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WILLIAM ROCKWELL
ORIGIN: Dorchester, Dorsetshire
MIGRATION: 1630 on Mary & John
FIRST RESIDENCE: Dorchester
REMOVES: Windsor 1638
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: The claim has been made that William Rockwell was made deacon of the Dorchester congregation at the time of the sailing of the Mary & John early in 1630, but the evidence for this has not been found. Certainly Rockwell was performing the duties of a deacon in his earliest days in New England. On 3 September 1633" [t]here is administration granted to William Gaylord & William Rockwell, of the goods and chattels of John Russell, of Dorchester, who deceased August 26th, 1633" (Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1628-1686, Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., 5 volumes in 6 Boston 1853-1854;) MBCR 1:107]; this sort of service was frequently provided by the deacons. Also, prior to the establishment of selectmen in Dorchester, many of the town orders were signed by JOHN MAVERICK, JOHN WARHAM, WILLIAM GAYLORD and William Rockwell - in other words, the two ministers of the congregation and the two deacons. William Rockwell would certainly have retained his membership in the church, and presumably his position of deacon, for the short time of his residence in Windsor as well.
FREEMAN: Requested 19 October 1630 and admitted 18 May 1631 [MBCR 1:79, 366].
EDUCATION: Signed his name to Dorchester town orders (Fourth Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston. 1880. Dorchester Town Records Boston 1883;) DTR 1-7].
OFFICES: Signed Dorchester town orders either as selectman or deacon, 21 January 1632/3 to 2 June 1634 [DTR 1-7].
Jury of life and death in the case of Austen Bratcher, 9 November 1630 [MBCR 1:81].
ESTATE: On 17 December 1635 it was ordered that William Rockwell have half an acre of ground next to Mr. Stoughton's near the fish house "to build him a house with condition that if he go away and leave the plantation, he leave the said house and ground to the plantation in paying him the charge" [DTR 13]. On 27 June 1636 he shared a marsh lot with Nicholas Upsall [DTR 17]. On 5 July 1636 William Rockwell received eight acres added to his former lot [DTR 18]. On 2 January 1637/8 it was ordered that "Nicholas Upsall and Will Rockwell are to take what is theirs where their eight acres was granted and none elsewhere and that equally betwixt them" [DTR 26]. In the meadow beyond Naponset William Rockwell had lot #75 of four acres [DTR 322].
In the Windsor land inventory on 4 February 1640[1], William Rockwell had "granted from the plantation an homelot nine acres"; eight acres in the Great Meadow; forty acres in the Northwest Field (annotated "this sold to Mr. Horsford"); and over the Great River a parcel twenty rods by three miles, adjacent to a parcel ten rods by eightscore rods (Windsor, Connecticut, Deeds (microfilm of original at Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Connecticut;) WiLR 1:69]. (This entry was made posthumously, and probably as something of an afterthought, as it appears below the entry for ROGER WILLIAMS, rather than having a page to itself.)
BIRTH: Baptized Fitzhead, Somersetshire, 6 February 1590/1, son of John and Honor (Newton) Rockwell [Sir Anthony Richard Wagner, Pedigree of Rockwell and Allied Families: Extracted from the Records of the College of Arms (London, n.d.), p. 2]. (Other sources give the year of baptism as 1591/2 [Rockwell Gen 188-92; (Search for the Passengers of the Mary & John 1630, Volume 1 through present (Toledo, Ohio, 1985+;) M&JCH 17:131-33].)
DEATH: Buried at Windsor 15 May 1640 (Copy of Windsor Vital Records prepared by Town Clerk and included in Barbour Index;) Loomis Rec 1:50; Grant 79 (gives only year of death)].
MARRIAGE: Holy Trinity, Dorchester, Dorsetshire, 14 April 1624 Susan Capen (Dorset Parish Registers, Marriages, W.P. Phillimore and Edmund Nevill, eds.;) Dorset Marr 7:9], daughter of BERNARD CAPEN. She married (2) Windsor 29 May 1645 as his second wife MATTHEW GRANT (Frank Farnsworth Starr, Various ancestral lines of James Goodwin and Lucy (Morgan) Goodwin, Hartford, Connecticut, 2 vols. (Hartford 1915;) Goodwin Anc 106]. She died at Windsor 13 November 1666 [CTVR 22].
CHILDREN:
JOAN, bp. Dorchester, Dorsetshire, 25 April 1625 [M&JCH 17:133]; m. (1) Windsor 15 November 1642 Jeffrey Baker (Matthew Grant Record, 1639-1681 in Some Early Records and Documents of and Relating to The Town of Windsor, Connecticut, 1639-1703 (Hartford 1930;) Grant 27]; m. (2) Northampton 10 December 1668 Richard Ingram (Manuscript volume of vital records kept by John Pynchon, at Connecticut Valley Historical Museum;) Pynchon VR 142].
JOHN, bp. Dorchester 18 July 1627 M&JCH 17:133] (d. Windsor 3 September 1673, aged 46 years [CTVR 27]); m. (1) Windsor 6 May 1651 Sarah Ensign [Matthew Grant Record, 1639-1681 in Some Early Records and Documents of and Relating to The Town of Windsor, Connecticut, 1639-1703 (Hartford 1930;) Grant 63]; m. (2) Windsor 18 August 1662 Deliverance Hayes [Grant 63].
SAMUEL, b. 28 March 1631 [Grant 63]; m. Windsor 7 April 1660 Mary Norton [Grant 63].
RUTH, b. say 1633; m. Windsor 7 October 1652 Christopher Huntington [NorVR 37], son of SIMON HUNTINGTON.
SARAH, b. say 1639; m. Windsor 22 March 1658[/9?] as his second wife Walter Gaylord [Grant 42], son of WILLIAM GAYLORD.
ASSOCIATIONS: In her will, dated 19 July 1637, Honor (Newton) Rockwell indicated that her sons John and William were in New England, as well as some of the children of her deceased son Richard [Rockwell Gen 190]. These close relatives of William Rockwell did not arrive until after 1633.
Through his marriage to the daughter of BERNARD CAPEN, William Rockwell became connected with the many members of that family, including the extended network of Capen in-laws, such as AQUILA PURCHASE and THOMAS PURCHASE.
COMMENTS: In his list of "some omitted in former records being gone yet had children born here," Matthew Grant included William Rockwell as having had one child born in Windsor [Grant 93]. This would most likely be the daughter Sarah who married in 1658.
All secondary sources include in this family a son Joseph and a daughter Mary. This is derived from a pedigree prepared in 1731 by Matthew Rockwell, great-grandson of the immigrant [The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record=lt%I=gt%, Volume through present (1869+;) NYGBR 2:99-102]. Mary is said to have married Jeffrey Baker, so this is a simple error for Joan; there is no independent record for a son Joseph, who is in any case said to have died young. There may be some confusion with the children of William Rockwell's brother Richard, who did have a Joseph and a Mary among his six children.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE: Henry Ensign Rockwell published in 1873 the standard account of the family [The Rockwell Family in America: A Genealogical Record, from 1630 to 1873 (Boston 1873)]. In 1924 Francis Williams Rockwell, although focussing on only one line of descent from the immigrant, provided a much more useful account, including a chapter by William Walker Rockwell with much data on the English origin of William Rockwell [The Rockwell Family in One Line of Descent (Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1924), cited above as Rockwell Gen].