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Note: THOMAS RICHARDS. Of this Puritan almost nothing can be gathered from records but his name. His mission seems to have been to snatch his family from oppression and set them down where the holiest influences would conspire to mould them, and their descendants, for usefulness in time and blessedness in eternity; and happy has it been for them and the world that he performed it. That he was of the same stock as other cotemporary immigrants of the name is not susceptible of proof from our records; but circumstances, often as conclusive as documentary evidence, indicate that he was, and the nephew of Thomas Richards, senior, and the cousin or brother of Nathaniel, of Hartford, of William and John, of Plymouth, and of Edward, of Dedham. Of the exact time of his birth, arrival, and death, there is uncertainty. From the ages of his children, and the "advanced age" of his widow, in 1671, he is supposed to have been born about 1600-5. His name does not occur on any record of Massachusetts or Plymouth. This, considering the state of the records, makes it certain that he did not first settle at Cambridge, but might have tarried some years at Weymouth, and have afterwards joined Mr. Hooker, some of whose flock first settled at Weymouth, and subsequently at Cambridge.(*) In favor of this, there existed a tradition, which one of his descendants, born a century ago, deemed worthy of record: and if we could prove him one of the band who came out with Mr. Newman in 1635, it would be a high recommendation, and bring him from that part of the kingdom from whence came Thomas, senior. But the excellence of his character is endorsed by the sentiments he embraced, the society he loved, the sacrifices for truth and conscience he made, and the fraternization he received; while the enterprise, energy, and piety of his sons assure us of a father of stamina and worth. He was not of the 100 original purchasers of Hartford, but one of the 62 original settlers to whom "were granted lotts to have onely at the town's courtesie with liberty to fetch woode and keep swine or cowes on the Common." The vote, conferring this privilege, passed February 10, 1639, probably 1639-40, when his wife was a widow. It was, no doubt, intended as a legal security to his heirs of what had been possessed by consent in his life time; nor was it then an uncommon use of a representative name. Thomas Richards might have gone to Hartford with Mr. Hooker in 1636, subsisting by the way on the milk of the herd they drove; but I find so many modern untruths within the lids of the bible, that a good deacon's record to this effect does not prove it. He was not at Hartford to build his own house, nor until another had had time to build one to sell; and his name is the very last of the 62 who received lots at the "towns courtesie." He did not, probably, arrive before 1637, and as he seems to have made no improvements, and as no use of his name on any record implies that he was alive even in 1638, he, no doubt, died soon after his arrival, and not improbably with those who fell in 1637, in the Pequod war. But if it were not so, he did not live to become a proprietor of Hartford. He died as early as 1638 or '39, before the assignment of house-lots to the planters. For in February, 1639, probably 1639-40, "to Widow Richards the late wife of Thomas Richards, were assigned 4 acres and 1 Rood abutting on a pathway leading from her house to Little River on the East, on diverse small lots on the West, on John Surles on the North, and on Robert Bartletts on the South." It was situated about a stone's cast southwest of the College grounds. This has been reckoned as the home lot of Thomas Richards, and it was, no doubt, such by agreement, as in similar cases, in the settlement of other towns before the lots could be definitely surveyed and legally assigned. 13 acres and 2 roods on the east side of North Hill, and 2 acres and 2 roods on the east side of the Great River were subsequently allotted to her; and to make her title perfect to a lot of "3 acres and 2 roods with a tenement thereon with other out houses yards or gardens which she had bought of Thomas Bull abutting on the highway leading to the South Meadow on the north"; it was formally assigned to her. This tenement is presumed to have been "her house" referred to in the assignment of her first lot, which was designed to enlarge the one she had purchased. Her agency in the purchase may indicate the early death of her husband. The first and last lots united made 7 acres 3 roods, and were, March 16, 1640, called Thos. Richards's lot of 8 acres, although he was not then alive. She died about 1671, at an advanced age, leaving effects inventoried at �24, which were then divided, by mutual agreement, between her four surviving children. Her estate seems to have been previously settled, and the homestead, upon John.2 ["Genealogical Register of the Descendants of Several Ancient Puritans" V3]
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