The Parsons Lineage

The story of John and Samuel Parsons starts in 1635, with Joseph Parsons. Most of what follows is taken from the 1912 work by Henry Parsons called the Descendants of Cornet Joseph Parsons.

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Joseph Parsons is believed to have been the first of the name in America. He was known as Cornet Joseph, from the military title which he, in later years, bore; the Cornet being the color-bearer and third in command in a British troop or regiment of cavalry. The best attainable evidence is that he was born at or near Great Torrington, Devonshire, England, about 1618, and came to America about 1635, possibly earlier. On July 15, 1636, he was a witness to the deed of cession made by the Indians to William Pynchon and others of a large tract of land on both sides of the Connecticut River, then called Agawan but later Springfield, the consideration being 18 yards of wampum, 18 coats, 18 hatchets, 18 hoes and 18 knives, a copy of which deed can be seen in the recorder's office in Springfield, Mass. (It is published in full in Vol. 15, New England Hist, and Biog. Register, pp. 140-141.) At that time he was about seventeen years of age, as he testified at the March term of the court at Northampton, in 1662, on proof of said deed.

 

In 1655 he, with others, purchased from the Indians a large tract of country at "Noltwog," now Northampton, Mass., where he was selectman for several years, except the second year when, as the record shows, he paid the town twenty shillings not to elect him to any office, so that he might attend to his private affairs. At a town meeting, held February, 1656, "It was agreed that Joseph Parsons, paying twenty shillings, shall be freed from any office in the town of Northampton for one year."

 

From 1672 to 1678 he was Cornet of the Hampshire Troop, commanded by Capt. John Pynchon, the first troop of horse formed in Western Massachusetts, and, in 1679, he was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston, the first regularly organized military company in America.

 

Mary, the wife of Cornet Joseph Parsons, was the daughter of Thomas Bliss, of Hartford, Conn., a son of Thomas Bliss, of Belstone Parish, Devonshire, England. She was born in England in 1620 and came to this country with her parents. The Bliss family soon became prominent in the Connecticut Valley, and has ever since been honorably known in the history of the country. In 1656, and soon after the removal of the Parsons family from Springfield to Northampton, Joseph Parsons brought an action for slander against Sarah Bridgman, the wife of James Bridgman, charging that Sarah had accused Mary, his wife, of being a witch. The record of this notable case will be found at considerable length in Trumbull's History of Northampton.

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The decision of the court was in favor of the plaintiff and against Mrs. Bridgman. and she was ordered to make public acknowledgment of her fault at Northampton and Springfield, and that her husband, James Bridgman, pay to plaintiff £10 and £7 cost of court.

 

In the Bliss genealogy, by J. H. Bliss (1881), pages 30-31, appear the record of the marriage of Joseph Parsons to Mary Bliss, and this mention of the witchcraft trial: "Mary Bliss, the mother of this family, two years after the birth of her youngest child, was charged with witchcraft by some of her neighbors who  were envious of their prosperity and endeavored in this wav to disgrace them. "She was sent to Boston for trial, where the jury gave her a full acquittal of the crime and she returned home to Northampton, from where they moved back to Springfield in 1679.

 

Joseph and Mary would have twelve children, the fourth being Samuel, who married Elizabeth Cook in 1677.

 

About 1709 a noted Colony went out from Northampton to Durham, Ct, under the leadership of Rev. Nathaniel Chauncey, and among them were Samuel and his family along with his nephew, Moses Parsons, and others of the Strong and Lyman families allied by marriage. To this Colony from other places also came the Seward, Wadsworth, Robinson, Norton, Coe, and other families. The Sewards later settled in Florida, Orange County, New York, where Wm. H. Seward, Secretary of State during the Civil War, was born and the Wadsworths removed to Geneseo, Livingston County, New York. This group would be among the original settlers of Durham.

 

Samuel and Elizabeth would have three children before she died in 1690. There second child was Samuel Parsons, born 1680.

 

Samuel Parsons (b 1680) would marry Mary Wheeler in 1711, and had one child, John in 1713.

 

John would marry Esther Hall in 1742, and had ten children before John died on June 10, 1760. Their tenth child, Samuel, was born in 1759. In May of 1750, the Connecticut General Assembly confirmed Mr. John Parsons as Quartermaster of the Troop of horse in the 10th Regiment in the Connecticut Colony. From October 1755 to October 1757, John served as Coronet of the 10th Regiment. Esther Hall was the daughter Samuel Hall and Love Royce, grandniece of Nehemiah Royce, an original proprietor of Wallingford.

 

Samuel would marry Martha Clark and move to Orange sometime before 1792. Samuel served in the Revolutionary war from 1778 until 1781, serving under Capt Jarius Wilcox and Col Jeduthan Baldwin.

 

Samuel  would go on to live to a ripe old age of 89, dying in 1848.