Surname Saturday ~ COLVER of Connecticut

COLVER

Edward Colver was a signer of “The Covenant” that formed Dedham, Massachusetts in 1636.  He was a wheelwright and was granted two acres in 1637.  He took part in the Pequot War that same year. Edward was a talented Indian scout, and it is thought that King Uncas named his own son after Colver’s son, Joshua.  For this military service Edward Colver received two more grants of land, two hundred acres in 1652/3 and four hundred acres in 1654 near the head of the Mystic River in Connecticut.

Edward Colver removed to Connecticut where he helped the Winthrops build a fort at Saybrook.  He bought a lot from Robert Burrows in Pequot around 1653, and that same year was granted land as “Goodman Colver”.   In Mystic he built a grist mill.  The Winthrop family also ran a grist mill nearby, and twice sued for Colver’s land. 

By 1675 the settlers were again fighting the native Indians in King Phillip’s War.  Edward Colver was elderly but he went out to fight in the Great Swamp Fight near Tiverton, Rhode Island with his sons.  He was the only man with experience from the previous war.  Frederic Lathrop Colver stated it was Edward, the settler who fought, but Donald Lines Jacobus stated it was more likely to have been Edward, Jr.

Edward Colver died in 1685 in Mystic, having deed his lands to his sons.  He and his wife, Ann, are buried with a small headstone with the rough initials E. C on one side and A. C on the other.   His house was known as “Chepados”  (a native Indian word for an intersection in trails) and it is still standing at 279 Ledyard Highway, Mystic, Connecticut.

Click here to see a photograph of Chepados  http://173.254.28.14/~collvero/family/doc/chepados_04.html

For more information on Edward Colver:

Colver-Culver Family Genealogy as Descended from Edward Colver of Groton, Connecticut to the Thirteenth Generations in America, by Valerie Dyer Giorgi, Santa Monica, California: privately published, 1984.

The Town of Dedham, by Don Gleason Hill, Dedham, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1886, Volume 3. (available to read online at www.archive.org )

Public Records of Connecticut, 1665 – 1677, Volume 2, pages 408 and 417.  (Internet Archive has these to read online, see this link: http://www.colonialct.uconn.edu/ )

Genealogy:

Generation 1: Edward Colver, born about 1610 in England, died 1685 in Mystic, Connecticut; married on 19 September 1638 in Dedham, Massachusetts to Ann Ellis, daughter of John Ellis. Nine children.

Generation 2: Mary Colver, born 4 November 1652 in Roxbury, Massachusetts, died 1731; married on 14 December 1670 in New London, Connecticut to John Burrows, son of Robert Burrows and Mary Unknown. Nine children.

Generation 3:  John Burrows m. Lydia Hubbard,

Generation 4:  Desire Burris m. Moses Gore

Generation 5:  Desire Gore m. Thomas Ratchford.

Generation 6: Elizabeth Ratchford m. David Lyons

Generation 7: Thomas Ratchford Lyons m. Ann Skinner

Generation 8: Isabella Lyons m. Rev. Ingraham Ebenezer Bill

Generation 9: Caleb Rand Bill m. Ann Margaret Bollman

Generation 10: Isabella Lyons Bill m. Albert Munroe Wilkinson

Generation 11: Donald Munroe Wilkinson m. Bertha Louise Roberts

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo