Robert HAZARD

Notes:

Name:
ROBERT HAZARD was born 1635; he died 1710. In 1665 he was admitted freeman of Portsmouth, Rhode Island. From this time until 1698 his name often appears in the Colonial records as chosen to fill some important position. In 1658, he sold John Roome, of Portsmouth, all his interest in Conanicut and Dutch Island. In 1667, the Court of Plymouth ordered, in reference to a controversy between the English and Indians about bounds in Dartmouth, that in case Robert Hazard, of Rhode Island, could be procured, he should run the lines, etc. In 1670, he was juryman. In 1671, he bought five hundred acres of land in Kingstown, of the Pettaquamscutt purchasers. In 1676, he and three others of Portsmouth were a committee ordered by the Assembly to appoint their own men as keepers of Indians above twelve years of age. The Indians were to have "a sufficient place of security." Any master offending was to pay a fine of L5. In 1676, Robert Hazard was on a committee to procure boats for the colony's defence "for the present, and there were to be four boats with five or six men in each." At the same date he and three others were empowered to take exact account of all the inhabitants on the island, "English, negroes and Indians, and make a list of the same, and also to take exact account how all persons are provided with corn, guns, powder, shot and lead." A barrel of powder was put in charge of himself and three others, and two great guns in the yard of John Borden." Robert Hazard and three others were to see that the guns were set on carriages and fitted for service. In 1676, he was taxed 11s. 7d. in Kingstown.

Not long after this date he built his house in Kingstown, which was still standing in the early part of the present century. It was on the site where now stands the houe owned and occupied by the daughters of William Watson, Esq., in the village of Mooresfield. The old house was very large,---possibly the largest in the town, not only at that time but for many years after. A well authenticated story is told of Dr. William Shaw, who, being called in to attend a sick person in the house, drove into the back yard, and entered the house by the kitchen door. When he went out, he asked if the family always walked from the front door to the rear of the house, or did they have some conveyance? The ell was longer than the main body of the house, and in this ell was a capacious chimney. Inside the chimney were two stone seats, wehre, tradition says, the little slave children were wont to sit; the heat from the big oak-logs being not bad substitute for the hot sands of Africa.

In 1695, Robert Hazard gave to his son George the larger part of his Pettaquamscutt purchase. The deed runs: "I, Robert Hazard, late of Portsmouth, now of Kingstown, alias Rochester, for the natural affection that I have unto my son George,....have given to him all my whole right and interest in or to the farm I live on now, by virtue of a deed from the whole Company of Purchasers, as may appear by a deed given under their hand. Said farm contains five hundred acres of land, more or less, bounded as in my original deed from aforesaid purchasers. Only I, said Robert Hazard, do reserve one hundred and twenty acres, and my now dwelling-house." the boundaries mention a big rock in the boundary line, about ten feet high. This rock is still to be seen in a substantial stone wall, and gave rise to the familiar name of his grandson Robert, who was called "Roc" Robert. This was also his signature, Robert Roc (his mark) Hazard. In 1710, a short time before his death, Robert sold the remaining part of this farm, with "my manor house where I now live," to his son Robert ( for L300, current money), who, in 1718, gave it by will to his son Robert, after his mother's death; making three Roberts who had successively owned and occupied the old house. The last, upon the death of his mother in 1739, sold to his uncle George the remaining part of the farm. he in his turn gave the whole farm to his son, Col. Thomas Hazard, by will, in 1743. col. Thomas, in 1748, sold it to John rose. And thus, after sixty years, the old homestead passed out of the possession of the Hazard family.

Previous to the deed of gift to his son George, Robert had, in 1692, given to his son Stephen "all rights and interests in land belonging to Point Judith Neck, being ye seventh part of ye same, excepting one hundred acres and Little Neck, so called, next Boston Neck."

In 1695, he also gave his son Jeremiah two hundred acres of land in Tiverton; and that his eldest son Thomas had land given to him by his father, is proved by the fact that in his will he says, "land that came to me by inheritance from my father, Robert Hazard." By these deeds it would seem that Robert hazard owned more than one thousand acres of land.

