Botsford Family Historical Association

Henry Botsford in England

The surname Botsford is derived from a place name in Leicestershire, England, originally Botolph's Ford. This became abbreviated to Botelesford or Botlesford, and later to Bottesford, whence Botsford.

The first known Botsford to emigrate to America was Henry Botsford whose family lived in Chalgrave, Bedfordshire, England, about 35 miles northwest of London in the early 1600's. Henry's three brothers and two sisters were all baptized in the Botsford ancestral All Saints Chalgrave Church, but for some reason Henry's baptism took place in Sundon, a few miles from Chalgrave where his parents, Edward and Alice [Prior] Botsford, were married November 9, 1606. Henry was baptized there as "Harry" on June 15, 1608.

In Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire, a few miles to the north of Chalgrave, Henry Botsford married Elizabeth Woolhead, the daughter of Alice [Lambert] and Thomas Woolhead, on January 26, 1631. To this effect, The New England Historical and Genealogical Society Boston Mass Register, October, 1987, page 358, states: A Henry 'Botshodd' married at Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire 26 January 1631/2 Elizabeth Woolhead. She was probably the daughter of Thomas 'Wolhed' and Alice Lambert.

There was political, intellectual and religious unrest throughout England at the time of Henry's birth in 1608 and afterward--Queen Elizabeth the First had recently died, Shakespeare was still writing plays, and the Protestant Reformation was not yet a century old. It was an age of steeply rising prices, and the land-owning gentry were reluctant to pay the increased taxes imposed by the crown whose income was steadily dwindling. The stories of Drake, Raleigh and Smith were stirring the hearts of Englishmen with ideas of the unknown sea and the unexplored wilderness of the New World. Preachers, spreading the word of their faith, gained such influence that many of their flock were willing to emigrate to America with them for religious and civic freedoms.

Peter Prudden was one of these Puritan ministers who with his followers from Hertfordshire and surrounding counties joined with Theophilus Eaton and Rev. John Davenport to emigrate to America. They made preparations without attracting attention for fear of punishment from the authorities and sailed from London in the spring of 1637 on two ships, the "Hector" and a second said to be called the "Martin." They arrived in Boston, MA, on June 26, 1637. Many in this Prudden Davenport Eaton Company became the Original Planters in Milford, CT, in 1639.

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Colonial Daughters of the 17th Century (26031)

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