A few years after their arrival at the site of Hartford, the street the Lord family
lived on may have roughly resembled this one, although soon houses were improved.

here is some mystery about who the first Englishmen from Newtowne were to set eyes on the elevated lands, called "Suckiauge" by the Natives, on the west bank of the Connecticut River one hundred miles to the west in what remained a virtual wilderness inhabited by Indians. But we do know who the first Europeans were to stand there. As Richard Lord was putting the finishing touches on his house at Newtowne, in 1633, the Dutch were getting a foothold on the Connecticut River, just a stone's throw from where the English removing from Newtowne were going to end up. On a 17th century Dutch map of the lower Connecticut River region one can make out the Dutch  "Forte de Goede Hoop" on the west bank, just below the developing settlement of "Herfort". (View map here.)

"In 1633, Wouter Van Twiller, director-general of New Netherland, sent Jacob van Curler on a mission to a spot on the Fresh River where it met its tributary, called Little River. The Dutch had long traded with the Indians hereabouts, but recently the English had begun to interfere with that trade. Van Curler's job was to build a fort that would serve as a trading post: in effect, a capital of Dutch Connecticut. The Dutch called it Huys de Hoop-Fort Hope, or the House of Hope. Its presence, and that of the tiny contingent of Dutch soldiers that were stationed there, did little to check the English migration. " "Jacob van Curler with six others sailed up the river and having made a treaty with the Indians June 8th began to erect a blockhouse on the southern bank of the Little River. This they surrounded with a redoubt and two cannon were mounted for its defence ." "The Trading House", courtesy of the artist, Len Tantillo.

"The House of Hope was a fortified redoubt. Such structures among the Dutch were usually built of logs with stones or brick at the angles Within there was a two story block house of commodious proportions having a large Dutch fire place at one end. About the house was an open court with a hard earthen floor. At Fort Orange (Albany, NY) the building was twenty six feet and nine inches long. Underneath there was a cellar. The first floor was divided by a partition. On the second which was reached by a ladder there was a court or storage room. Probably the House of Hope had an enclosed yard with sheds for their horses and cattle on the southeast side at the landing place."  (19th century history)

The reason both the Dutch and the English picked this location for their trading fort and settlement is that this is as far up the Connecticut River that sea-going ships could venture. It was this potential as a landing site for vessels that was later exploted by Richard Lord in the latter half of the century. When the Dutch explorer David de Vries ventured into the region in 1639, he found the House of Hope manned by only fourteen or fifteen soldiers. Just opposite it, meanwhile, he saw that the English had the beginnings of a town. The English governor hospitably asked him to dinner, and de Vries took the opportunity to complain on behalf of the Dutch that the English were trespassers. "He answered that the lands were lying idle," de Vries later wrote in his journal, "that, though we had been there many years, we had done scarcely anything; that it was a sin to let such rich land, which produced such fine corn, lie uncultivated; and that they had already built three towns upon this river, in a fine country." This points out the basic difference between the interest in New England that motivated the Dutch versus the English. The Dutch wanted trade while the English wanted land. While the two purposes could have been compatible, the sense of encroachment and the need to control mitigated against a peaceful cooperation. (Read the de Vries account here)

The agitation to leave Newtowne and find some new place to establish their settelement intensified in the summer of 1633, soon after Rev. Hooker and the bulk of the early immigrants arrived there. At first the Governor proposed to enlarge the town to accommodate more settlers with more land for each, but this was seen as impractical because of the lack of land. So shortly it was decided, and authorized, to search out new lands in the Connecticut River Valley.

