William Hallett Sr. (1616 - abt. 1706)

Born Dec 1616 in Bridgeport, Dorset, England

Ancestors

Husband of Elizabeth Fones — married about Aug 1649 in Church-at-the-Fort, New Amsterdam [uncertain]

Husband of Rebecca Baylies — married after 1668 in New York state

Descendants

Died about 17 Apr 1706 at about age 89 in Newtown, Queens, N.York

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Biography

William Hallett was born in December 1616 in Bridgeport, Dorset, England, the fourth of five known children and only son of Richard and Agnes Alford Hallett.

In August 1649, when he was in his mid-thirties, he married Elizabeth Fones.^[1] She bore him two known children, both sons:

1. William Hallett
2. Samuel Hallett.

In 1657, when he was in his early forties, he married Susannah Booth .

in 1668, when he was in his early fifties, he married Rebecca Baylies.

On 17 April 1706, when he was eighty-nine, he died in Newtown, Queens, New York, of unknown causes.

Name

Name: William /Hallet/^[2][3][4]

Birth

Birth:

Date: 1616

Place: Bridgeport, Dorset, England^[5]

Residence

Residence:

Place: England^[6]

Baptism

Baptism:

Date: 26 MAY 1616

Place: Chardstock, Dorset, England^[7]

Event

Event:

Type: Arrival

Date: 1656

Place: New Netherland^[8]

Biographical sketch

William Hallett was born about 1615 in Bridport, Dorsetshire, England.

According to Dorchester legend, William spent six years (from age 8-14) as a page in the household of John Digby, 1st Earl of Bristol, at Sherborne Castle. He played with the young Digbys and was tutored by their tutor. For a time, he was befriended by the heir Lord George.

At 14, he was apprenticed to a joiner in Dorchester, England. A joiner does similar work to a carpenter but fits joints rather than using nails. As an apprentice, William was not treated well. He was reportedly beaten daily and given little to eat- -just bowls of slop. After a year, he ran away to his brother, who gave him 40 pounds and told him to be off quickly before his master caught him.

So, William paid for his voyage to New England in 1631….on the same ship that carried over Elizabeth ("Bess") Fones Winthrop and her mother-in-law, Marygaret Tyndal Winthrop. The sailing was the second voyage of the Lyon to Massachusetts.

William then made his way south and for two years he ran a trading post for a wealthy Connecticut man (William Whiting), who had established a trading post on the Delaware River where the Swedes were trying to establish a colony. The trading post proved to be a business failure.

After the trading venture failed, William returned to England, where he fought with his boyhood friend George Digby, 2nd Earl of Bristol and a Roman Catholic, who sometimes fought for the King and sometimes for the opposition. After that, William traveled to the West Indies-- Nevis, St, Christopher, and Antigua.

(St. Christopher, St. Kitts, and Nevis share a long history of British colonization. St. Christopher was the first English colony in the Caribbean. A small group of Britons established themselves at Sandy Bay in 1623. Nevis was colonized in 1628 by an English party dispatched from St.Kitts. Later the island was the headquarter for the slave trade for the Leeward Islands.)

William left the islands years before the slave trade started. He returned to New England and became the farm manager in Connecticut for the widowed Elizabeth Fones Winthrop's second husband, Robert Feake. Feake proved to be mentally unstable and returned to England, leaving William in charge of the farm.

Elizabeth eventually managed to obtain a divorce from Feake and marry Hallett. The details are unclear. (For a detailed examination of her divorce and marriage to Hallett, see “When and Where were William Hallett and Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake married?” by Will Hallett (posted on 11 Nov 2013 at http://williamhallett.com/william-hallett-elizabeth-fones-winthrop-feake-married/) William Hallett was her third husband, and they would have two sons – -William (b1648) and Samuel (b c1651). Connecticut society was shocked by Elizabeth's behavior and she and William left Greenwich and settled on the western tip of Long Island, later called Hallet's Cove.

“On Dec. 1st, 1652, William Hallett obtained a brief for 161 acres of land, which had previously been in possession of Jacques Bentyu, one of Director Van Twiller's council. It was described as "a plot of ground at Hellegat upon Long Island, called Jacques' farm, and beginning at a great rock that lies in the meadow, goes upward southeast to the end of a very small swamp, two hundred and ten rods; from thence northeast two hundred and thirty rods; on the north it goes up to a running water, two hundred and ten rods; containing, in the whole, eighty morgen and three hundred rods." This tract is now included within the village of Astoria.”

Helle-gat or Hell gate was a narrow straight on the Sound about 6 miles north of New York. It was dangerous to shipping because of numerous rocks, shelves and whirlpools. The name appears in a map in Van der Donck, A Description of New Netherland , published in 1655, which was translated and republished in 2008 by Diederik Willem Goedhuys.

In January 1653, Bess wrote a letter to her cousin (and former brother-in-law) John Winthrop Jr. “ Our habitation is by the whirlpool which the Dutchmen call the Hellgate where we have purchased a very good farm through the governor's means ... we live very comfortably according to our rank. In the spring the Indian killed four Dutchmen near to our house which made us think to have removed ... yet now the Indian are quiet and we think not yet to remove.”

In the fall of 1655, the Indians destroyed their house and the plantation at Hallet's Cove, which induced them to take up residence at Flushing. Here, in 1656, William was appointed "Schout" or chief official of Flushing. That same year he was deposed by Governor Stuyvesant, who had him fined and imprisoned for entertaining William Wickenden, a Quaker from Rhode Island, and allowing him to preach at his house and receiving the Lord's Supper from his hands. Disgusted at this treatment, William Hallett warmly advocated the claims of Connecticut during the revolt of Long Island from the Dutch. He was sent as a delegate to the general court of that colony and appointed a commissioner or justice of the peace for Flushing.

“Another purchase, not less interesting, was that effected August 1st, 1664, by 'William Hallett, Senior[,] of the town of Flushing,' of a large tract of land, near Hallett's Cove, from . . . Indians residing at Shawcopshee . . .. It is described as "beginning at the first creek called Sunswick; westward below Hellgate, upon Long Island, and from the mouth of the aforesaid creek, south to a markt tree fast by a great rock, and from that said markt tree southward, fifteen score rods, to another markt tree, which stands from another little rock a little westward, and from that markt tree east, right to the point of an island which belongs to the poor's bouwery, and from the point of the island belonging to the poor's bouwery round by the river through Hellgate” This tract, called by the Indians " Sintsiuck," and embracing nearly the whole of "Hellgate Neck," was afterwards confirmed to Hallett by the English governors NicoU and Dongan, or "so much of the aforesaid Indian deed or purchase, as had not before been disposed of to others by ground brief or patent."

“Those who sold Hellgate Neck to William Hallett, were of the Canarsee tribe, a clan of reputed power, whose jurisdiction extended over the whole of King's county, the islands in Hellgate, and says Ocallaghan, some part of Newtown. The extinction of the Indian title to the soil forms an interesting epoch in the history of the town. The red man was no longer able to withstand the advance of civilization; the country began to wear marks of human thrift that made it uncongenial with his ideas of wild solitude and savage life his hunting-grounds invaded, the deer and the beaver driven from their haunts, he must needs seek for himself a new home in the unbroken forests. It is probable that the most of them vacated the town at about the period of their last sale to the whites, though there is evidence that scattering ones remained for a number of years later, some of whom had their wigwams at Mespat Kills.”

After their land purchase, William and Bess moved back to Hellgate.

Bess died in about 1672. William was a town overseer from 1679-81. He marryied again--to a Rebecca Baylies He divided his property in Hellgate Neck between his two sons William- and Samuel in 1688. William was Commissioner of Town Court from 1688-89.

William died, prosperous, at the age of 94. His will is dated 17 Apr 1706, Newtown, Queens Co,

A note on marriages

I have Hallett marrying

1) Rebecca Baylies (b1629) before 1649.

2) marrying Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake (b1610) (in August 1649.

3) marrying Susannah Booth Thorne (c1610-1675) on 25 Apr 1674 on Long Island.

4) marrying Katherine Unknown between 1675-1684.

I don't have primary sources for any of these. (Patricia Prickett Hickin, 4 Sept 2019).

Acknowledgements

• WikiTree profile Hallett-130 was created through the import of Lupton file.ged on Jul 8, 2011 by Kim Ostermyer.

Sources

1. ↑ The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Volumes I-III. (Online database: AmericanAncestors.org, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2010), (Originally Published as: New England Historic Genealogical Society. Robert Charles Anderson, The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633, Volumes I-III, 3 vols., 1995). Sketch of Robert Feake. pp 656-660.subscriber$
2. ↑ Source: #S667
3. ↑ Source: #S666 Page: Place: Chardstock, Dorset, England; Collection: St Andrew; -; Date Range: 1600 - 1621; Film Number: 1279491
4. ↑ Source: #S668 Page: Place: New Netherland; Year: 1656; Page Number: 44
5. ↑ Source: #S667
6. ↑ Source: #S666 Page: Place: Chardstock, Dorset, England; Collection: St Andrew; -; Date Range: 1600 - 1621; Film Number: 1279491
7. ↑ Source: #S666 Page: Place: Chardstock, Dorset, England; Collection: St Andrew; -; Date Range: 1600 - 1621; Film Number: 1279491
8. ↑ Source: #S668 Page: Place: New Netherland; Year: 1656; Page Number: 44

• Source: S666 Author: Ancestry.com Title: England & Wales Christening Records, 1530-1906 Publication: Name: Ancestry.com Operations Inc; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2008; Repository: #R44
• Repository: R44 Name: Ancestry.com Address: E-Mail Address: Phone Number:
• Source: S667 Author: Edmund West, comp. Title: Family Data Collection - Births Publication: Name: Ancestry.com Operations Inc; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2001; Repository: #R44
• Source: S668 Author: Ancestry.com Title: U.S. and Canada, Passenger and Immigration Lists Index, 1500s-1900s Publication: Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2010; Repository: #R44

• Riker, James. The Annals of Newtown: In Queens County, New-York. Lambertville, NJ: Hunterdon House, 1982.
• Source: S984 Abbreviation: The Fones Family, Art Reierson Title: The Fones Family, Art Reierson, reprinted by Higginson Book Company, Salem MA. TMPLT TID 0 FIELD Name: Footnote VALUE The Fones Family, Art Reierson, reprinted by Higginson Book Company, Salem MA. FIELD Name: ShortFootnote FIELD Name: Bibliography Repository: #R48 Call Number: 929.273 F732r Page: 4 TMPLT FIELD Name: Page VALUE 4 Data: Text: 10. Elizabeth Fones was born January 21, 1610 in Groton Suffolk England, and died 1669 in New York. She married (1) William Hallett, Sr. She married (2) Henry Winthrop April 25, 1629 in St. Sepulchre New London, London, England. She married (3) Robert Feake December 02, 1631 in Watertown Middlesex Massachusetts.
• Repository: R48 Name: Family History Library Address: 35 N West Temple Street Salt Lake City, Utah 84150 Address 1: 35 N West Temple Street City: Salt Lake City State: Utah Postal Code: 84150