Robert Day and Editha Stebbins
Husband Robert Day
Born: 1604-1605 - Ipswich, Suffolk, England Christened: Died: 16 Oct 1648 - Hartford, Hartford, Ct Buried:
Father: Robert Day ( -1628) Mother: Anne Kirby ( - )
Father: Richard Day (1575-1628) Mother: Anne Kirby ( - )
Marriage: 16 Oct 1648 - Stanshead Abbot, Herford, England
Other Spouse: Mary ( -1634)
Wife Editha Stebbins
Born: 1613 - Woodham, Essex, England Christened: Died: 24 Oct 1688 - Hartford, Hartford, Ct Buried:
Father: William Stebbins (1567- ) Mother: Mary ( - )
Other Spouse: Deacon John Maynard ( - )
Other Spouse: Elizur Holyoke ( -1676) - 1658 - Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut
Children
1 M John Day
Born: 1645 - Hartford, Hartford, Ct Christened: Died: Bef 29 Apr 1730 - Hartford, Hartford, Ct Buried:Spouse: Mary Gaylord (1650-1711)
2 M Thomas Day
Born: Abt 1638 - Hartford, Hartford, Ct Christened: Died: 1711 - Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts Buried:Spouse: Sarah Cooper (1640-1726) Marr: 27 Oct 1659 - Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts
3 F Sarah Day
Born: 1638 - Hartford, Connecticut Christened: Died: 19 Sep 1677 - Hatfield, Hampden, Massachusetts Buried:
4 F Mary Day Ely
Born: Abt 1641 - Hartford, Hartford, Ct Christened: Died: 17 Oct 1725 - Hatfield, Hampden, Massachusetts Buried:Spouse: Thomas Stebbins (1648-1695) Marr: 12 Apr 1694Spouse: Samuel Ely ( -1691) Marr: 28 Oct 1659 - Springfield, Hampden, MassachusettsSpouse: John Coleman ( - ) Marr: 16 Dec 1696
General Notes (Husband)
From First Century of Springfield
Robert Day of Hartford was the father of Thomas Day, who settled in Springfield. Robert came from Ipswich, England, in the Elizabeth, to Boston in 1634. He was accompanied by his wife, Mary, and they first settled in Cambridge. He was made a freeman May 6, 1635, and in 1639 was a resident of Hartford.
In April, 1634, Robert Day, age 30, was accompanied by his wife Mary, aged 28, as gathered from teh passenger list, on the bark Elizabeth, from Ipswich, England, to Boston, Massachusetts. He was therefore born about 1604.
Efforts to trace him beyond this are unsuccessful. (In addition to the Yorkshire ancestry here I ahve a hopscotch ancestry that originates among the Welsh aristocracy.)
On arrival in Massachusetts he settled first in Newotwn, now Cambridge. His wife Mary probably died soon afer. He was made freeman May 6, 1635, which shows him to have belonged to some church in the jurisdiction, and also that he owned property worth atleast 200 pounds. In 1639 he lived in Hartford, CT.
His wife, Mary, had died soon after arrival in this country and he was remarried to Edatha (Editha, Edetha) Stebbing, sister of Deacon Edward Stebbing. I
He appears to have married in Hartford a second wife, Editha STEBBINS, a sister of Deacon Edward Stebbins of Hartford, by whom he had four children, two sons and two daughters. He died at Hartford in 1648, aged 44 years. His widow married Deacon John MAYNARD of Hartford, and in 1658 she married Elizur HOLYOKE of Springfield. Holyoke died February 6, 1676 and she died October 24, 1688. The children of Robert Day, by his second wife, were:--
Lands Recorded; 8 Feb 1635/36; Cambridge, Suffolk Co., MA 6. The Names of Thofe men who haue houfes in the Towne at this prefent as onely are to be acconted as houfes of the Westend:-- Robert Day - 1
65
From Ipswich, England to Hartford, Connecticut
We do not know exactly why ROBERT DAY and his wife Mary left their home and families in England to join the new settlement in Massachusetts but we are told (David Roth's Connecticut) that between 1630 and 1642 over twenty thousand Puritans in some two hundred ships crossed the Atlantic to New England to escape the religious repression of James I as continued by Charles I. On arrival they instituted their own forms of repression, however, including exclusion of differing faiths, so we may assume Robert and Mary were Puritan Calvinist refugees as was their pastor, Thomas Hooker, who had emigrated earlier. They sailed in April, 1634, from Ipswich, England, to Boston, MA, on the “Elizabeth” and settled in Newtown on the north bank of the Charles river on the future site of Harvard University.