"September 4, the general court began at Newtown, and continued a week, and then was adjourned fourteen days. Many things were there agitated and concluded. . . But the main business, which spent the most time, and caused the adjourning of the court, was about the removal of Newtown. They had leave, the last general court, to look out some place for enlargement or removal, with promise of having it confirmed to them, if it were not prejudicial to any other plantation; and now they moved that they might have leave to remove to Connecticut. The matter was debated divers days, and many reasons alleged pro and con. The principal reasons for their removal were, their want of accommodation for their cattle, so as they were not able to maintain their ministers, nor could receive any more of their friends to help them; and here it was alleged by Mr. Hooker, as a fundamental error, that towns were set so near to each other; the fruitfulness and commodiousness of Connecticut, and the danger of having it possessed by others, Dutch or English; and the strong bent of their spirits to remove thither.”     Governor Winthrop, 1633

In early July of 1634 Winthrop records the fact that "Six of Newtown went in the Blessing being bound to the Dutch plantations to discover Connecticut River intending to remove their town thither." The Dutch plantations included one at the mouth of the Connecticut River, as well as the one near "Suckiage", so it is not clear if these men actually went to the future site of Hartford. But the evidence suggests these six men had been sent as agents of the Hooker company to settle on the place of their relocation. Their route by water (see map here- Dutch areas in red; English areas in blue )  would have been the easiest, leaving Boston Harbor, sailing southeast around Cape Cod, then west along the coast to the mouth of the river. And apparently they returned to Newtowne that summer with a favorable report on the location. While the names of these six are not recorded, given the adventurous nature of Richard Lord we might expect he was among them.

Inspired by this news, a group of about 60 Newtowne men went overland to the banks of the Little River in the fall of 1635. They began laying out sites for future settlement, perhaps securing building lots for those to come the next year. Since Thomas Lord and his family had already arrived in Newtowne in June, it is entirely possible that both Richard and his father went along with this expedition. It was doubtless during the last days of October 1635 that these pioneers of Hartford reached their destination. They found at Suckiage only a group of Indian wigwams north of Little River and the Dutch at the House of Hope. But they set about establishing the first components of the settlement, and although many of these men returned to Newtowne after securing the lots they would later build on, there is evidence that some of them remained in Hartford over the winter. The Newtown records confirm that those who were known to have gone to Hartford in the spring of 1636 were still in Newtowne in February 1636, and so had not stayed in Hartford the fall before. Starting so late, those who did stay the winter there certainly would have only been able to erect the most minimal structures before the snows, and like the pilgrims before them, their huts and dugouts served them for the first few months.

“(the English newcomers)… burrow themselves in the Earth for their first shelter under some Hill-side, casting the Earth aloft upon Timber; they make a smoky fire against the Earth at the highest side, and … in these poore Wigwames they sing Psalmes, pray and praise their God, till they can provide them houses…” 1640 “Those who have no means to build farmhouses at first according to their wishes, dig a square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, six or seven feet deep, as long and as broad as they think proper, case the earth inside all round the wall with timber…floor this cellar with plank and wainscot it overhead for a ceiling, raise a roof of spars clear up and cover the spars with bark or green sods, so that they can live dry and warm in these houses with their entire families…” 1650

From an eyewitness Connecticut account, we see another version of this type of temporary house described:

The harsh winter of 1635-36 had ended and the Lords were at last experiencing their first spring outside of England. For whatever miseries they had been forced to endure that winter, the family was at least once again together for the first time since the winter of 1630-31. And so it was that early in 1636 the Lord family began to prepare to move westward, with the rest of Rev. Hookers company. Much work would need to be done at the new settelement before the next winter closed in on them, including breaking the soil for planting, making provision for the livestock, raising houses and obtaining stocks of food to last until harvest. They intended to start off in mid-May, but delays were inevitable. The bulk of their supplies and belongings were to be shipped by water, and apparently these arrangements took more time than anticipated. It was the last day of that month before they took their first steps. (See map here)  

"Some of them did not sell their homes before that month. Perhaps they were also delayed in securing transportation by water for their goods. We surmise however that they may have thought it wise to make their journey during the pleasant days of summer. There were gentle women among them unaccustomed to hardships in the forest and mothers with their little children. None of our modern conveniences for camp life were known to them. They were to cook and eat their humble fare by the wayside, find shelter from dew and rain under overhanging boughs and go to their rest in the ominous darkness on the matted needles of ancient pines. Surely the shepherd that led forth that flock may have wisely sought the favor of nature's best season "

Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Company merely notes this event as “Mr Hooker pastor of the church of Newtown and most of his congregation went to Connecticut. His wife was carried in a horse litter and they drove one hundred and sixty cattle and fed of their milk by the way.” 

