WELCOME:
ABOUT SMFSD
A BRIEF HISTORY
OF MIDDLETOWN
FIRST SETTLER
BIO SKETCHES
MEMBERSHIP
RESEARCH LINKS
SMFSD NEWS
CONTACT SMFSD
— • —
MEMBER AREA:
Local History
In-Depth
First Settler Profiles
Genealogy
Resources
The Middler:
Newsletter
Archive
SMFSD Events
— • —

All pages
Copyright © 2007
SMFSD
All rights reserved.

— • —

"Possibly one of
the incidental
functions of
genealogical study
is to chasten
family pride,
and to make us
more conscious of
the essential unity
of the great
human family."

- Donald Lines Jacobus

Brief Biographical Sketch:


William Cornwell (1650) / Mary (unknown surname) Cornwell

Name: William Cornwell ("Sgt.")

Birth: Baptised May 25, 1609, Terling, Essex, England(GMB)

Emigration: To Roxbury, Mass. 1633(GMB); to Hartford, Conn., by 1639(FFS); to Middletown, Conn. before November 1652.(FFS)

Death: February 21, 1677/8 in Middletown, Conn.(MVR)

Occupation & Public Service: Appointed to committee to apportion home lots & planting fields in 1652 & 1657; constable 1664; surveyor of highways 1668; new meeting house committee 1669; representative in General Court 1654, 1664, & 1665.(FFS) Fought in Pequot Indian War with Capt. Mason in 1637.(GMB)

Marriage: m.(1) Joan Ranke September 27, 1632, Fairsted, Essex, England (b. England; d. before 1639); m.(2) Mary (unknown surname) about 1640 (b. unknown; d. after 1675).(GMB)

Children: 8 children between 1640-1651. (See in-depth profile in Member Area for details.)


See abbreviation code for sources. And then verify, verify, verify, verify.
For more biographical information see the In-Depth Profile in the Member Area.


The First Meeting House, Middletown, Conn. The engraving below by W.C. Butler was a fanciful illustration for David Field's Centennial Address published in 1853. In 1939 the image was used on the title page of The Log Cabin Myth by Harold R. Shurtleff. Surrounding the engraving are signatures of some of the first settlers as found on wills and deeds by Charles C. Adams in preparation of Middletown Upper Houses (1908).