Record of Burial

Thomas Munson (AKA Monson) was born before 13 Sep 1612 in Rattlesden, County Suffolk, England to John Munson and Elizabeth Sparke. He was baptized on 13 Sep 1612 in Rattlesden, County Suffolk, England. John and Johanna Mew were married in New Haven, New Haven County, Connecticut. He died on 7 May 1685 in New Haven, New Haven County, Connecticut. He was buried on 9 May 1685 in Grove St. Cemetery, New Haven, Connecticut.  Burial: Row 78,  9 Linden Ave

His first wife Susan emigrated after Thomas in 1634 aboard the Elizabeth at the age of 24.

     The earliest record of Thomas Munson is in 1637 when he was one of the men from Hartford, Conn., who served under Captain Mason during the Pequot War, and took part in the historical battle fought between the English and the Pequots under Sassacus, near New London, at daylight June 5, 1637.  He was about twenty-five years of age at the time.

     After the founding of the New Haven Colony in 1638 he joined the settlers there some time during 1639, and his autograph signature is to be found on the Fundamental Agreement, drawn up for their government on June 4, of that year.

     He was a Military Man-Sargeant in 1643, which title he bore for nineteen years, Ensign in 1661, Lieutenant in 1665, Captain in 1676.  He served in all the Indian Wars from the Pequot War in 1637 to King Philip’s War in 1675.  The first trial by jury in the Colony was held October 3, 1663, and Thomas Munson was appointed foreman of that jury.  During the latter part of his life, Captain Thomas Munson was prominent in all the affairs of the town.  During these years he served as Townsman, Deputy, and on various committees in the church, as well as in other capacities, and it may well be said of him that he was a “Prominent Citizen”, for he was all that.  He was a man whose memory we delight to honor.

* ” There were then two famous churches gathered at New-Haven: gathered in two days, one following upon the other ; Mr. Davenport’s and Mr. Prudden’s: and this with one singular circumstance, that a mighty barn was the place wherein that solemnity was attended.” Thus the Magnalia. The New Haven and Milford churches were organized Aug. 21 and 22, 1639. In that barn, on the 4th of June previously, the ” Fundamental Agreement” of the colony was enacted. Now this ” mighty barn” stood on Elder Robert Newman’s home-lot, and Newman’s place became Thomas Munson’s residence in 1662. t March 30, 1638.

Does one inquire for a definite answer to the question—What banished scores of the ablest, most devoted, most spiritual ministers, with 4,000 of their fellow-Christians, into a wilderness peopled with savages? Hear then the answer: A conscientious refusal to practice certain ceremonies of human invention which had been added to the worship of God—unscriptural, unwarrantable, profane, as they believed ; they could not conform to the requirements of the bishops and their courts in respect to these human inventions. That the silenced ministers might preach the Gospel, and that they and their fellow-Christians might have liberty to worship according to conscience, and that they might propagate Christianity among the aborigines, such were their primary motives in crossing the Atlantic.

Our Thomas Munson—the supposition is credible and unavoidable—was among those Four Thousand exiled servants of God. He may have voyaged hither with Higginson in 1629, with Cotton and Hooker in 1633, or with other brave and spirited colonists, loyal to God and to conscience. Whence he came, when he came, with whom he came, may some day appear.

He was elected as representative in 1666 in New Haven, New Haven County, Connecticut. He was elected as representative between 1669 and 1675 in New Haven, New Haven County, Connecticut.

He served in the Indian War and obtained the rank of Capitan.

