Post Two
Massachusetts Bay Colony (Husted/Seabrook/Sherwood/Goodspeed)
In 1628, the foundation was laid for a new colony in New England, by the name of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay and several enterprising men purchased a tract of land from the Council of Plymouth for the purpose of settling it. During the same year, the purchasers sent one hundred colonists, to begin a settlement at Salem. In 1629, the Massachusetts Company obtained a charter from the king and in June, two hundred additional settlers arrived, bringing with them horses, sheep and goats, and large stores of necessities. A part of these emigrants, not being pleased with the situation of Salem formed the settlement of Mishawam, or Charlestown.
The following year, 1630, the settlers, known as proprietors, agreed that the charter and powers of government should be transmitted from London to the colony in America. John Winthrop was chosen governor and was accompanied to Massachusetts by three hundred families, many who were “distinguished for their quality”, as well as their intelligence and piety. This company was to have settled at Charlestown; but the prevalence of a fatal sickness attributed to bad water, induced many of the emigrants to other settlements, some at Dorchester, others at Roxbury and Watertown. This was the beginning of Boston, which for a short time was called Tri-Mountain by the English.
The arrival of Governor Winthrop found the plantation in a distressed and suffering state. In the preceding autumn the colony consisted of three hundred inhabitants; eighty of these died over the winter, and many of the rest were weak and sickly. Their supply of corn was not sufficient for more than a fortnight and their other provisions were nearly exhausted. In addition to these evils, a coalition of Indian tribes was forming with the goal of exterminating the colony. Their strength was confidence in their God. Many of the planters who arrived that summer were sickly, disease continued to rage through the fall and by the close of the year, the number of deaths exceeded two hundred.
The winter was very severe; few of the houses were comfortable and unused to such a severe climate many froze to death. The inconveniences of their accommodations increased the incidence of disease, but the worst was yet to come. During the continuance of the severe season, their stock of provisions began to fail. Although they shared as long as any provisions remained, many subsisted upon shellfish, groundnuts, and acorns, which, at that season, were found with only the greatest difficulty.
In consideration of their perilous condition, the sixth day of February was appointed a day of public fasting and prayer, to seek deliverance from God. On the fifth of February, the day before the appointed fast, the ship Lion, which had been sent to England for supplies, arrived laden with provisions. These provisions were distributed among the people according to need and their appointed fast was exchanged for a day of general Thanksgiving.
Early in 1631, two important rules were adopted at a meeting of the electors in General Court, namely, (1) That the freemen alone should have the power of electing the governor, deputy governor and assistants, and (2) that “freemen” were limited to those who belonged to some church within the limits of the colony.
In 1634, a still more important change occurred. The settlements had become so numerous and extended, that the freemen could not, without great inconvenience, meet and transact the public business. It was therefore ordered that the whole body of the freemen should be convened only for the election of the magistrates who would have the power of enacting the laws. “Thus,” observes a 1800s historian, “did the epidemic of America break out in Massachusetts, just fifteen years after the first appearance of colonists in Virginia. The trading corporation had become a representative democracy.”
In 1633 and 1634 our first ancestors arrived and settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, most did not stay long but moved to the south and west to found Springfield Massachusetts, Hartford and Fairfield Counties in Connecticut and Newark New Jersey.

Post Three
Hartford, Wethersfield and Fairfield Connecticut

Disagreements over religious beliefs led to the formation of a number of new colonies. In 1636 Thomas Hooker (1586-1647), a Cambridge, Massachusetts minister, established the first English settlement in Connecticut. Convinced that government should rest on free consent, he extended voting rights beyond church members.
In 1635 a Cambridge congregation left for Hartford (Newtown).  With no roads or shelter the journey was long and tedious and although they arrived safely their possessions and provisions having been sent by water did not.  During the winter of 1635 many perished from famine, as did many of their cattle.  In the spring of 1636 the migration began anew led by the Reverends Hooker, Warham and Smith.  People arrived by land and provisions by sea and there were now three towns with a large number of inhabitants in the wilderness without any laws (civil or criminal) to govern them.  It should be noted that the principles, practices and forms of an independent government was heretofore unknown to them as they had been educated under a monarchy.  The first year no courts were organized, officers of the churches governed and disciplined their members.  Any trials were most probably conducted under Mosaic Law and it became necessary to organize a body to enact laws not provided for in the Bible.  In 1636 this body was enlarged to include a House of Representatives in order to address the declaration of war against the Pequot Indians.  During the Pequot War ninety men under Captain Mason sailed down the Ct River and engaged the Pequots at Fort Mystic. In the end two colonists and six hundred Indians lost their lives.  The Pequots became virtually extinct as a nation but the colony thrived.

