THE HAZARD FAMILY OF RHODE ISLAND, by Caroline Robinson, page 1& 2.
m. 1st Martha, who died in 1669.
m. 2nd Martha, widow of Thomas Sheirff, she died in 1691.
His name is first found in Boston MA in 1635. In 1638 he was admitted freeman of Portsmouth, RI. In 1639, he and eight others signed the following contract, preparatory of the settlement of Newport, RI.
The founders and first officers of the town of Newport were William Coddington, Judge; Nicholas Easton, John Coggeshall, William Brenton, John Clarke, Jeremy Clark, Thomas Hazard, and Henry Bull, Elders; William Dyer, Clerk.
Sept. 2, 1639 he was admitted freemen of Newport, and 1640, March 12, he was appointed a member of the General Court of Elections.
In the early history of the family it was almost an exception to find a Hazard who did not marry a cousin, and it is a curious fact that the lines in which these marriages were the most frequent, were often marked by the strongest men and women, both mentally and physically.
Thomas R. Hazard, in his "Recollections of Olden Times", has given an account of the family that goes back, about 1060, on the borders of Switzerland. From the Duke de Charante he has given an interesting account of the changes in the name, until towards the close of the eighteenth century, when it was written Hazard.