• General Notes

  [phelps.FTW]
  
  [2812.ftw]
  
  [Brøderbund WFT Vol. 4, Ed. 1, Tree #2812, Date of Import: Nov 11, 1998]
  
  The Name OWEN
  
  Owen is a given name occuring in Welsh and Old Irish. Sometimes it is spelled Owain. According to Harrison, the best authority on British names, it is not a Welsh word at all, but a loan-word, borrowed before the year 500 A.D. for the Latin and Greek for "well-born."
  In Welsh most family names are patronymics, that is, they indicate that the person named is "the son or descendant" of somebody. Thus John ab Owen, in Welsh, means "John the son of Owen."
  In English this relationship is indicated by the use of the possessive form ending in -s. John Owens means "John the son of Owen.:
  Our ancestor-founder John Owen never spelled his name with the final -s.
  
  HISTORY OF WINDSOR, CONNECTICUT
  
  In 1630 Massachusetts Bay Colony was established by the Puritans. In that year Windthrop's "Fleet" of eleven ships brought over 700 people. They founded the towns of Boston, Dorchester, and Watertown.
  In September 1634 Samuel Hall, Captain Hall, Captain John Oldham, and two others traveled through the wilderness to Connecticut to view the country. In the summer of 1635 a group of 100 men, women, and children, under the leadership of the Rev. John Warham, left Dorchester and after a journey of fourteen days overland founded Windsor on the Connecticut river.
  The Connecticut colony was governed by a Court consisting of five magistrates who held their authority from the Massachusetts Bay Court - two from Windsor, two from Hardford, one from Wethersfield. In May 1635 each town elected a committee to help the Court in local maters. In January 1639, the citizens of the three towns met at Hartford and adopted a constitution.
  In 1640 the General Court drew up an Oath of Fidelity which everybody who wished to become a freeman, i.e., a citizen and a voter in the colony, must take:
  "I,------- -------, being in the Providence of God an inhabitant withen the Jurisdiction of Connecticut, do an inhabitant within the Jurisdiction of Connecticut, do acknowledge myself to be subject to the Government thereof and do swear by the great and dreadful name of the ever-living God to be true and faithful unto the same, and do submit both my person and estate thereunto, according to all the wholesome laws and orders that areeither are or hearafter shall be there made or established by lawful authority; and that I will neither plot nor practice any evil against the same, nor consent to any that shall do do, but will timely discover the same to the lawful authority established there; and that I will as in duty bound maintain the honor of the same and of the lawful magistrates thereof, promoting the public good thereof while I shall continuean inhabitant there; and whenever I shall give my vote or suffrage or proxy, touching any matter which concerns this Commonwealth, being called thereto, I will give it as in my conscience may conduce to the best good of the same without respect of persons or of favor of any man, So help me God in our Lord Jesus Christ."
  Civil matters were regulated very tsrictly. In 1637 the Court ordered "that no young man shall keep house for himself without the consent of the town, under pain of twenty shillings fine per week." A young man had to get a permit from the town to board with a particular family, and the head of the family was made responsible for the young man's good behavior.
  In 1647 the General Court ordered that "any person under twenty-one years of age and every other person who has not already accustomed himself to the use thereof, shall not take any tobbaco until he has bought a certificate, under the hand of some who are approved for knowledge and skill in physic, that it is useful for him, and also that he has received a license from the Court therefor. Any man who uses it shall not take it publicly in the street, in the fields or woods, unless he is on a journey of ten miles or more, or is at dinner; he shall take it no oftener than once a day and alone, not in company; under penalty of sixpence for each offence upon conviction by the testimony of one witness that is without just exception for any justice."
  In the same year the General Court ordered that "no one shall remain in any common victualling house in the same town where he lives, above half an hour at a time in drinking wine, beer, or waters; also that no one shall drink above three pints at one time; that vendors shall not deliver wine to any one who comes for it, unless he bring a note under the hand of some one who is masterr of a family and an inhabitant of the town."
  Labor and capital got along splendidly in Windsor, for in 1641 the General Court decreed that "able carpenters, plowwrights, masons, joiners, smiths, coopers" should not take more than twenty pence a day; the working day should be nine hours besides time spent in eating and sleeping.
  Village officials wre the Selectmen (aldermen or supervisors), two constables, two surveyors, a town clerk. The town clerk was more important than the town clerk in the Western states today, because he kept records of births, deaths, and marriages. Minor officials were the chimney-viewer (fire-marshal), fence-viewer, two way-wardens (rose-bosses), two bound-goers (surveyors), who had to settle disputes with other towns as to boundary lines, a bailiff, whose duty it was to collect taxes, a lister, whose work was that of the modern assessor, a
  pound-keeper or pinner, who took care of stray animals and collected board from the owners, and a horse-brander.
