Foote
Arms of Nathaniel Foote
ARMS- Argent, a chevron sable and in the dexter quarter a trefoil of the second.
CREST- An oak tree proper.
MOTTO- Loyalty and Truth.
Nathaniel Foote, son of Robert and Joan (Brooke) Foote, was born in England, probably at Shalford, Essex, about 1593, and died intestate at Wethersfield, Connecticut, in 1644, aged about fifty-one years, inventory if his estate being taken at a Particular Court held at Hartford, November 20th, 1644. He was buried in the ancient burying ground behind the meetinghouse, where nine generations of his family now lie. With his brothers Daniel, Francis and Joshua, he was to receive by the terms of his father's will the sum of £40 at the age of twenty-four, and the following apprenticeship agreement, in the court rolls of the borough of Colchester, County Essex, indicates that he was apprenticed from the autumn following his father's death, when he was sixteen, until he attained that age:
Nathaniel Foote aged sixteen years, son of Robert Foot of Shalford in Com. Essex yeoman doth put himself apprentic to Samuel Croylye of Colchester, aforesaid grocer and Free Burgess from the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel last past for the term of eight years. Dated 21 September V James I (1608). Sealed and delivered in the presence of me Robert Foot and of me George Lumpkin.
The births of his two eldest children are recorded at St. James' Parish Church, Colchester, but there is no further record of the family there, and apparently he had left Colchesterbefore the birth of the third child in 1623; if so he probably continued in th grocery business with some of his relatives in London. He emigrated with his family to America, settling first at Watertown, Massachusetts, where he is recorded as a freeman on September 3, 1634, and wher he was granted "an house-stall of sixteen acres" as well as "two acres of marsh." Shortly afterwards he was one of the first ten men, known as "Adventurers," who penetrated the wilderness to found Wethersfield, Connecticut, on the banks of the Connecticut River at Pyquag, about 1635. Among other commisary supplies for the "designe against the Pequoitts" in 1637, the General Court gave the following order: "There shalbe I hogg prvided att Wythersfeild for the designe in hande, wch is conceiued to be Nathaniel Footes, 20 lbs of butter,"etc. He was the largest holder of the so-called "Adventurers' lands," had a house lot of ten acres on the east side of Broad Street in 1640, and gradually increased his property to a total of four hundred acres. In 1641, 1642 and 1644 he represented the town in the General Court, and in 1643 and 1644 as a juror.
Nathaniel Foot married, in England, about 1615-16, Elizabeth Deming, who was born about 1595 and died at Wethersfield, Connecticut, July 28, 1683, will approved by the Particular Court in August, 1683, sister of John Deming, one of the first settlers of Wethersfield; she married (second), as his second wife, about 1646, Thomas Welles, later Governor of Connecticut. Her will, of "Elizabeth Wells of Wethersfield, widow," devises fourteen acres of land in the great meadow and thirty acres in the west field to her son Robert Foote.
Children:
- Elizabeth, baptized at St. James' Church, Colchester, England, January 14th, 1617-18, died September 8th, 1700; married, in 1638, Josiah Churchill, of Wethersfield, Connecticut.
- Nathaniel, baptized at St. James' Church, Colchester, March 5th, 1619-20, died in 1655; married, in 1646, Elizabeth Smith, daughter of Lieutenant Samuel Smith; she married (second) William Gull, of Wethersfield and of Hadley, Massachusetts.
- Mary, born about 1623; married (first), in 1642, John Stoddard of Wethersfield; (second) , in 1647, John Goodrich, of Wethersfield; (third) Lieutenant Thomas Tracy, of Norwich, Connecticut.
- Robert (3), of whom further.
- Frances, born in 1629; married (first), in 1648, John Dickenson, of Hadley, Massachusetts; (second), in 1677, Francis Barnard, of Hartford, Connecticut, and Hadley, Massachusetts.
- Sarah, born about 1632, died in 1673; married, in 1652, Jeremiah Judson, son of William and Grace Judson, of Stratford, Connecticut; he married (second) Catherine (Cragg) Fairchild, widow of Thomas Fairchild, of Stratford.
- Rebecca, born at Watertown, Massachusetts, about 1634, died April 6, 1701; married (first), about 1657, Lieutenant Philip Smith, son of Samuel Smith, of Wethersfield and Hadley; (second), October 2, 1688, Major Aaron Cook, of Windsor, Connecticut, and Northampton, Massachusetts.
Descent continues through Robert...
Wilfred Jordan, COLONIAL AND REVOLUTIONARY FAMILIES OF PENNSYLVANIA; ; New York, Lewis Historical Publishing Co. Inc., 1942, p. 586-597; Coat of Arms facing p. 560.
Jordan Cites:
(A. W. Foote: "Foote Family, Comprising the Genealogy and History of Nathaniel Foote of Wethersfield, Connecticut," Vol. I, pp. 17-28; Vol. II, pp. 644-45, 656-57. N. Goodwin: "The Foote Family: or the Descendants of Nathaniel Foote," pp. v-x, xxvi, 47. E. Putnam, ed.: "Lieutenant Jonathan Hewes, a New England Pioneer, and Some of His Descendants," peidigree facing p. 12. L. A. Welles: "The English Ancestry of Governor Thomas Welles, of Connecticut," in "The New England Historical and Genealogical Register," Vol. LXXX, p. 300. H. R. Stiles: "The History of Ancient Wethersfield, Connecticut," Vol. I, p. 270; Vol. II, p.p. 326-27. C. P. Noyes: "Noyes-Gilman Ancestry," pp. 297-300.)
John S.Wurts, MAGNA CHARTA; ; Philadelphia, Brookfield Pub. Co.,1958. Part III, p. 510, 559; Part IV, p. 710, 737.