Joseph Judson

Lieut. Joseph Judson (c. 1619 – October 8, 1690) was an early New England colonist best known for co-founding the town of Woodbury, Connecticut.

Joseph Judson
Bornc. 1619
Kirkbymoorside, Yorkshire, England
DiedOctober 8, 1690
Stratford, Connecticut
Resting placeOld Congregational Burying Ground, Stratford, Connecticut
Known forCo-founder of Woodbury, Connecticut
Spouse(s)Sarah Porter
Children11
Parents
  • William Judson (father)
  • Grace (unknown surname) (mother)
Signature

The Judson family, including the teen-aged Joseph Judson, settled in Concord, Massachusetts Bay Colony, in about 1634. Five years later they were among the first settlers in Stratford, Connecticut Colony. He left Stratford to help establish the town of Woodbury in 1672 after religious disagreements with the Puritan church.

Judson was elected to represent Stratford and Woodbury in the Connecticut legislature. He held the rank of lieutenant in both towns' militias and served in the Fairfield county militia during King Phillip's War.

Early life

Joseph Judson was born c. 1619 in Kirkbymoorside, Yorkshire, to William Judson (c. 1592-1662) and Grace (d. 1659).[1][2] In 1634, at the age of 15, Joseph Judson emigrated with his parents and two younger brothers, Jeremiah and Joshua, from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.[3][4] The Judsons resided in Concord before moving to the Connecticut Colony about five years later.[5][6]

Stratford, Connecticut

Settlement

The Judsons were among the first group of settlers at Stratford, Connecticut Colony, in 1639. The plantation was first called Pequannock, then Cupheag in 1640, and finally Stratford in 1643.[7][8]

Soon after arriving in Pequannock, Joseph's father erected the plantation's first house. About 20 years later, Joseph Judson took ownership of the home after his father left Stratford for New Haven.[9][10] By 1658, Joseph Judson owned farmland at Mischa Hill which lies five miles north of Stratford in the present Nichols Farms Historic District of Trumbull, Connecticut.[11]

Public service

Judson was admitted as a freeman of Stratford in 1658.[7][12]

As Stratford grew, Judson was empowered to purchase more land from Native Americans on the town's behalf. In 1661, he negotiated with leaders of the Paugussett people for a large tract of land north of Stratford known as the Mohegan Hills Purchase. In 1662, he negotiated a deed with the Paugussetts for a tract lying west of Stratford known as the Long Hill Purchase.[13]

Judson was elected deputy (town representative) to the Connecticut General Court—the precursor to the state legislature—for 13 half-year terms between 1659 and 1667.[lower-alpha 1] He was an ensign in the Stratford militia by 1663 and promoted to the rank of lieutenant in the First Company of the Stratford Trainband (trained militia) when it was formed in 1672.[15][16][14]

Religious dissent

A religious conflict erupted between Stratford's conservative Puritans and its more liberal residents. Most people in town were followers of Adam Blakeman (1596-1665), a town co-founder and the Puritan minister at the First Church of Stratford. The Puritan church required a personal conversion experience for full church membership and only children of full members could be baptized. A minority, including Joseph Judson,[17] opposed the Puritan restrictions on membership and baptism. Judson engaged in a protracted, public debate about church matters with fellow Stratford settler Joseph Hawley and others in letters, at town meetings, and in petitions to the General Court.[18][19]

In 1669, the General Court endorsed the Half-Way Covenant, which relaxed the restrictions on baptism. Despite the compromise, the dissidents in Stratford founded their own church in 1670 under the leadership of Reverend Zachariah Walker, a former Presbyterian minister.[20] This new congregation, called the Second Church of Stratford, shared the First Church's meetinghouse, but a dispute ensued about the arrangement.[21][22][23]

Woodbury, Connecticut

Settlement

The friction between Stratford's First and Second Churches prompted the Connecticut General Court in 1672 to grant permission to Joseph Judson and three others to establish a new plantation about 50 miles north of Stratford at Pomperaug.[22]

