number of the faithful into this country." " These doubtless collected 

 about him in the infant settlement." Mr. Blakeman is supposed to 

 have come to Stratford from Wethersfield, and as the house lot of 

 widow Elizabeth Curtiss was near or adjoining that of Mr. Blakeman's, 

 this family may have come to Stratford to be under his ministry. In 

 the will of Elizabeth Curtiss,' John Birdseye, Henry Wakelyn, and 

 Joseph Hawley were appointed overseers. Of these Joseph Hawley 

 came from Roxbury, N. E., and also came to this country in the ship 

 " Planter," in 1635, ^^^^ Adam Blakeman, William Wilcoxson, and 

 William Beardsley. William Curtiss's ^ family furnishes us with further 

 proof of his having come from Wethersfield, Conn., and Nazing. He 

 married for his second wife Sarah, daughter of Matthew Morris,' of 

 Hartford, Conn., and widow of William Goodrich, of Wethersfield, 

 Conn., and two of his daughters married into Wethersfield families — 

 those of Rose and Welles. The latter perhaps was John Welles, son 

 of Gov. Thomas Wells, as on the records John Welles calls John 

 Curtiss uncle. 



The Curtiss family was from all accounts one of the most prom- 

 inent among the first settlers of Stratford, and it has been claimed 

 that they suggested naming the town Stratford after Stratford-on- 

 Avon,"* England. If this be true it adds another proof towards the 

 acceptance of the pedigree with the coat-of-arms,^ for Makestoke and 

 Hatton were but small hamlets and Stratford-on-Avon was the nearest 

 town of any size. That the name of Curtiss was well known in 

 Shakespeare's town is shown by the fact that that poet used it as one 

 of the characters in " The Taming of the Shrew." William Beards- 

 ley, Thomas Alsop, and Richard Booth are also supposed to have 

 been natives of Stratford-on-Avon, England, and as the Earl of War- 

 wick had letters patent* to that part of Connecticut, it is more than 

 probable that many of the early settlers throughout that colony were 

 from Warwickshire. 



' Page I. 



' P»§= 3- 



^ The name of Morris is found in Nazing, England. 



* There is also a town near Nazing, and now a part of London, called Stratford-on-Bow, and I have 

 found the name of Curds on tombstones in the parish churchyard of that town. 



* Page xii. 



' See Patent of Connecticut. 



(ix) 



