John Curtis' of London, England, had his coat of arms confirmed 

 May 9, 1632, just forty-two days before William of Roxbury sailed 

 for New England. In the visitation of London, in 1633, his name 

 does not appear. In " A Note of ye Estates and Persons of the In- 

 habitants of Rocksbury," ^ 1638-40, appears the name of John Corteis, 

 having fifteen acres of land and with five persons in his family. No 

 further mention of this family appears on the Roxbury records, but in 

 1639 a John Curtis' was a resident of Wethersfield, Conn., and owned 

 land in that town on what was then called " The North Road to the 

 Great Meadow." Thomas Ufford, who left Roxbury in 1635, with 

 William Pynchon, we also find in Wethersfield at this time. Rev. 

 Thomas Hooker, the famous divine of Hartford, was a native of 

 Morfield, Leicestershire, England. He was a Fellow of Emmanuel 

 College about the same time as John Eliot, and Eliot assisted him in 

 his school at Little Baddow, Essex. Through persecution Hooker 

 left England and sought refuge in Holland. After a while he heard 

 that some of his Essex friends were going to New England, and he 

 speedily united with them and sailed in the " Griffin " from Downs in 

 1633. It is therefore probable that when he settled in Hartford 

 many of the Roxbury people, natives of Essex, joined him there. 



John Curtis left Wethersfield in 1640 for Cuphag (Stratford), and 

 his name disappears, but we find the name of widow Elizabeth Curtiss 

 and her two sons on the earliest records of Stratford. It is therefore 

 probable that the father died soon after arriving at Stratford, or on the 

 journey. Thomas Ufford left Wethersfield at about the same time and 

 went to Milford, but a few years later we find him in Stratford where 

 he, with his family, spent the remainder of his life. There has been a 

 tradition in Stratford that the Ufford and Booth families had inter- 

 married with the Curtiss before they left England, but this I have been 

 unable to substantiate. Mr. Trumbull ^ in his " History of Connecti- 

 cut," in writing of the settlement of Stratford, says that " Mr. John 

 and Mr. William Curtiss and Mr. Joseph Hawley were from Roxbury, 

 and Mr. William Judson, and Mr. William Wilcoxson from Concord, 

 in Massachusetts." " These were the first principal gentlemen in the 

 town and church of Stratford." " A few years after the settlement com- 

 menced, Mr. John Birdseye removed from Milford and became a man 

 of eminence both in the town and church." " Mr. Adam Blackman 

 who had been episcopally ordained in England, and a preacher of some 

 note, first at Leicester and afterwards in Derbyshire, was their minister 

 and one of the first planters. It is said that he was followed by a 



* Page xii. 



2 Town Records of Roxbury, N. E. 



^ ** Memorial History of Hartford County, Conn.,'* page 439. 



* " Histoiy of Connecticut," by Benjamin Trumbull. New Haven, Conn., 1789. 



(viii) 



