Born about 1616 in England

Husband of Abigail (Ufford) Terrill — married 3 Nov 1644 in Connecticut

Descendants

Died before 22 Feb 1682 in Milford, New Haven, Connecticut

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Roger (Terrill) Terrell migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1620-1640). Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: pgm

Disputed Origins

It is frequently seen that Roger Terrill (Terrell, Tyrrell) is directly descended from Sir Walter Tyrrell compatriot of William the Conqueror. There is no documentation of this nor is there definitive documentation of his parents. He has been detached from claimed (without sources) father Roger Terrill.

Biography

It is known that Roger Terrill came from England to the colonies about 1637 with a company from London under Eaton and Davenport and became one of the original settlers of Milford, Connecticut by 1639.^[1] Milford is located on the inner coast of Long Island Sound where the Wepowaug River flows into the harbor. In 1639 there were approximately 200 settlers in Milford. By 1645 most of the settlement consisted of frame houses and was surrounded with palisades twelve feet high enclosing a square mile. In 1646 the native inhabitants tried to burn down the town after which the planters did not leave the palisade except in armed groups.

The Milford settlers were mostly from Essex, Hertfordshire and York counties in England. Savage states that Roger Terrill was from Nazeing in Essex but without documentation for the statement. By November 1644 he married Abigail Ufford (or Ulford), daughter of Thomas and Isabel Ufford, who came from England on the ship "Lyon" in 1632, locating first at Roxbury, Massachusetts, and finally in Milford.^[2][3] He joined the First Church (Milford) on 28 July 1644.^[4]

The Terrill's original home lot is described in the Records of 1646: "Roger Terrill hath two acres three roods and twenty poles be it more or less being bounded with a high way to the west, Phillip Hatley on the north with other lotts to the east and Sergeant Camp to the south." Many other acres of land were allotted to Roger for pasture, agriculture and possibly commerce as one of his grants of land abuts the "Comon" on the north and west. Roger Terrill appears to present a classic case of the pasture is always greener on the other side for in 1646 he evidently had taken over land claimed by another and was duly reprimanded: "General Court at Milford December 24th 1646 decreed that Roger Terrell is to give back again, that land which is in his possession, which was laid out for Philip Hatley." Notice the "give back again"... Philip Hatley was Roger's neighbor to the north, and evidently he found Hatley's land greener. Philip Hatley left town in 1649.

In his lifetime Roger accumulated considerable wealth for the time. He also held some standing within the community as evidenced when his father-in-law Thomas Ufford appointed him to represent his son, John, in an issue before the Court at New Haven in 1657. John Ufford had gotten himself into a complicated situation by obtaining a rarely granted divorce on a claim of impotence, only to then be charged with fornication with his father's servant, Martha Nettleton, when she turned up pregnant. John was allowed to marry Martha, although the Court was miffed at being misled in the matter of his first marriage and subsequent divorce, and his conduct after. Considering the punishments such behavior usually received, Roger must have been quite eloquent before the magistrates or held considerable sway.

Roger died in either late 1681 or early 1682^[5] as there is an inventory of his estate dated 22 February 1682, taken by John Beard, John Sherman and Samuel Clark. It totaled £701, a considerable amount at the time. ^[6][7]

Children

^[5][8]