This Court grants Mr. Samll Sherman, Lnt Wm. Curtice, Ens: Joseph Judson and John Minor themselues and associates liberty to errect a plantation at Pomperoage, prouided it doth not prejudice any former grant to any other plantation or perticuler person; prouided any other honest inhabitants of Stratford haue liberty to joyne with them in setleing there, and that they entertein so many inhabitants as the place will conueniently interteine, and that they setle there within the space of three yeares.[24]

Preamble
We the committee appointed by ye Honored General Court for ye erecting a plantation at Pomparague in ye behalf of ourselves & our Society being met together ye 14th of febr 1672 and having been serious & deliberate in ye consideration of ye benefit of ye sd place, and ye prosperity of ye same have consented & Agreed to ye following perticulers....

—Fundamental Articles[25]

Judson and other town founders created a settlers' agreement in 1672 titled the "Fundamental Articles agreed upon in order to ye settlement of a plantation at Pomparague."[lower-alpha 2] The Fundamental Articles, ratified in 1673 by 17 original settlers, contained six sections and six amendments. The document specified obligations regarding distribution and sale of home lots and meadows, town debt, accommodations for ministers, land for a school, and the requirement that each must submit themselves to "Ecclesiastical Gouerment."[26]

Three founders—Joseph Judson, Samuel Sherman, and John Minor—bought the town's initial tract of land in 1673 from leaders of the Potatuck tribe of the Paugussett people. This deed was called the "First Purchase."[27]

First Church of Woodbury, built 1681

The First Church of Woodbury was established in 1673 with Reverend Zachariah Walker as minister, who initially split his time between the First Church of Woodbury and the Second Church of Stratford. The First Church of Woodbury's meeting house was built in 1681.[28][29]

Pomperaug plantation was officially named Woodbury in 1674 and the General Court approved the town's royal patent in 1686. The early town, which included the First Purchase and three subsequent purchases, is today called Ancient Woodbury. It now comprises the smaller Connecticut towns of Woodbury, Roxbury, Southbury, Bethlehem, and parts of Middlebury, Oxford, and Washington.[30]

Public service

The first deputies representing Woodbury in the colony's legislature were Joseph Judson and John Minor, who were elected in May 1684. Judson served five more half-year terms between 1684 and 1686.[lower-alpha 3] He was a colonial commissioner (judge) for five terms between 1684 and 1689.[lower-alpha 4][31][16]

He was appointed to committees to help set town boundaries. He surveyed the lands of Derby, Woodbury, Mattatuck, Pootatuck and Wyantenock in 1675 and the lands between Milford and Derby in 1678. He was on a committee in 1680 that set the boundaries of Woodbury, Derby and Mattatuck.[32][33]

In 1676, during King Philip's War (1675–1678), Judson was selected for a conditional promotion to captain of the Fairfield County Troop "if Capt. Selleck be disenabled." He was made a lieutenant in the Woodbury Trainband in 1684.[31][15][34]

Family

Joseph Judson married Sarah Porter (1624-1696) on October 24, 1644, in Windsor, Connecticut Colony. She was the daughter of John Porter and Rosanna White. They had eleven children: Sarah, b. 1645; John, b. 1647, James, b. 1650; Grace, b. 1651; Joseph, b. 1654; Hannah, b. 1657; Esther, b. 1660; Joshua (twin), b. 1664; Ruth (twin), b. 1664; Phoebe, b. 1666; and Abigail, b. 1669.[35][36]

Death and legacy
Joseph Judson gravestone

Judson died on October 8, 1690 and his wife Sarah died on March 16, 1696 at Woodbury.[36] They are buried in the Stratford Congregational Burying Ground.[37] An additional cemetery monument for Sarah and Joseph Judson was erected in 1812.[38]

The site of his family home in Stratford is on the National Register of Historic Places. The original house, built of stone in about 1639 by his father, was replaced on the same foundation with a wood-framed house in the 1700s by his grandson, David Judson. The Captain David Judson House now serves as a museum in the Stratford Center Historic District.[9][10]

Judson Avenue (previously Judson Lane) in Woodbury memorializes Joseph Judson.[39]

