There is a town of Hartford in VT. right above Hartland. It's not a large town; more of a village but it's near the CT. river and has farmlands. I did a google search for Hartford, VT and came up with many links with information. If I remember right, Hartland was once called Hertford but the name was changed because it was so similar to Hartford. Mary Lou vtwindso-request@rootsweb.com wrote: >Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Meadow Lands area (Kate Renner) > 2. Re: Meadow Lands area (Bev Lasure) > 3. Re: Meadow Lands area (Kate Renner) > 4. Re: Meadow Lands area (David C. Richardson) > > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Message: 1 >Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2008 16:29:58 -0500 >From: "Kate Renner" <k8ren@comcast.net> >Subject: Re: [VTWINDSO] Meadow Lands area >To: <vtwindso@rootsweb.com> >Message-ID: <02bb01c88163$924240a0$0201a8c0@Renner> >Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; > reply-type=original > >Thank you everyone for your very helpful suggestions. Now I have several >localities to study and hunt for records: Longmeadow MA, the Great Meadows >near East Putney VT, the Newbury area in Orange County VT, the Meadows area >of Hartford CT. > >Here is another twist to pinpointing the geography in question. (I didn't >want to complicate my original post with a detail that might be >conflicting.) The 1896 letter said that the Williams family lived in >Connecticut "on the Connecticut River near Hartford, owned a large landed >property in the Valley knows as Meadow Lands..... Simeon .... married >Tirzah Knight, the daughter of a wealthy neighbor, also an influential >family, some of whose brothers held high judicial offices in Connecticut." > >This would imply that they were in CT, and not VT (but I have read was the >original name of Hartland VT was Hertford, where this Williams family DID >live in 1780-1800 time period.) Simeon's parents, Samuel Williams and Lois >Allyn Williams are buried in Hartland VT.) But when this branch of the >Williams family lived in CT, they were in Stonington, Essex County, CT, not >near Hartford. And, two of Simeon and Tirzah's children who lived to the >1880 census listed that their mother was born in MA. That could be an >error, but the children, by then 84 and 76, were in different households, so >it would be two errors. > >I would think a family in the 1780s would be more likely to migrate from MA >to Hartland VT, not Hartford CT, but I am not as knowledgeable about New >England history as I need to be. Was there ever a time when borders were >redrawn and what was once MA territory became CT or VT? By the time that >Simeon and Tirzah married (about 1785), the Samuel Williams/Lois Allyn >family was definitely living in Vermont. So if Simeon married the daughter >of a neighbor, as the 1896 letter said, I think it is more likely that they >were neighbors in Vermont. Perhaps the story got jumbled over the years and >the 1896 letter-writer mixed up places. Would a family from MA be likely to >move to Hartford CT or on to less settled land in VT? What do you all >think? > >Thanks! >Kate > > > > >