  In 1639 land prices boomed, but within a few years they fell. It seems that every man who became a church member and citizen got a grant of a homestead in the village but had to buy, if he wanted more land. In 1642 the three towns, Windsor, Wethersfield, and Hartford, together imported their first cargo of "cotton-wool" from the Barbadoes.
  In 1648 a new trail, less hilly, was found between Massachusetts Bay and the Conniticut colonies. A great event! like cutting down the time between New York and Chicago in these days.
  In 1649 an outlying settlement was formed a few miles upstream from Windsor and named Poquonok.
  The first minister of the gospel at Windsor was the Rev. John Warham. In 1639 the Rev. Ephriam Huit, a refugee from Warwickshire, England, came by way of Massachusetts, bringing a number of followers. In 1640 the town began to build a church, but it was not completed for some time. Mr. Huit was both a scholar and a practical man - he was the author of "The Whole Prophecy of Daniel Explained," and at the same time he was a master carpenter.
  The period 1650-84 was one of religious disturbances in Windsor. The burning question was what constituted church-membership. The original settlers were Puritans, who theoretically had not left the Church of England and were willing to have the government regulate church matters. Now Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Independents were also coming into the colony. Some insisted that church-membership be contingent upon "confession of faith." Unfortunate no psychologist had yet appeared to show what a variety of religious experience human nature is capable of having. Another cause of dispute was the election of pastors: all residents were taxed for the support of the church, but only active communicant members eere expected to vote for a pastor. The question was submetted to a Church Council which met in Boston several times between 1657 and 1662. In 1664 six Anglicans petitioned the General Court to be relieved from paying church dues unless they could enjoy full church privilages in the Calvinistic churches of Connecticut. The pastor at Windsor at that time, Rev. Mr. Warham, was liberal in the matter, but many of his members were not. In 1667 the Rev. Nathaniel Chauncey was elected pastor. The minority was dissatisfied and got permission from the General Court to organize another church. They hired as thier pastor Rev. Benjamin Woodbridge, who seems to have been a Presbyterian, but the General Court made him subordinate to the other minister, Mr. Chauncey. At first they were to take turns in preaching in the same building. The majority voted to repair the Meeting House but refused to repair the old Town House. The new Society sent a complaint to the Governor, which was signed by thirty-two men, including John Owen and his oldest son, Josiah Owen. After three years of bickering they agreed to repair both buildings. By 1679 the new Society had become larger than the old society. The Rev. Mr. Chauncey resigned in 1671, and the Rev. Mr. Woodbridge in 1681. After years of rancor and many appeals to civil authority, the two congregations were reunited in 1684 under Rev. Samuel Mathew. Thus was the cause of religios toleration painfully and slowly promoted.
  So early as 1637 troubles began with the Indians. So long as white men came only to buy furs, they were welcome, but when they came in great numbers, they seemed to be and they really were a menace to the Red men. In 1637 the Pequot Indians attacked the Settlement of Wethersfield. The people of the three towns united and carried on a vigorous campaign against them.
  In 1675/76 occurred what was known as King Philip's War. The white settlers made as thorough a campaign of it as Cromwell did in Ireland. Windsor furnished 100 or 125 soldiers all together, chiefly dragoons. No complete list for Connecticut seems to have come down to us. John Owen, being over 50 years of age, probably saw no active service, but his sons Josiah and Nathaniel probably did. In December 1675 Governor Josiah Winslow of Plymouth, commanding 1000 men from Massachusetts and Connecticut, stormed the fort of the Indians and routed them. But in March 1676 the Indians attacked and bruned Simsbury. During the next four months the Whites carried on a guerilla campaign and killed 250 Indians. In June they surrounded King Philip and completely defeated his forces, even killing the King himself. According to contemporary records the Whites lost 600 young men's lives and a dozen settlements in the conflict. The Portestants of Ireland raised money for the suffering colonists; the Connecticut people refused to take any of it, and they even raised money themselves. Windsor gave its money to Simsbury.
  The bitter struggle for existence, of course, made it impossible for the colonists to see what a tragedy it was for the Indians.
  About this time the word "Yankee" came into use in Connecticut. The origin of the term seems to be this: Just as every nationality shows its foolish pride by ridiculing people of other nationalities through giving them nicknames, so the Dutch of New Netherlands referred to the English settler as a "John Cheese," in Dutch, "Jan Kees." The Indians took the term from them. The English mistook it for a plural.
  In 1650 the village of Windsor had 116 houses and about 600 inhabitants. By 1677 there had been recorded 1025 births, but there had been deaths, and 25 families had moved away, so that the total number of inhabitants in 1677 was about 1000.
   

Details of Rebecca's family with John Owen