"In the month of May 1636 they removed an hundred miles to the westward with the purpose to settle upon the delightful banks of the Connecticut River and there were about an hundred persons in the first company that made this removal who not being able to walk above ten miles a day took up near a fortnight in the journey having no pillows to take their nightly rest upon..." Cotton Mather, 1702

And in addition to the Hartford migration, other parties from back east were using this path to move onto other lands along the Connecticut River. But by the standards of English country lanes, which was the more familiar context of a journey by foot for many in the compnay, the experience must have been sobering; especially as they were leaving behind what little of security and "home" most of them has seen since leaving England. No matter what the reality, as seen in hindsight from the perspective of the historian, the event was just the same monumental, both on a personal level and in the forming of the Connecticut Colony.

"The herd followed one another as they would soon learn to do in a beaten path. It had been trodden that season by several other companies with cattle. Along such a way it would have been comparatively easy for a horse litter to travel nor would a litter have been altogether uncomfortable. There were landmarks too; some of them known to this day. Indian villages were located here and there providing food and shelter in need as many an early pilgrim to Connecticut had reason to know. In Hooker's company there were doubtless a half dozen or more men who had made the journey several times. And there were friendly Indians to guide the party if necessary." The painting to the left was done in the 19th century, to show the 1636 Hooker migration to Connecticut as it may have looked.  Although a much romanticised scene familiar to  landscape painters of that era, it is not too far  from fact, in that it shows a well trodden pathway within a grand natural landscape. Whether or not any in the party cared to take note of this grandeur remains a matter of conjecture.

"Reaching at some uncertain point the wide, full Connecticut, flowing then with larger tide than now, and swollen with its northern snows, the travellers crossed on rafts and rudely constructed boats; and on the spot where Hartford now lifts its stately edifices of worship and of trade, and cheered by the sight of some pioneer attempts at habitation and settlement made the season previous, 'Mr. Hooker’s company' rested, and the ark of the church stood still."

The primitive dugouts (described above) that first arrivals often raised in new Massachusetts settlements in this period could serve to protect the families for months, even years. And the Lords could have raised any number of intermediate "huts" such as these. But given the five to six months they had before hard winter set in, it is likely they decided to try for better. The intent would be, as one early pioneer stated, to: "... make what haste we can to build houses, so that within a short time we shall have a fair town..."                                                         1630

The Lord men could have raised a very comfortable home with nothing but an axe and the trees of the forest, for log cabins would serve families of pioneers in America during the next two centuries. Using either round logs (left) or squaring the logs with a broadaxe, anyone could raise a solid house with interlocking corners (right), poles for rafters, a dirt floor and slabs of bark for a roof. But these men were recently from England and brought their cultural preference for the type of houses they had lived in "back home" only a year or so previous. So a proper timber frame and boards were required.

The creation of sawn timbers and boards had to be accomplished with great expenditure of time and effort. The saw itself was not much different than those used in saw mills at the time, but had handles at each end for a sawyer to grasp. The logs had to be rolled onto a framework and then the two men working together could slice them to the widths needed. To make the work easier, a pit was dug in the ground underneath, and in that the lower "pitman" worked - a very nasty job! We know that this was how the Hartford men raised their homes in 1636 from this reference: "Thus they prepared their timbers, planks and boards. Their progress in erecting buildings may be inferred from the fact that on January 7, 1639, 40 such pits as were on public land or not in use were ordered to be filled up and all pits were to be protected by pales."

The Lord Properties


From an extremely intensive search of the 17th century Connecticut documents, this reconstruction of where each
settler's house lot was located as of 1640 was created in the 19th century. It is felt to be 100% accurate. The three
continguous Lord lots are shown in the block outlined in red, located on elevated land in a bend of the Little River.

The site chosen for the Lord family, perhaps by the elder Thomas, or perhaps by his son Richard during the previous summer's exploration, was in a bend of the Little River near the falls. We do not know if this had significance, but in 1637, only a few months after their arrival, the new town issued three orders: “One provides for a guard during public worship…another orders each inhabitant to have a ladder to reach the roof of his house…and a third forbids the taking of stones at the falls, near the home of Thomas Lord.”  The street they lived on may well have looked like this (above).

