Hope Fletcher ¹

  General Notes:

Hope was the 1st wife of Reverend Samuel Stone, both Puritans from the Hertfordshire area of England. Upon refusal to conform to the near Catholic ways of the country at the time, they and several friends made the decision to depart England in 1633 on a ship called "Griffin". Later in the year (probably fall) they arrived in Boston, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony where they resided in "New Towne" (now known as Cambridge) until about 1636.

Sometime in 1636, along with their friend Thomas Hooker, they moved their congregation to a town called "Saukiog" as described by the Algonquin Indians in Connecticut, but renamed it "Hartford" after their home town in England shortly after arriving. After the town was built up, in about 1637-1639 Samuel and Hope raised a home on a lot located on the north bank of the "Little River", between the lots of Thomas Hooker's family and Puritan Elder William Goodwin. These were the founders of Hartford and many memorials exist here in their honor.

Hope and Samuel gave birth to four known children, possibly five, 1 son and 3 daughters, before she died in October of 1640. Sarah, John, Rebekah and Mary.

In Samuel's letters written to the Rev'd Thomas Shepard, he said that; "she smoaked out her days in the darkness of melancholy". Perhaps her death was from what we now call "Post-Partum Depression".

In the following year he married again to Elizabeth Allen.

  Noted events in her life were:

• Immigration: England, 1633, Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA.

Hope married Rev. Samuel Stone Puritan Minister, son of John Stone and Sarah Rogers, in 1625 in Essex, England. (Rev. Samuel Stone Puritan Minister was born on 18 Jul 1602 in Hertford, East Hertfordshire District, Hertfordshire, England, died on 20 Jul 1663 in Hartford, Hartford County, Connecticut, USA and was buried in Ancient Burying Ground, Hartford, Hartford County, Connecticut, USA.)