* In Hotten’s Lists 0f Emigrants, page 279, appear ” the names and ages of all the Passengers which tooke shipping In the Elizabethof Ipswich, M’r Willia Andrews, bound for new Eng Land the last of Aprill 1634 ;” one of them is ” Susan Munson, aged 25.” This Susan, three years older than Thomas1, may have been his wife. Hannah’ Munson Tuttle named her second daughter Susannah. It is impossible to doubt that Joanna Munson, who was two years older than Thomas1, who died seven years before him, and whose gravestone is a twin to that of Thomas, was his wife, though possibly by a second marriage. Hannah’ Munson Tuttle named her first daughter Joanna’, a name which is somewhat rare. At the seating of the meeting-house, in 1647, ” Sister Munson ” was located in the ” 2d seat” on the side (as distinguished from ” the middle “); in 1656, Goodw. Munson ” and four others were ” Permitted to sit in the alley (upon their desire) for convenience of hearing,”—a little deaf, it would seem ; and in 1662, ” Sister Munson ” and four others were assigned a place ” Before Mrs. Goodyears seat”—in front of the pulpit.

I should not be surprised to learn that Munson was related by marriage or otherwise to Samuel Whitehead. They two were the only Hartford settlers who removed to New Haven ; in 1647 they occupied the same seat in the meeting-house, and their wives sat side by side;  in 1656, the two men were seated side by side; and Thomas named his only son Samuel. Munson and Whitehead were withal the first and second sergeants of the force raised in 1653 to aid a war which had been declared against New Netherlands (Dutch). Munson lived in George St., and Whitehead at the corner of George and Meadow.

Thomas’ b. abt. 1612; m. Joanna* app’y, b. abt. 1610 ; she d. 13 Dec. 1678, a. 68 ; he d. 7 May 1685, a. 73. Carpenter, civic office, military service ; Cong.; res. Hartford, New Haven, Ct.

As a resident of Hartford in 1637, Thomas was one of the 130 Connecticut men to see military service in the Pequot Indian War. For this service, he was allotted a house lot of two and a half acres on High Street.

Thomas is buried next to his wife Joanna in the Grove Street Cemetery, the same place where Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, is buried. The inscription reads:”Thomas Munson, Age 73; deceased. Time 7th of 3rd M 1685”.

Thomas was made Captain in 1676 and placed in charge of all the New Haven troops. For his service in King Philips War (1675/76) he was granted 26 acres of land in New Haven. He represented the town as Deputy to the General Court/Assembly from 1662-1679 and 1681-1682.

On the northern margin of the present city of Hartford was a cleared and fertile tract of 28 acres, which the grateful town allotted to the returning heroes ; it has been known as the Soldiers’ Field. In a paper on ” The Soldiers’ Field and Its Original Proprietors,” which was read before the Conn. Historical Society, and printed in the Courant of June 18, 1887, F. H. Parker stated that eight acres of this Field early became the property of Zachariah Field ; his tract ” contained thirteen allotments, the most southern of which was that of Thomas Hale, adjoining the Spencer lot; then came in order the lots of Samuel Hale, William Phillips, Thomas Barnes, and Thomas Munson.”

Land Ownership Map of New Haven in 1641 from The Munson Record, 1892, shows the locations of the three different homes of Thomas Munson, on George Street in 1640, on Church Street from 1656 to 1662, and finally on Grove Street across from the Green, which was a stately home inhabited by several generations of Munsons.

In 1639 he quit the Hartford plantation and cast his lot with the new settlement at Quinnipac, later to be called New Haven. On Jun 4 1639, he was the sixth signer of the original agreement of the free planters of the new settlement.

Thomas was a representative in 1666 in the Indian War, in the Hartford contingent, involved in the destruction of Pequot Fort under Captain Mason on June 5, 1667. He was offered land in New Haven if he would make wheels and ploughs for the good of the colony. He commanded New Haven troops defending the Norrituck Plantation against Indians.

Visit the website devoted to Thomas Munson here: http://hattonexley.homestead.com/Munson.html

The children of Thomas Munson and Johanna Mew are:

1. Elisabeth MUNSON,
2. Samuel MUNSON . 7 Aug. 1643 : ” Samuell Munson y’ Sonn of Thomas Munson was Baptised ye 7th 6m” 43.” Record of First Church, New Haven.
3. Hannah MUNSON. b. 11 June 1648: “Hannah Munson 11. 4mo- 48.” Rec