Disambiguating John Arnold of Hartford (1683 – 1741)

John Arnold's gravestone. "Here lies the Body of Serg'nt
John Arnold who Died November the 30th A.D. 1741
Aged 58 years." Photograph by Jim Bancroft, originally
posted to John Arnold's Find A Grave page.

John Arnold died on November 30, 1741 and was buried at Center Cemetery in East Hartford, Connecticut.  His gravestone, shown here, says he was 58 years old at his death.  Simple arithmetic tells us therefore that he was born in 1683 or 1684.  Nevertheless, there are countless online trees that say he was born more than twenty years earlier, in 1662, 1663, or 1664. Similarly, his birthdate in FamilySearch's family tree has been edited multiple times, switching between 1683 and these other dates.

So what's going on here?  The short version is that there was a second John Arnold who was born in about 1663, and researchers have conflated these two people.

In this post, I will explain this in more detail, first by laying out the facts I know about John Arnold, then describing how I think this error originated, and providing enough information about the two John Arnolds to make it clear that they can't be the same person.

Obviously this is good fodder for a blog post. If I can also save other researchers some confusion, all the better!

John Arnold of Hartford

Working backwards from his gravestone, I pieced together some basic information about John Arnold. His will, dated November 14, 1741, provided a starting point. It gave me the name of his wife, Hannah; two sons, John and Henry; three married daughters, Hannah, Mary, and Sarah; and his deceased brother, Henry Arnold. Early Hartford records provided the birth dates for all five of these children along with a third son, Samuel, who died in 1739. The children were born between 1710 and 1722. Earlier than that, the marriage of John Arnold and Hannah Meakins was recorded on January 12, 1709/10.

The fact that John Arnold had a brother, Henry, who predeceased him turned out to be a particularly useful piece of information, and helped me find his parents. Hartford probate records include the will of a Henry Arnold who had two sons, Henry and John. They also have records for the probate of Henry Arnold Jr.  Both estates were probated on the same date, and in both cases administration was granted to John Arnold. Since these facts agree with the information from John Arnold's will, it seems likely that this his family.

The following graphic shows the family of John Arnold based on the information from these records.

The family of John Arnold of Hartford. John Arnold is shown with a heavy outline, along with his parents,
siblings, wife, and children.

Confusion about John Arnold's Birth

I have found no records of John Arnold's life prior to his marriage. So his gravestone is my only evidence of when he was born.  But many other researchers think he was born in the 1660s. Where are they getting their dates from? The confusion seems to come from another John Arnold, who lived in Haddam, about 25 miles south of Hartford on the Connecticut River. 

List of the children of Joseph Arnold with their ages.
From the probate records for Joseph Arnold. Elsewhere on
the page it is labeled, "Jos Arnolds Inventory July 1692."

One of the few records that mentions John Arnold of Haddam is the probate of his father's estate. His father, Joseph Arnold, died intestate on October 22, 1691. On the back of his estate inventory is a list of his children and their ages.  First on the list is "John Arnold 29 years old."  The inventory is dated "July 1692."  So assuming that Joseph's son Arnold was 29 years old in 1692, that would put his birth in 1662 or 1663, matching the mysterious birthdate sometimes associated with John Arnold of Hartford.

Could these two John Arnolds, in fact, be the same person? Perhaps the age on the East Hartford gravestone is wrong. But this seems impossible since the two John Arnolds have different fathers. The father of John Arnold of Hartford was Henry Arnold, and the father of John Arnold of Haddam was Joseph Arnold. Nevertheless, the confusion is understandable, especially if you don't have all of this information.

As an added twist, some of the trees that say John Arnold of Hartford was born in 1662 cite a family bible as a source.  I was curious to see what information was in bible and tracked it down at the Connecticut State Library, paying a few dollars to have it scanned and emailed to me.

