♂Jonathan Gillett

Jonathan Gillett (born about 1609, died 23 August 1677) was an early settler of Windsor, in the Connecticut Colony^W, a member of the church that had gathered at Dorchester, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W, and came up to Windsor with its minister, John Warham^W. He lived at Windsor for the rest of his life and raised a large family there. He was the eighth great-grandfather of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through his daughter Anna Gillet (1639–1711).

Coming to New England

He was probably the son of the Reverend William Gillett, rector of Chaffcombe, in Somerset. A history of Windsor published by Henry R. Stiles^W in 1891–92 records that he and his brother Nathan came to Dorchester with Mr. Warham, and went on to Windsor with the first company of settlers. Robert Charles Anderson’s study of the early migration to New England found that he made the ocean crossing twice: after a first stay in New England he went back to England, married Mary Dolbiar at Colyton, in Devon, on 29 March 1634, and sailed again that year on the ship Recovery. Anderson used him as one of a handful of examples of settlers who made such a return trip and still stayed in New England.

A note one of his sons later wrote in the family Bible tells the same story: “My father Gille[tt] came into new-inglan the secon[d] time in June in the yeare 1634”. It adds that his son of the same name was born about half a year after the landing. The Bible itself, a Geneva Bible^W of 1599, was by Stiles’s account brought over by Jonathan, and in 1891 it was still kept by a Windsor family.

Windsor

On 6 May 1635, while he was at Dorchester, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay admitted him a freeman of the colony; the court’s record spells his name “Jonathan Jellett”. He and his wife both appear in the Windsor church’s list of members who had belonged to it at Dorchester and came up with Mr. Warham. His daughter Anna, born on 29 December 1639, was the first of his children born at Windsor, and six more followed, the last a son, Josiah, baptized on 14 July 1650. A town list drawn up on 17 August 1677 credits him with seven children born in Windsor. Stiles’s history counts ten in all, the sons Cornelius and Jonathan and a daughter Mary having been born before the family reached Windsor.

Stiles’s first history of Windsor, published in 1859, records that on 28 April 1665 he bought twelve acres of swamp or marsh outside Windsor’s west bounds from Nassahegan, sachem of Poquonnoc, land the Indians called Matacor macok. In the Windsor rate of 10 February 1673 he was most likely rated at 4s as “Jonathan, Sr.”, with his son Jonathan Jr. at 2s on the same list.

Death and will

He made his will on 8 August 1677 and died at Windsor fifteen days later, on 23 August. He named his wife sole executrix and gave her the use of his house and lands for her life, including both his own houselot and “that which was my Brother Nathan Gillett’s“. His son Josiah was “to be an help and Ayde to his Mother” and was to have the dwelling house after her death.

Land went to his sons John, Jeremy, Jonathan and Cornelius. If he and his wife both died within four years, Josiah was to pay small legacies to his brothers Jonathan and Cornelius, to “my daughter, Peter Browne’s wife”, to “my daughter, Samuel ffyllyes wife”, and to two children of his son Joseph, who had died, whom Jonathan had taken into his own household. Matthew Grant, John Loomis and John Moore valued his estate at £273 10s on 31 August, and the will was brought into court on 6 September 1677. Stiles’s history notes a “Wid. Gillett” in the church’s list of living members at the end of that year.

Notes

Sources

His death on 23 August 1677 is entered in the Windsor town records, as abstracted in the Barbour Collection of Connecticut vital records, and the same date heads his estate in the digest of the early Hartford probate records published by Charles W. Manwaring, which prints the will in full. The town records also give Anna’s birth, the baptisms of her younger brothers and sisters, and the count of seven children born in Windsor. The church list of the Dorchester members is printed in a collection of early Windsor records issued by the Connecticut Historical Society; its page is damaged, and part of its heading is the editor’s restoration. The Dorchester arrival, the Bible and the full count of ten children rest on Stiles’s history of 1891–92, and the purchase from Nassahegan on his 1859 history.

His marriage

The marriage at Colyton and the voyage on the Recovery come from Anderson’s Great Migration Newsletter (January–March 1990). The following issue corrected the year of the Recovery’s voyage from 1633 to 1634, which fits the marriage in March 1634 and the son’s note of a second arrival in June 1634. One place in the printed volume that carries the note gives 1635 for that arrival; two other places in the same volume give 1634. The Colyton parish register has not been seen, and his wife’s name is not given in any Windsor record found so far; his will calls her only “my wife”.

The freeman’s admission

The entry is in Shurtleff’s printing of the Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, volume I, page 370, under the General Court of 6 May 1635. The court’s list spells his name “Jonathan Jellett”. The same entry gives Dorchester as his place on that date.

The 1673 rate

The rating comes from the Barbour Collection of Connecticut vital records, Windsor, page 155. The abstract prints the father’s rate as “Jonathan, Sr., taxed 4-0”, taken here as 4s, and gives his son Jonathan Jr. 2s on the same list of 10 February 1673. It is a compiled abstract, so the body sentence keeps its hedge.

The date of his death

Stiles’s history mentions two other dates: one researcher’s guess that he died on 27 February 1697/8, and the Gillett–Holcomb Bible’s note that “Father Gillett dyed in 1667.” The will of 8 August 1677 and the inventory taken on 31 August 1677 settle it on 23 August 1677.

His daughter Anna

The town record of Anna’s birth calls her “d. Jonathan, Sr.”, and his will names “my daughter, Samuel ffyllyes wife”. When Samuel Filley made his own will in 1711 he described land bought “of brother Josiah Gillett”, Jonathan’s son.

The name

The records spell the name both Gillett and Gillet; the will uses Gillett.

His parentage

The parentage comes from John Insley Coddington’s article on Jonathan Gillett in The American Genealogist (1939), as quoted in a later printed work. Coddington wrote that there was very little doubt that he was the son of the Reverend William Gillett, rector of Chaffcombe in Somerset, who died early in 1641. No record names him as that rector’s son. The will of 1641, as printed in 1910, names the sons William, Thomas, Nathan and Jeremiah and the daughters Habiah and Mary, and does not name Jonathan. A later article by Mahler in the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, volume 162 (2008), is reported to name a Jonathan Gillet, son of the parson of Chaffcombe, in a will; that is known only from a later compiled profile.

His birth

The year of birth is an estimate. Anderson’s The Great Migration Begins, volume II, page 768, puts it at about 1609, from his presumed age at his marriage in 1634.