William Parker

Who was William Parker?

William Parker was an early Puritan settler in the Connecticut Colony and one of the founders of Hartford. He arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the summer of 1635 after sailing from London on May 21, 1635 aboard the ship Mathew. He settled in Newtowne, the community that is now Cambridge, and became one of the members of Thomas Hooker's congregation. He was one of the founders of Hartford, Connecticut.

He married Margaret Prichard in 1636, one of five women on board the Mathew.

His home lot in Hartford in 1639 was on the west side of the “road from Seth Grant’s to Centinel Hill” which is now Trumbull Street.

The location of his lot is evidence that he was with Thomas Hooker’s party in 1636. He is also listed as an inhabitant who had a right to undivided lands. He was one of the Hartford settlers who served in the Pequot War and attained the rank of sergeant.

He received 36 acres of land in the division of upland in East Hartford in 1666 that he sold to William Pitkin and William Goodwin. He sold his share of land received in 1674 on the west side of Hartford to Thomas and Samuel Olcott. William Parker’s six acres were sold in 1684 to Joseph Collier.

William Parker fathered ten children by his first wife. Prior to 1682 he married a second wife, Elizabeth Pratt, the widow of Lieutenant William Pratt. His daughter, Margaret, born about 1650, married Joseph Pratt in 1671, who was the son of Lieutenant William Pratt and Elizabeth Pratt.