Family/Spouse: Mary BROWNELL. Mary (daughter of Thomas BROWNELL and Ann BOURNE) was born in 1639 in Portsmouth, Newport Co., Rhode Island ; died on 12 Jan 1739 in Newport, Rhode Island. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Martha HAZARD was born in 1668 in Portsmouth, Newport Co., Rhode Island ; died in 1751 in Kingston, Kings Co., Rhode Island.
2. Mary HAZARD died before 1710.

Notes:

Name:
THOMAS HAZARD, the progenitor of the Hazard family in the United States of America, was born in 1610; he died in 1680; married 1st Martha ?, who died in 1669. He married, 2d, Martha, widow of Thomas Sheriff; she died in 1691. He name is first found in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1635. In 1638, March 25, he was admitted freeman of Boston. Two years later he was admitted freeman of Portsmouth, Rhode Island. In 1639, april 28, he and eight others signed the following contract, preparatory to the settlement of Newport, Rhode Island: "It is agreed by us whose hands are underwritten to propagate a plantation in the midst of the island or elsewhere, and to engage ourselves to bear equal charge, answerable to our strength and estates, in common, and that our determination shall be by major voice of judge and elders, the judge to have a double voice." The founders and first officers of the town of Newport were William Coddington, Judge; Nicholas Eaton, John Coggeshall, William Brenton, John Clarke, Jeremy Clarke, Thomas Hazard, and Henry Bull, Elders; William Dyre, Clerk. In 1639, June 5, he was named one of four proportioners of land in Newport, any three of whom might proportion it; "the company laying it forth to have 4d. an acre for every acre laid." September 2, 1639, he was admitted freeman of newport, and in 1640, March 12, he was appointed a member of the General Court of Elections. In 1665, he was for a short time in Newtown, Long Island. In his will, proved 1680, his wife Martha, whom he calls his "beloved yoke-fellow," is sole executrix, and he gives her "all movable and immovable estate, as housing, goods, cattle, and chattels, etc." To his son Robert he gives 1s. To his daughters, Hannah Wilcox and Martha Potter, wife of Ichabod Potter, 1s. There is a long line of descendants from this daughter Martha, and Ichabod Potter, with frequent intermarriages in the Hazard family. In the early history of the family it was almost an exception to find a Hazard who did not marry a cousin, and it is a curious fact that the lines in which these marriages were the most frequent, were often marked by the strongest men and women, both mentally and physically.

Thee few meagre facts are about all that can be found at the present day of the founder of the Hazard family in America. But Thomas R. Hazard, in his "Recollections of Olden Times", has given an account of the family that goes back, even beyond the name; its European founder being the Duke de Charante, living about 1060, on the borders of Switzerland. From the Duke de Charante he has given an interesting account of the changes in the name, until towards the close of the eighteenth century, when it was, and still continues to be, written Hazard. Willis R. Hazard, a descendant of Jonathan Hazard of Newtown, Long Island (according to whose opinion Jonathan was a son of Thomas Hazard, but by other authorities a nephew), has given us the chief characteristics of the family; and although his account was intended for the descendants of Jonathan of Newtown, it is equally applicable to the Rhode Island Family. He says: "The Hazards are a strongly marked race, handing down and retaining certain peculiarities from generation to generation. One is, a peculiar decision of character, a certain amount of pride, and a pronounced independence, coupled with a slight reserve. Physically they are strongly marked. Generally speaking, they are of good stature and vigorous frames with rather a square head, high forehead, brown hair, blue eyes, straight or aquiline nose, and with will shown by a firmly set jaw. Their complexion is fair, a little inclined to florid."

Few families in Rhode Island have a brighter record than the Hazard family, where, if greatness is not always found, sobriety, honesty, and integrity make even the humblest lives worth studying; and when one finds, as is often the case, a retiring, unpretentious modesty combined with greatness, he must be pardoned for his enthusiastic admiration for the old family tree, that still sends out vigorous shoots after more than two hundred years of growth in America.

Thomas married Martha ?. Martha died in 1669. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]