henry Wolcott was the emigrant to Windsor, Conn. As the second son of John Wolcott of Galdon Manor, Tolland, Co. Somerset, Eng., he held a fair position among the landed gentry, and an estate which placed him in affluent circumstances. By the decease of his elder brother, Christopher, intestate, 1639, the family estate, including the manor-house, mill, etc., also came into his possession after his move to America.

The earlier portion of his life was passed in quiet pursuit of a country squire's duties & responsibilities. But, becoming converted under the teaching of the Rev. John Elton, he soon found himself closely identified with the Puritan party in the religious and political revolution which then convulsed England.

America presented to him, as to hundreds of others likeminded, the only asylum where civil and religious freedom could be found; and though then past 52 years of age, and with children of an age when they most needed the social and educational advantages afforded in their native land...the family emigrated to a new home beyond the ocean.

Leaving behind 2 daughters and their youngest son (age 5) and taking their other 3 sons, they joined the Warham and Maverick emigration of 1630 arriving in Boston on the "Mary and John". Later he moved to Windsor, Connecticut and, in 1637, was elected a member of the lower house of the first General Assembly of Connecticut.

In 1643 he was elected to the House of Magistrates (the present Senate) of Connecticut and was annually re-elected during life. He was probably, after the pastor, the most distinguished citizen of Windsor.

His son, Henry, Jr., married Sarah Newberry, daughter of another distinguished family of immigrants - that of Thomas Newberry. The son of Henry, Jr., Samuel Wolcott, married Judith Appleton – thus tying the these three English families together.

Among the prominent descendants of Henry Wolcott, Sr., was his grandson, Roger Wolcott, Governor of Connecticut from 1750 to 1754. Roger was the son of Simon Wolcott, youngest child of Henry, Sr.

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