The bible itself is an American Bible Society edition printed in 1849. On the family record pages are the births, deaths, and marriages of dozens of people. These names are mostly Arnolds, and the dates are primarily from the 1800s, including some as late as 1890. John Arnold of Hartford is among the earliest names listed in it, The dates for his death and birth match those from his gravestone. Included with the bible are about twenty pages of genealogical writing about the same names that are listed in the bible. This document describes the John Arnold's gravestone in East Hartford. Its author also speculates that the father of John Arnold was Joseph Arnold. ("I think this John to have been the son of that Joseph who...")

Based on this information, I conclude two things about the bible record and the associated notes. First, it was written in the mid-1800s, a century after the lifetime of John Arnold of Hartford. So the information about John Arnold is not first hand knowledge. Second, the owner of this bible didn't have access to any source I haven't already found, and likely had less information. In particular, it seems reasonable to conclude he or she hadn't found the wills and probate records I've described, as those would have refuted the theory that Joseph Arnold of Haddam was the father of John Arnold of Hartford.

Conclusion

There are no surprising conclusions here. But I hope that by spelling out what I have discovered about John Arnold of Hartford (and his namesake in Haddam), I can dispel some of the misinformation about his birth. If nothing else, this will give me something to refer to the next time I have to correct John Arnold's birthdate on FamilySearch.

Notes and Sources

I have not seen the original Hartford records that provide information about the marriage and children of John Arnold of Hartford, but they have been copied and indexed in many places. The marriage of John Arnold and Hannah Meakins appears in:

"Hartford Records," transcribed by Lucius M. Boltwood, New England Historical and Genealogical Register (NEHGR), vol. 13, p. 141, April 1859.

The births of their children are in the Barbour Collection of Connecticut Town Vital Records:

Ancestry.com, "Connecticut Town Birth Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection)," Hartford Vital Records 1635–1855, image 9 of 467.

Since the Barbour Collection included a record for the birth of Samuel Arnold in 1720, but Samuel wasn't mentioned in John Arnold's will, I inferred that he had died before the will was written. This was confirmed by finding his gravestone on Find A Grave, showing that he died on November 19, 1739. The genealogical notes in the John Arnold family bible (see below) states that this stone is nearby that of John Arnold.

The wills and probate records related to the two John Arnolds can be found in Charles Manwaring's Digest of Early Connecticut Probate Records.

John Arnold of Hartford:

Charles William Manwaring (ed.), A Digest of the Early Connecticut Probate Records, Vol III, Hartford District, 1729–1750 (R.S. Peck & Co., Hartford, Conn., 1906), p. 381.

Henry Arnold (father of John Arnold of Hartford):

Charles William Manwaring (ed.), A Digest of the Early Connecticut Probate Records, Vol II, Hartford District, 1700–1729 (R.S. Peck & Co., Hartford, Conn., 1904), pp. 459–460.

Henry Arnold Jr. (brother of John Arnold of Hartford):

Charles William Manwaring (ed.), A Digest of the Early Connecticut Probate Records, Vol II, Hartford District, 1700–1729 (R.S. Peck & Co., Hartford, Conn., 1904), pp. 460–461.

Joseph Arnold (father of John Arnold of Haddam):

Charles William Manwaring (ed.), A Digest of the Early Connecticut Probate Records, Vol I, Hartford District, 1635–1700 (R.S. Peck & Co., Hartford, Conn., 1904), p. 401.

The Manwaring transcription of Joseph Arnold's probate includes the list of Joseph Arnold's children and their ages. But it is not clear about the date of the document it is attached to.  Images of the original probate records are available from Ancestry's Connecticut Wills and Probate Records collection. The last page of this record includes the list of ages, excerpted above. Elsewhere on this page is written, "Jos Arnolds Inventory July 1692."

Connecticut, Wills and Probate Records, 1609–1999, online index and images, Ancestry.com, Hartford Probate district > Probate Packets > Antrim–Ayrault > M, 1641–1880 > images 417–423 of 1517.

Finally there is the John Arnold bible record:

"John Arnold of Hartford," Bible & Family Records, Vol 25, pp. 35–56, Connecticut State Library, Hartford, Connecticut.