Notable descendants

Notable descendants of Joseph Judson include Michigan governor John J. Bagley;[40] America's 38th president Gerald Ford; America's 28th first lady Helen Herron Taft; poet Hart Crane; actors Jane Wyman, James Spader, Treat Williams, Jodie Foster, Lucille Ball, and John Wayne; and Olympian Joe Rantz.[41][42]

Notes
  1. Judson was elected to represent Stratford in the General Court in October 1658, May 1659, October 1659, October 1661, May 1662, October 1662, May 1663, October 1663, May 1664, May 1665, May 1666, October 1666, and May 1667.[14]
  2. "Ye" and "ye" represent an Early Modern English form of the definite article "the."
  3. Judson was elected to represent Woodbury in the General Court in May and October 1684, May and October 1685, and May and October 1686.[14]
  4. Judson was made a colonial commissioner in 1684, 1685, 1686, 1687, and 1689.[14]
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References

Citations
  1. Munsell 1899, p. 114.
  2. Goodwin 1982, p. 18.
  3. Orcutt 1886a, pp. 110, 250.
  4. Cutter 1913, p. 1635.
  5. Director of the General Committee of Arrangements 1890, p. 13.
  6. Orcutt 1886a, p. 85.
  7. Orcutt 1886a, p. 250.
  8. Director of the General Committee of Arrangements 1890, pp. 13-14.
  9. Director of the General Committee of Arrangements 1890, pp. 25,127.
  10. Wilcoxson 1939, pp. 733-736.
  11. Stratford (Connecticut) Town Clerk 1949, p. 82.
  12. Trumbull 1850, p. 315.
  13. Orcutt 1886a, pp. 270-271.
  14. Jacobus 1976, pp. 349-350.
  15. Orcutt 1886a, pp. 251.
  16. Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America 1917, p. 489.
  17. Cothren 1872, p. 893.
  18. Pope 1969, pp. 3-7, 81-83.
  19. Cothren 1872, pp. 904-928.
  20. MacDonald 1862, p. 37.
  21. Pope 1969, pp. 81-83.
  22. Cothren 1872, p. 927.
  23. Cothren 1854b, p. 816.
  24. Trumbull 1852, p. 177.
  25. Cothren 1854a, p. 39.
  26. Cothren 1854a, pp. 39-42.
  27. Cothren 1854a, p. 22-24.
  28. Cothren 1872, p. 940, 1031.
  29. Cothren 1854a, p. 133.
  30. Cothren 1854a, pp. 23, 41, 55-56.
  31. Jacobus 1976, pp. 349.
  32. Cothren 1854a, pp. 52-53.
  33. Prichard 1896, pp. 189-190.
  34. Prichard 1896, p. 139.
  35. Jacobus 1976, pp. 350.
  36. American Ancestry, p. 114.
  37. Ricker 2006, p. 7364.
  38. Orcutt 1886a, p. 222.
  39. J.W. Lewis & Company 1881, p. 689.
  40. Director of the General Committee of Arrangements 1890, p. 88.
  41. Hall.
  42. BYU.

Bibliography
  • American ancestry. 12. Albany, New York: Joel Munsell's Sons. 1887. OCLC 11177242.
  • Jacobus, Donald Lines (1976). History and genealogy of the families of old Fairfield. Baltimore: Genealogical Pub. Co. ISBN 9780806307190. OCLC 1011963017.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Pope, Robert G. (1969). The half-way covenant: church membership in Puritan New England. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 9781579109554. OCLC 51045636.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Ricker, Jacquelyn Ladd (2006), The Ricker compilation of vital records of early Connecticut, Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Pub. Co., OCLC 560385698CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Stratford (Connecticut) Town Clerk (1949). Land records 1650-1724. 2. Salt Lake City, Utah: Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah. OCLC 866041091.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  • Wilcoxson, William Howard (1939). History of Stratford, Connecticut, 1639-1939. Stratford, Connecticut: Stratford Tercentenary Commission. hdl:2027/wu.89100782945.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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