1. John, baptized August 1644
2. Abigail, baptized August 1644. By 1660 she had married William Tyler. They had twelve children born in Milford including twins born in 1670 who died "soon."
3. Hannah, baptized August 1645. She married John Skeels of Woodbury, CT and they had their first child of record in November 1678. As a younger woman, in 1670, she had a "natural child" by Robert Hudson of Rye, New York. Hannah and John's first child, born in Woodbury, died young, but she had six other children. She died 11 November 1730.
4. Samuel, baptized 31 October 1647. He settled in Brookhaven, Long Island, NY and raised a family.
5. Roger, baptized 20 January 1649/50,^[4] was a Founder of Woodbury, CT and is listed as a signer of Woodbury's Fundamental Articles in 1673. He joined the church there in 1676. He fathered seven recorded children. He died 17 April 1722.
6. Joseph, baptized in 1652, had "defective understanding." He died in 1689, or when about 37 years of age.
7. Mary, born 12 February 1653, baptized 2 March 1654, and died 3 May 1654 when only a little over a year old.
8. Ephraim, born 8 April 1655, baptized 15 April 1655 and died "soon."
9. Thomas, born 23 October 1656. He removed to Elizabethtown, New Jersey, then to East Hampton, Long Island in 1688, and then Essex County, New Jersey in 1694 where he died in 1725. He was married twice, his first wife the daughter of Robert Dayton. His second wife was Mary Hampton. Thomas, a blacksmith, named four sons in his will.
10. Daniel, born 1 March 1659/60, and died 10 June 1727. He remained in Milford and married first Mary, daughter of Thomas and Ruth (Clark) Fitch, and second, Abigail, daughter of Henry and Lydia (Brown) Bristol. He fathered ten recorded children, all by Mary Fitch.
11. Eleazer, born 20 September 1662 and died the same day.

Research Notes

Cutter, William Richard: His entry in Vol I:513 confuses many. The entry appears to be about the son Roger yet includes some facts from the father's life.

Sources

1. ↑ Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England (Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1862) Vol IV:268.
2. ↑ Anderson, Robert Charles Title: Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England 1620-1633 Publication: Name: New England Historic Genealogical Society; Location: Boston; Date: 1995
3. ↑ Torrey, Clarence Almon. Torrey’s New England Marriages Prior to 1700 (Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. Baltimore, 1985) image 759 Terrill, Roger (-1682) & [Abigail Ufford]; b 3 Nov 1644; Stratford, CT/New Haven/Milford, CT
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1} Church Records Index. Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Connecticut. Vol 71:375, Milford
5. ↑ ^{5.0 5.1} Abbott, Susan Woodruff. Families of Early Milford, Connecticut (Genealogical Publishing Co., 1979) p. 737.
6. ↑ Abstract of Probate Records at Fairfield, Connecticut, Down to 1721 (n.p., ?) Page 379: "Terrill, Roger, called brother by Thos Ufford, deed." Roger's wife is Abigail (Ufford) Terrill, sister of Thomas.
7. ↑ Parke, Nathan G.. The ancestry of Rev. Nathan Grier Parke and his wife Ann Elizabeth Gildersleeve. Woodstock, Vt.: N.G. Parke, 1959. p 118
8. ↑ The American Genealogist 25:37

See Also:

• Cutter, William Richard. Genealogical and Family History of the State of Connecticut (Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1911) Vol. 1, Page 513.
• Tyrrell, Bruce W. Roger and Abigail (Ufford) Terrill (Self-published, Quebec, Canada, 1995)
• Colonial Connecticut Records, 1636 - 1776 Freemen at Milford, 1669.
• Campbell, Hollis A., Rev. Seymour Past and Present (W. C. Sharpe, Publisher, Seymour, Conn, 1902) p. 549.
• Orcutt, Samuel. A History of the Old Town of Stratford and the City of Bridgeport, Connecticut (Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, New Haven, Conn., 1886) Vol. 2, page 1319
• Jackson, Ron V., Accelerated Indexing Systems, comp. Massachusetts Census, 1790-1890 (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1999). Microfilmed schedules of the U.S. Federal Decennial Census, territorial/state censuses, and/or census substitutes. Roger Terrell State: CT County: New Haven County Township: Milford Year: 1660. NPN Database: CT 1635-1807 Misc. Records
• Addenda Et Corrigenda, The American Genealogist (1950) Vol. 26, Page 56: "Clues to the origin of Roger Terrill, the immigrant, may be found in the Banks Mss. in the Library of Congress, which mention a Roger Terrill of Wapping (Stepney Parish)"
• The Descendants of Roger Terrill of Milford, Connecticut. Site here has land and court records taken from primary sources.

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