Richard LYMAN

Other Events and Attributes:

• Fact: Son of Henry and Phyllis Lyman

Notes:

Name:
Born and bapt. at High Ongar, Co. Kent, son of Henry Lyman and his wife Phillis - this Henry was buried at Nairstoke in Essex April 15, 1587. Richard Lyman sold in 1629 to John Gower two messuages (?), a garden, orchard and divers lands arable, also a meadow and pasture at Norton, Mandeville, in the parish of Ongar. Came with Eliot in the "Lion" 1631; settled at Roxbury; freeman Mass June 11, 1633; the Church record at Roxbury tells how he went to Conn 'when the great removal was made' and suffered greatly in the loss of his cattle. He was one of the original proprietors of Hartford and in 1639 his home lot was on the south side of the 'road from George Steele's to the South Meadow'. Will dated April 22, 1640; inv. Sept. 6, 1641; will mentions his wife but she died before Jane 27, 1642/3.

An entry in the first volume of the records of Eliot's church in Roxbury, made probably by Eliot himself, speaks of him as "an ancient Christian but weake, yet after some time of tryal and quickening he joyned the church." This "time of tryal" delayed his admission as freeman until June 11, 1633, for none but church membrs wee entitled to this privilege. In 1636, near the beginning of June, in the company fo Revs. Thomas Hooker and Samuel Stone, though one account speaks of his not going until "towards winter," he made the journey from Boston to Hartford, more than one hundred miles through a trackless wilderness. Richard Butler, another ancestor, was of the company. With no guide but the compass, and no cover but the trees, liable at any moment to attack from hostile Indians, they made their way over mountains and across rivers, through swamps and thickets, passable only with the greatest difficulty, driving with them one hundred and sixty head of cattle and subsisting by the way on the milk of the cows. They were but two weeks upon the journey, so that they must have travelled from eight to ten miles a day, a speed quite incredible except on the supposition that the forests were far more open than we find them today. This was probably the case, for the Indian practice of burning the fallen leaves every autumn must in a great degree have kept down the underbrush and destroyed the lower limbs of the trees, leaving the woods as in some old English park or the oak openings of the West. Through such woods it might have been possible to have made the journey in this brief space, but it would have taken Hooker and his company with all their impediments twice two weeks to have penetrated the tickets and tangles which are growing up today over much of their route. It is true there was an Indian trail known as the old Connecticut road, which started from Cambridge, ran to Marlborough, thence to Grafton and Woodstock and so on to Springfield and Albany, which possibly Hooker may have followed for some portion of the way, but even then, narrow as such trails were, he could not have made very rapid progress. Both Lyman and Butler were original proprietors of Hartford and owned land there in 1639. The Indians had called the home of the new colony "Suckiage," but the Colonists soon dropped it for the less suggestive and more euphonious name of Hartford. The first winter was one of unusual severity, against which the settlers were poorly provided, particularly Lyman, whose health soon gave way under the hardships of a new country, and he died in 1640. His wife did not long survive him.

Family/Spouse: Sarah OSBORNE. Sarah was born in England; died before 27 Jan 1642/3. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Phillis LYMAN was christened on 12 Sep 1611 in High Ongar, Essex, England.
2. Richard LYMAN was born in England; was christened on 24 Feb 1616/17 in High Ongar, Essex, England; died on 3 Jun 1662 in Northampton, Hampshire Co., Massachusetts.
3. Sarah LYMAN was christened on 8 Feb 1621 in High Ongar, Essex, England.
4. John LYMAN was born in Sep 1623 in High Ongar, England; died on 20 Aug 1690.
5. Robert LYMAN was born in Sep 1629 in High Ongar, England.