HENRY WOLCOTT was the first of the Wolcott Family who settled in
New England. He owned a considerable landed property in his native
country, which he held _in capite_, part of which he sold about the
time he left England; the rest of the estate was sold at sundry
times by himself and his descendants; the last remains were sold
since the Declaration of Independence, by Henry Allen, Esq., of
Windsor, who claimed it by female descent. From circumstances it
seems probable that the family are of Saxon origin. Mr. Wolcott, to
avoid the ecclesiastical hierarchy of the English Church, was induced
to come into this country. He first settled at Dorchester, where he
continued till 1636, when he came with the first settlers to the town
of Windsor, and with four other gentlemen, namely, Mr. Ludlow, Mr.
Newberry, Mr. Stoughton, and Major Mason, undertook the settlement
of that town, to which they gave the name _Dorchester_. The towns
of Hartford and Wethersfield were settled the same year, though the
town which is now called Windsor was, upon the first emigration, by
far the most considerable. Previous to this settlement on Connecticut
River, one had been made at Springfield, under the patronage of Mr.
Pynchon; and an earlier settlement, with commercial views, had been
made at Saybrook, by Mr. Fenwick, agent to Lords Say and Seal and
Brook. Those who settled on Connecticut River, in the year 1636,
were united with the people of Massachusetts in religious and civil
polity, and seem to have been much under their influence till 1638,
when they adopted a civil constitution for themselves, and Mr. Ludlow
was chosen their first Governor, and Mr. Wolcott a magistrate, then
called an Assistant, to which office he was annually chosen till his
death, in 1655. His eldest son Henry was one of the Patentees, whose
name is inserted in the Charter granted by Charles II. Mr. Ludlow
went to the West Indies, and left no posterity in this country. Major
Mason, it is said, had no male posterity. The descendants of the
others are well known in Windsor.