Several of our ancestors were early settlers of Hartford.  Some arrived with Tomas Hooker’s “Adventurers” and were designated “original proprietors” and others arriving later were designated as “settlers”.  The importance of these designations had considerable impact for the later southern and western movement of our ancestors as the “proprietors” not only could buy land but had rights to proportional shares of the lands held by the colony in common and might hope to someday secure farmland for their sons.  On the other hand, “settlers” could expand their land only at the courtesy of the town and although they were deemed an acceptable addition to the settlement they had no assurances of land for later generations.  This caused several of our ancestors to sell their lands and cast their lots with the original proprietors of Fairfield County.  Others presumably left Hartford to follow family members to Fairfield or because they felt there would be greater opportunity.

Early Hartford ancestors included several intermarried families by the surnames of Husted, Sherwood, Seymour, Roscoe, Marvin, Brundage and Hubbard who over several generations survived as Husteds.  Today many of these names are commonly used as street and landmark names around the Hartford area.

Post One

Introduction
To begin and be quite clear I have tried to be as scrupulous as possible in assembling these stories and histories but in some cases I have had to rely on logic and “within reason” for some familial connections. It is by no means meant to be a genealogical bible but more a story of where we came from, what was happening around our ancestors and what their role was. This chapter is arranged in a manner that attempts to illustrate the arrival of my paternal ancestors in this country in the chronological order they arrived merged into the history of the geographic area in which they settled. 
My earliest McDonald ancestors arrived, not with the pilgrims but a few years later with the Massachusetts Bay Company. As unlikely as it may sound they ultimately ended up in West Virginia, as did our ancestors who came in through Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia but I am getting ahead of myself. My goal is providing some understanding of how and why they arrived and moved. I always had considerable information about my mother’s ancestors but only knew that my father’s family was from West Virginia and as far as I knew they were poor coal miners. As a means of explanation, I grew up in the city that had been the Silicon Valley of the early 1900s. The automobile was the most modern technology of the period and the rubber industry that supplied the tires for those autos was integral to that industry. Akron Ohio was the hub of the rubber industry. Unlike the rust belt city it became during the 1960’s, Akron had professional sports teams, culture, parks and a population that was growing in leaps and bounds. This industry required both skilled and unskilled labor and people poured in, mostly from the south. Early on the “old-timers” welcomed these emigrants with the strange accents until the financial pressures of the great depression caused them to be poorer and they became a drain. It was in this environment that my father spent his formative years and despite athletic prowess, professional accolades and college degrees he never got over feeling that he was inferior. Imagine my surprise to find that not only was he descended from early colonists, revolutionary soldiers, large landowners but quite possibly British royalty. As this effort is aimed only at American ancestors and I am describing their European roots only as they provide their reasons for emigrating I will stop here and talk briefly about one Brit. Colonel Robert Bolling, my 9th great grandfather going back through the Lake/Poole ancestral line was a descendant of the Boleyn family of fame during the reign of Henry VIII. Even though Anne Boleyn did not provide an heir, her sister Mary is said to have had a torrid affair with the king and bore one or two children believed to have been his offspring. Her son, Henry, our 13th great grandfather, was one of these children. Consequently, we are quite probably descended from Henry. The other possibility is that Mary’s husband Thomas Carie was Henry’s father; Thomas was descended from Edward I and Richard the Lion Heart. Either way my father had nothing to be ashamed of. Now, I’ll stop my digression and in future posts get to the task at hand, my paternal ancestors and their colonization of this country which is probably much more important than some sleazy king.