Their emigration was apparently not a wholesale movement of an entire parish, however, as examination of the list of passengers on the “Elizabeth” discloses that only Robert Day, William Blumfield and John Bernard were on both the voyage from Ipswich to Boston and the trip from Newtown to Hartford. Robert’s wife, Mary, apparently died soon after arrival and Robert returned to England as LDS (Mormon) genealogical data available on Internet shows him marrying Editha Stebbing in Stanshead Abbot, Hereford, England, prior to his return to Boston on the “Hopewell” in April, 1635. The manifest of the “Hopewell”, which sailed to New England 4/3/1635 lists Robert Day, aged 30. The manifest does not, however, list his wife.
Robert Day was made “freeman” May 6, 1635. This, in colonial days, required one to own property worth 200 pounds, to be a member in good standing of a church and to swear to abide by and uphold the laws. He was then recognized as a voter and a citizen.
According to Weaver's Hartford, Thomas Hooker became involved in a theological controversy with the Reverend John Cotton of the Boston church over the relative priorities of faith and good works and the new group decided to move on. Roth, however, ascribes the move to a desire for better land and the “restlessness” of Hooker, who had arrived in Boston in September, 1633. The Newtown leaders investigated several sites assigned to the Massachusetts Bay Colony but none was satisfactory and in July, 1635, six Newtown men journeyed to the Connecticut River valley to a place the Indians called “Sukiaug”. Nearby, people from Dorchester were beginning the settlement which would become Windsor and to the south John Oldham had already begun what would become Wethersfield. The Indians were peaceful and apparently willing to exchange possession of the land for trade in furs and corn.
The Society of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford placed an “ADVENTURER'S BOULDER” on 10/15/1935 at the corner of Main and Arch Streets with a brass plaque bearing the names of the twenty five “Courageous Adventurers who, inspired and directed by Thomas Hooker, journeyed through the wilderness from Newtown (Cambridge) in the Massachusetts Bay to Suckiaug (Hartford) October, 1635.” Robert Day is listed as one of the twenty five. During the summer of 1635 the Newtown people were able to sell out to a new group of Englishmen led by the Reverend Thomas Shepard and the new community set up by Shepard's group was, in February, 1636, by decree of the Massachusetts General Court, renamed “Cambridge”. In the meantime, various groups had gone to Sukiaug to make preparations, including surveying home lots, building and digging shelters and erecting a crude palisade for protection. The final move from Newtown on the Charles to Newtown on the Connecticut started May 31, 1636, when some 100 men, women and children, together with about 160 head of cattle, made the long journey and occupied the land designated for them.
“First Puritan Settlers” describes the exodus thus: “In June, 1636, the Reverend Thomas Hooker, Mr. Samuel Stone and about 100 others of all ages and sexes started through the wilderness, guided only by a compass, to Hartford - with no covers but the heavens and no lodging but the ground, and subsisted on the milk of the cows which they drove with their other cattle, numbering 160 in all. They carried their packs upon their backs, and their arms for protection in their hands. Mrs. Hooker was so feeble in health that she was carried the whole journey upon a litter and they reached Newtown (Hartford) in about two weeks.” Each head of family erected living quarters and then all joined in building a meeting house, 36 by 23 feet. This soon proved too small and in 1638 was replaced and given to Thomas Hooker for use as a barn. One man, George Wyllys, reputedly one of the wealthiest men in New England, had a lot four times the size of the largest of the others, bounded by the present Main, Charter Oak, Governor and Wyllys Streets. Here he had a nine room house built, described as the most elegant in New England. The first court was formed in 1636 to try Henry Stiles for selling a gun to an Indian.
All structures were, of course, made of wood and, due to the constant danger of fire, immediately after the organization of the town a law was passed requiring all chimneys to be cleansed by the owners once each month, and a penalty was provided for non-compliance. First Puritan Settlers continues: €œFor several years a committee of respectable men was appointed to see that all house-holders fully obeyed the law. It was also a law that each house-holder should provide a ladder for his house which reached within two feet of the top of the chimney. This law also came within the duties of the viewers of chimneys. At the time these laws were in force, men were selected to fill every office, high or low, with a single eye to the fact that the men who held the offices should be of such standing in society, as the men should honor their offices and not the offices the holders of them.”
ROBERT DAY had home lot #5, near what is now the junction of Main and Village Streets. He was chosen “viewer of chimneys and ladders”. n 1636/7 the name “Newtown” was formally changed to “Hartford” after the English home of the Reverend Samuel Stone, who shared spiritual leadership of the little flock with Thomas Hooker.
