Surname Saturday ~ FOOTE of Wethersfield, Connecticut

FOOTE

from the Foote Family Association website www.footefamily.org

I have two separate FOOTE lineages.  Last year I wrote up a Surname Saturday post for my lineage from Pasco Foote (about 1608 – 1670), who lived in Salem, Massachusetts.  You can read it at this link:

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/04/surname-saturday-foote-of-salem.html

Today I’m posting about my immigrant ancestor, Nathaniel Foote (1592 – about 1644) of Wethersfield, Connecticut.   There is no proof that the two Foote families are connected genealogically.  

Nathaniel Foote was born in Shalford, England.  He had an amazing number of interesting relations and ancestors in England, including a first cousin who was Sir Thomas Foote, the Sheriff of London in 1649 and also Lord Mayor of London in 1650.  Nathaniel was apprenticed to a grocer as a young man.  He married Elizabeth Deming, whose brother John Deming was also one of the first settlers of Wethersfield, Connecticut.  Mary, Nathaniel’s sister, married John Hewes and had three children who came to Roxbury, Massachusetts. (Joshua Hewes, Elizabeth Hewes married Ralph Hemingway, and Pheobe Hewes who married Richard Gorde ).

By 1633 Nathaniel Foote and his family had arrived in Boston and then Watertown, Massachusetts.  By 1635 he was one of the first settlers to Wethersfield.  Nathaniel Foote received a ten acre house lot on Broad Street, and the owner of several other grants of land nearby.  His house lot is now a public park on Broad Street in Wethersfield.

In the early days at Wethersfield there were many conflicts with the native Indians, and the Foote family suffered several losses, including a daughter-in-law and two grandchildren taken captive, and another grandchild killed, another daughter and three grandchildren killed while her husband and another two children were captured. 

Nathaniel Foote died in 1644 and his widow, Elizabeth, married Thomas Welles, who was later the Governor.  Although Nathaniel died intestate, Elizabeth’s will names her children and grandchildren, and she left a large piece of land to her son Robert Foote. 

For more information on the FOOTE family, see The Foote Family, by Nathaniel Goodwin, 1849 and Genealogies and Biographies of Ancient Wethersfield. There is a sketch of Nathaniel Foote in the Great Migration, Immigrants to New England 1634 – 1635, Volume II, pages 540 -544 and there are also three articles mentioning  the Foote family in The American Genealogist, Volume 58, 165 – 167; Volume 71, pages 149 – 150; and also Volume 72, page 49 – 55.  There is an active Foote Family Association of America and website at www.footefamily.org 

My Foote Lineage:

Generation 1: Nathaniel Foote, son of Robert Foote and Joanne Brooke, born about 21 September 1592 in Shalford, Colchester, England and died before 20 November 1644 in Wethersfield, Connecticut;  married about 1615 in England to Elizabeth Deming, daughter of Jonathan Deming and Elizabeth Gilbert.  She was born about 1593 in Shalford, died 28 July 1683.  She married second on 2 March 1645 in Wethersfield as the second wife to Governor Thomas Welles. Eight children.

Generation 2: Nathaniel Foote, born 5 March 1619 in St. James, Colchester, England and died about 1655 in Wethersfield; married about 1646 to Elizabeth Smith, daughter of Samuel and Smith and Elizabeth Smith (they were both Smiths). She married second to William Gull. Four children. 

Generation 3: Nathaniel Foote, born 10 January 1648 in Wethersfield, died 12 January 1703 in Wethersfield; married on 2 May 1672 in Springfield to Margaret Bliss, daughter of Nathaniel Bliss and Catherine Chapin. She was born 12 November 1649 in Springfield, Massachusetts, and died 3 April 1745 in Colchester, Connecticut.  Nine children.

Generation 4: Eunice Foote, born 10 May 1694 in Weathersfield; married on 3 December 1712 to Michael Taintor, son of Michael Taintor and Mary Loomis. Four children.

Generation 5: Eunice Taintor m. Aaron Skinner

Generation 6: Charles Skinner m. Sarah Osborn

Generation 7: Ann Skinner m. Thomas Ratchford Lyons

Generation 8: Isabella Lyons m. Reverend 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 (my grandparents)

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The URL for this post is

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/11/surname-saturday-foote-of-wethersfield.html

Copyright © 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo