Richard Hardy's biography relies heavily on a thinly sourced entry in Hardy and Hardie, past and present, pp. 213-216 by Claude Hardy, which states "Richard Hardy was living in Concord, Mass. in 1639, according to Shattuck, the historian, but must have moved to Stamford, Conn., soon thereafter."
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89063111413&view=1up&seq=232
"Must have" is a red flag. Is there any evidence Richard Hardy of Concord is also Richard Hardy of Stamford? Perhaps because Jacobus wrote a book review of Claude's genealogy (cited on the profile), this book has garnered legitimacy it doesn't merit.
What records are there for Richard Hardy of Concord? Claude wrote that Richard Hardy had twins that died at Concord, Mass in 1639 by an unknown first wife.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89063111413&view=1up&seq=231
Meanwhile, Claude also writes that Richard Hardy was a landowner in Stamford in a deed for a neighbor dated Nov 1642, citing Huntington's ''History of Stamford'', which is here on p. 44: https://archive.org/details/historyofstamfor00hunt/page/44/mode/1up?q=hardy
Claude's list of Richard's children says they were all born at Stamford, so presumably with his second(?) wife Ann Husted, who he says he married in 1650. I suspect it's earlier than that, she was already 27 in 1650--and checking her profile I'm happy to see Anderson agrees, estimating a 1644 marriage between Richard Hardy and Ann Husted.
Another reason he's probably not the Concord man -- Remington's article on the Husteds cites a Sherrill Foster who wrote that Richard's oldest(?) daughter Elizabeth (Hardy) (Garlick) (Parsons) Fish was married to her first husband by 1664. If she was then 18 as we would hope, that supports a 1644 marriage between Richard and Ann, with her as probably the eldest.
The final reason I'm suspicious of Claude's work (as I hope you are as well at this point) is he goes on to conflate this daughter Elizabeth with her mother-in-law, Elizabeth (Blanchard?) Garlick, the witch of East Hampton, as they both married Joshua Garlick (senior and junior). I've been working on better sourcing her family and the other East Hampton colonists this week, which is how I noticed this data problem.
Also note that his unsourced wife "Alice Wilson" probably needs to be disconnected.
Thank you for taking a look, I don't have access to americanancestors.org.
