Samuel Stone (July 18, 1602 – 20 July 1663) was a

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...

minister and co-founder of

Hartford Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

Biography

Stone was born in

Hertford Hertford ( ) is the county town of Hertfordshire, England, and is also a civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district of the county. The parish had a population of 26,783 at the 2011 census. The town grew around a ford on the River Lea, ne ...

, the

county town In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a county town is the most important town or city in a county. It is usually the location of administrative or judicial functions within a county and the place where the county's members of Parliament are elect ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The name of the town is pronounced "Hartford". In 1620, he left Hertford to study at

Emmanuel College, Cambridge Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Elizabeth I. The site on which the college sits was once a priory for Dominican mon ...

, from where he graduated in 1624. He was ordained on July 8, 1626 at

Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...

and a year later became curate at

Stisted Stisted is a civil parish, Church of England parish, and former manor near Braintree, Essex, England. Andrew Motion, a former Poet Laureate, was raised there. History of Stisted Stisted parish was a peculiar, held by the Dean of Bocking under ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

. In 1633, Samuel Stone and

Thomas Hooker Thomas Hooker (July 5, 1586 – July 7, 1647) was a prominent English colonial leader and Congregational minister, who founded the Connecticut Colony after dissenting with Puritan leaders in Massachusetts. He was known as an outstanding spea ...

sailed across the Atlantic on a ship named the

Griffin The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (Ancient Greek: , ''gryps''; Classical Latin: ''grȳps'' or ''grȳpus''; Late Latin, Late and Medieval Latin: ''gryphes'', ''grypho'' etc.; Old French: ''griffon'') is a legendary creature with the body, tail ...

. They arrived in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

on the 4th of September of the same year, and a few weeks later, Samuel Stone became a Teacher of the Cambridge Church under Hooker, who was the preacher. In 1644, he became a

Freeman Freeman, free men, or variant, may refer to: * a member of the Third Estate in medieval society (commoners), see estates of the realm * Freeman, an apprentice who has been granted freedom of the company, was a rank within Livery companies * Free ...

. In 1636, Stone and Hooker led their congregation from New Towne (now

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

) and established a new colony at House of Hope (a Dutch fort and trading post), making peace with the local Indians and renaming the town they called

Saukiog The Saukiog tribe (sometimes spelled Sickaog or Suckiaug) was a Native American people who lived in the Hartford, Connecticut vicinity circa the early 17th century. The Saukiog spoke an Algonquian dialect and were part of the Algonquian confede ...

, after Stone's birthplace - they thus became the town's founding fathers.

Personal life

Stone was twice married. By his second wife, Elizabeth Allyn, whom he wed in 1641, he had four surviving children—a son Samuel and four daughters, Elizabeth, Rebecca, Mary and Sarah. He publishe
“A Congregational Church, a Catholike Visible Church”
in London in 1642, in answer to Samuel Hudson's "Visible Catholick Church", and left two works in manuscript: a catechism and a confutation of the Antinomians. Records show that he was an active buyer and seller of land in Hartford. There is a statue of Samuel Stone in the centre of Hertford, Hertfordshire.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stone, Samuel 1602 births 1663 deaths People from Hertford Alumni of Emmanuel College, Cambridge English emigrants Founders of Hartford, Connecticut 17th-century New England Puritan ministers