ROBERT DAY died September 4, 1648, apparently after a long illness. His will, dated May 20, 1648, is in Connecticut Probate Records, vol.1, Hartford District, page 487:
The will of Robert Day, hee being sick and weake, yet in
perfect memory: doth order and dispose of his estate to his wife and children, in the manner following:
I give unto my beloved wife, Edatha (Stebbing) Day my now dwelling howse and howsing thereto adjoining, howse lot. Allso all my land whereof I stand possessed, or that right doth belong to mee, lying in Hartford, during the terme of her naturall life: and at the end of her life, my will is that the said howse and land shall bee devided in an equall proportion: My will allso is that all my howsehold stuff, and Cattle and other moveable goods shall bee my wives to bring up my children: And in case my wife should bee married to another man, then my survivors of my will shall have power if they thinke good to take security for the bringing up of the children, and for so much estate as shall bee thought meete by them, and to this my last will and Testament I make my wife Executrix, and I doe desire my Deare Brethren, Msrs. Tailecoate (Talcott), Wilerton (Wilburton) and Stebbing, to take charge of and assist my wife in the ordering her selfe and my children, and I give them power to doe what in their Judgements may bee for the best, to bring up my Children and dispose of them, and that I leave for theire good. And to this my will I sett to my hand the day above written.
Signed: Robert Day
Witness: Edward Stebbing
Walter Gaylord
The three “Deare Brethren” signed “An inventory of the Goods of Robert Day deceased” on 10/14/1648 which is interesting in its reflection of the lifestyle of the early pioneers:
In the chamber: one bedstead, one feather bed, feather bolster and flock bolster, 2 pillows, bedcase and curtains, 2 blankets, one coverlet, 1 chest, 1 box, 1 desk box, 1 table, cupboard and chairs, 3 pairs of sheets, 6 table napkins, 1 tablecloth, 6 "pillow beeres", wearing clothes with 3 skins, linen and cotton wool yarn, 2 cushions, 1 pair of bellows, 1 little basket, 1 warming pan and working tools.
In the hall: 1 brass kettle, 1 little kettle, 1 little brass kettle, 1 brass possnett (a little basin or skillet) 1 brass pot, 1 iron pot, 1 chafing dish, 1 skimmer, 7 pewter dishes (and some broken pewter), 1 saucer, 2 pewter pots, 1 candle stick, 1 salt, 1 small bottle, 6 spoons,2 porringers, 4 old spoons, 1 Lattin (tin or tin plate) dripping pan, 1 spit, 1 pistol, 1 smoothing iron, earthen and wooden ware, 1 musket Bandoleer and sword, 1 table and 2 chairs.
In the cellar: tubs, tables and "formes".
In “ye little chamber”: 1 flockbed, 2 blankets, 1 coverlet, 1 feather bolster, 2 feather pillows, 2 bedsteads, 3 hogsheads, 2 linen wheels, 1 woolen wheel, 1 barrel, 1 table, 1 wheele, 1 hatchet, 1 leather bottle, 1 pair tongs, fire pan, grid iron, frying pan, 1 “trammell”, books, sacks and ladders, 1 cow, 1 three year old heifer, 1 two year old heifer and “some hay to winter them”, 2 hogs, several sorts of corn with some hemp and flax, dwelling house and out housing, house lot and garden, about 6 acres of meadow in several parcels with upland.
The estate of Robert Day was inventoried at £142-13-06. His wife subsequently married John Maynard, who died in 1657/8 leaving the bulk of his estate to his stepson [36]John Day. The wife later married Elizur Holyoke and a grandson became president of Harvard University. It is not known where Robert Day was buried but many years later an obelisk was erected in the cemetery behind the Center Church in Hartford. The names of all the founders of Hartford, including Robert Day, appear on this monument.
General Notes (Wife)
She remarried, Deacon John Maynard of Hartford, who died without issue shortly after, leaving all his property, which was considerable, to his wife's children. "provided they carried themselves well toward their mother". For her third husband she married in 1658 Elizur Holyoke of Springfield, MA, grandfather of President Holyoke of Harvard College. To that town she removed with a part of her family, and died there Oct 24 1688 after her last husband who died Feb 6, 1676.
Documented events in her life were:
1. Mention in Will, Inv. or Prob.; 20 May 1648; Hartford, Hartford Co., CT 8. Executrix of husband's will. Inherited full estate for the bringing up of the children.
2. Mention in Will, Inv. or Prob.; 23 Jan1657/58; Hartford, Hartford Co., CT 9. Received legacy from her second husband, John Maynard, of house & land; made sole Executrix of his will.
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