"Some of the early framed houses were small - only a story or a story and a half in height. They had a chimney in the middle. On one side was the hall or living room and on the other the parlor, sometimes called in such houses a chamber, being used for that purpose. There was a low lodging room or loft above lighted by small end windows. It was reached by a narrow stairway in front of the chimney at the foot of which was the main doorway. From the inventories of William Spencer, Seth Grant, and Robert Day, who died early, it seems probable that they occupied such houses expecting doubtless to build greater shortly. The rule however for those who had means was to erect two story houses. These were generally accepted as models for many years."

We can only speculate about where on the continuum from dugout, (left) to simple house (middle) to "fair house" (right) the houses of Thomas Lord, and his sons, might have fallen.
Perhaps from their arrival in 1636, until they became firmly established in the town in 1640, they had lived in each type in turn.

"From England they brought chests filled with sheets, pillow biers, blankets, rugs, table cloths, napkins, towels, curtains, cushions and the like. Most every family had one or more chests. Wealthier settlers unquestionably brought some furniture. All of them came provided with certain kitchen utensils- kettles, pewter dishes, and implements necessary in their simple culinary service. It is evident however that some of their early furniture was of home manufacture. The average family may have had a few treasures brought from an ancestral home, but for the most part the settlers of the first generation were content with the simple furniture that could be readily secured or was made in their cabinet shops."

"The town's orders show also that they needed many fences. Their yards and gardens were enclosed with paling. This was made of stakes driven into the earth and fastened to one or more horizontal rails. Pales were from three to six feet in length according to their use. They also fenced their cornfields and meadows."

Until the harvest at the end of summer, provisions for the population consisted mostly of corn traded or purchased from  local Indians living in the many villages that still surrounded the  fragile incursions of the Europeans.

Suddenly on April 23rd came the Wethersfield massacre, just a few miles south of Hartford. (see map here) Two hundred Pequots attacked Wethersfield, killed six men and three women and captured two girls. The Indians also kept the Saybrook Fort, at the mouth of the Connecticut River,  in a virtual state of siege, and captured and tortured to death many settlers. They even roasted alive one poor young man.

While the colony might have wanted to avoid violence, "this was a challenge they must accept or soon be overwhelmed. So on May 1st the Connecticut General Court declared an offensive war against the Pequots and ere long their little fleet was afloat on the Great River."

"Agaynst our mynds being constrayned by necessaty we haue sent out a company taking some Indians for guides with vs and before they set out their reverend leader gave them his blessing”                             Thomas Hooker

"In the three levies of the Pequot War, Hartford was called upon for sixty one soldiers. While Richard Lord is not known to have been among them, given his adventurous nature, and his later rise to military command in the Colony, it is more than likely.  In due time they attacked the Indians' stronghold at Mystic, near the coast, and by the end of summer, the power of the most dangerous tribe in New England was crushed forever. Many Pequot people were killed by the colonists and their allies; more were captured and sold into slavery in Bermuda, and some ran away from home. Those who managed to evade death or capture and enslavement dispersed. It would take the Pequot more than three and a half centuries to regain their former political and economic power in their traditional homeland region along the Pequot (present-day Thames) and Mystic Rivers in what is now southeastern Connecticut."

“In the last hours of moonlight, May 26, 1637, English Puritans, with Mohegan and Narragansett allies, surround the fortified Pequot village at Missituck (Mystic). Within an hour, 400-700 men, women, and children are put to the sword or burned to death as the English torch the village. Unfamiliar with war targeted at civilians, for the first time Native Tribes experience the total devastating effects of warfare practiced by Europeans. The Mystic massacre turned the tide against the Pequots and broke the tribe's resistance.  Many Pequots in other villages escape and hide among other tribes." "The English, supported by Uncas' Mohegans, pursue Sassacus and the retreating Pequots down the New England coast until most are either killed or captured and given to tribes friendly to the English.  Some are taken by the English as domestic servants, and a few are sold into slavery. Sassacus and a few of his followers escape, but ultimately are executed by the Mohawks as a token of their friendship toward the English."