• General Notes

  Thomas Coleman was born about 1598 in England -- ten years after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, and nine years before the Jamestown Colony was founded in America.  He died on 1 October 1674 in Hadley, Massachusetts.  He married first in England.  Although her name is not recorded, his first wife is believed to have died about 1642 in Wethersfield, Connecticut.  He married (2) Mrs. Frances (widow of Hugh, Sr.) Wells, who had three children by her first marriage.  She died on 16 March 1678 in Hadley.
  
  Thomas Coleman left hsi home in Evedham, Worchestershire, England with his wife and baby son, John, about 1635 -- fifteen years after the Pilgrims first landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts.  He was one of the first settlers of Wethersfield, Connecticut in 1636.  He was highly regarded in Wethersfield, and was frequently involved with civic responsibilities and litigation.  According to accounts, "He ws his own man."  His children and grandchildren married into the very best families in Wethersfield.
  
  On 18 April 1659, as a result of a controversy within the Church of Wethersfield, Thomas signed a petition with 57 other men asking permission to move up the Connecticut River to start a new plantation.  When permission was granted, he became one of the first settlers of Hadley.
  
  Outspoken Thomas Coleman, being "his own man," naturally was a member of the Congregational Church in Colonial New England -- a Puritan group bent on remaking, rather than separating from the Church of England.  It was this dominant element, which affirmed the essential importance and autonomy of the local congregation, which created the religious and political institutions by which the new Massachusetts Bay Colony was shaped.  The first six generations of this line of the Coleman family in America were members of the Congregational Church.
  
  Thomas Coleman was a large landowner and left a good estate, including a house in Evesham, England.  His will is recorded in Volume 1, page 175, in the Probate Court of Northhampton, Massachusetts.  The will of his widow, Frances, is also recorded in Volume 1, page 199.
  

Details of *Thomas' family with Frances Belcher