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"Possibly one of
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Name: John Martin
Birth: Unknown date & location
Emigration: Unknown origin; to Middletown by November 8, 1652.(FFS)
Death: Unknown, possibly by March 1652/3 (FFS; see below)
Occupation & Public Service: "At a meeting November 8, 1652, John Martin was chosen the Town constable. In the early days of the Colony, it was the custom for the Constable of each town to take the oath of office at a session of the Particular Court, generally in March following the election. There is no record of Martin's being sworn, but in March 1652/3, Thomas Whitmore was sworn as the Constable for Mattabeseck, from which it is inferred that Martin had died and that Whitmore was chosen to fill the vacancy."(FFS)
Marriage: m. Mistress (unknown surname) Martin, date & location unknown. "In March 1654, Mistress Martin is one of the persons whose names appear on the record regarding the building of the meadow fence. From this date there is no mention of either Martin or his wife, and it is not known whether they left any children."(FFS)
Children: Unknown (FFS)
Compiler's Note: There may be some relationship between first settler John Martin and a slightly later arrival, Anthony Martin. Anthony Martin (1637-1673) settled in Middletown by 1660, when he married Mary Hall, daughter of first settler Richard Hall, and was later listed as a town proprietor on the 1670 list.(HMC) Among their children was a son named John Martin. Anthony Martin was a son of Samuel Martin (1613-1683), at various times of New Haven, Wethersfield, and Hartford, Conn.(SAV)
The First Meeting House, Middletown, Conn. The engraving below by W.C. Butler was a fanciful illustration for David Field's Centennial Address published in 1853. In 1939 the image was used on the title page of The Log Cabin Myth by Harold R. Shurtleff. Surrounding the engraving are signatures of some of the first settlers as found on wills and deeds by Charles C. Adams in preparation of Middletown Upper Houses (1908). |
