[[Category:Puritan Great Migration]]

[[Category:Founders of Hartford]]

{{Estimated Date}}

{{Puritan Great Migration}}

== Disputed Surname ==Bigg/Bigge was listed on this profile as the Widow Mary Betts' maiden name. However, there is no evidence to support the name Bigg. It is probably a confusion with [[Bigge-54

Mary (Bigge) Betts]] the wife of a different [[Betts-116

John Betts.]]

==Biography==:Mary is one of only two women to be recognized as a [https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Founders_of_Hartford%2C_Connecticut Founder of Hartford][[#S5]] ''Society of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford''

=== Speculation ===No colonial records, list her age, maiden name, parents, place of origin, or her husband's given name.

There is some evidence that her husbands name may have been John and they were from the area of Claydon, Oxfordshire, England. Her husband (perhaps John) has no records in New England. He may have died prior to the families emigration, or just shortly after their arrival in New England.

It has been suggested that she was in Hartford early that she may have come with the Rev. Thomas Hooker's congregation in 1636.

=== Hartford ===Widow Betts was an early member of the First Church of Hartford,Barbour, Lucius Barnes. ''Families of Early Hartford, Connecticut.'' Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co. , 1977 where she occupied herself as the schooldame.

By Jan 1639/40 Widow Betts was an inhabitant of Hartford with Right in undivided lands.Hartford Town Votes: [https://archive.org/stream/collectionsofcon06conn#page/20/mode/2up/search/Betts p.20] She was granted four acres 3 Feb 1639/40Hartford Town Votes [https://archive.org/stream/collectionsofcon06conn#page/24/mode/2up/search/Betts p. 24] Her ownership of land was by the town's courtesie with liberty to fetchwood and keepe Swine or Cowes By proportion on the Common.Original Distribution: [https://archive.org/stream/collectionsofcon14conn#page/500/mode/2up/search/Betts p. 501] Her name appears as Mary in the land records as an abutter to other lands,Original Distribution: [https://archive.org/stream/collectionsofcon14conn#page/116/mode/2up/search/Betts p. 116], [https://archive.org/stream/collectionsofcon14conn#page/454/mode/2up/search/Betts p. 454] and it is mentioned that Seth Grant sold her a small parcel of land (Lot #64 on the map)Original Distribution: [https://archive.org/stream/collectionsofcon14conn#page/330/mode/2up/search/Betts p. 331]12 June 1666 12 acres granted, in the right of wid: Betts,on theeast side of the Great River. Original Distribution: [https://archive.org/stream/collectionsofcon14conn#page/492/mode/2up/search/Betts p. 493] A twelve acre parcel on the east side of the Great River, that had been his mothers was sold by JohnBetts 22 Jun 1678.Original Distribution: https://archive.org/stream/collectionsofcon14conn#page/534/mode/2up/search/Betts p. 534.

Jacobus in ''Hale, House and Related Families'' points out that there were two schools in Hartford at the time. One was taught by William Andrews, and "another probably under humbler auspices, as a primary school ... The mistress of this 'woman's school' held, of course, a somewhat humbler position." Jacobus, Donald Lines, et al., Hale, House and Related Families, Mainly of the Connecticut River Valley (Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1952)

===Death===Information on the death of Goody Betts, was transmitted in a letter from Rev. Samuel Stone to Mr. Thomas Shepard a pastor at Cambridge: dated Hartford 19 July 1647. It speaks of the death of Rev. Thomas Hooker, 7 July 1647 of an epidemic fever. Others such as Mris Hookerwere taken sick and some died. "Goody Bets the schooldame is dead."Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Vol VIII-Fourth Series. ''The Mather Papers.'' Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1868. [https://books.google.com/books?id=dxxwC0f_a0AC&pg=PA545 p. 545]

===Children===#[[Betts-118

Mary Betts]] b. 1623 England, d. 1684 m. 1642 [[Boreman-90

Samuel Boardman]] b.1615 d. 1673[[#S4]] ''New England Marriages Prior to 1700'' pg.66#[[Betts-384

Martha Betts]] b. 1625 Claydon Oxfordshire, England d. April 13, 1701 at Wethersfield, Connecticut, m. January 16, 1655 at Wethersfield, Connecticut [[Graves-200

Nathaniel Graves, Sr.]], b. 1629 Kent, England, d. September 28, 1682 Wethersfield, Connecticut[[#S4]] ''New England Marriages Prior to 1700'' pg.319#[[Betts-55

John Betts]] b. May 5, 1627 at Claydon Oxfordshire, England, d. May 6, 1690 at Huntington, Suffolk, New York. m. 1) about 1660 at [[Elderkin-33

Abigail Elderkin]], b. September 13, 1641 at Dedham, Massachusetts, d. January 27, 1686, divorced 1672;[[#S4]] ''New England Marriages Prior to 1700'' pg.66[[#S2]] ''Genealogical records of Thomas Burnham'' pg.58 m. 2) March 13, 1672 at Huntington, Long Island to [[Smith-7448

Abigail Smith]] widow of John Adams b, 1632 at Werhersfield, Connecticut, d. 1673 at Long Island City, Queens, New York.[[#S4]] ''New England Marriages Prior to 1700''

::4. ? (probably b. c. 1621) An article in ''The AmericanGenealogist''written by Gale Ion Harris in 2005 makes an excellent circumstantial argument that the first wife of [[Keeler-12

Ralph Keeler]] was the unnamed daughter of Mary Betts of Hartford,a widowed schoolteacher. Mary Betts had a son named John Betts. Among the evidence is two prescriptions written on 11 August 1659 by Dr. John Winthrop, Jr. They are for "KeelerRalfe, 12 y (at J Betts)" and "Graves [''blank''] his wife (S Smith's daughter)." Then on 21 February 1660[?1] this entry, "Keeler Elizabeth, 7 yr ... paine in stomack ... hir father lives at Norwalk she lives at her uncle Joh[n] Betts at Wethersfield. Since the two wives of John Betts are known (and neither was a sister of Ralph), it is likely this reference to him as "uncle" meant that an unknown sister of John Betts had married Ralph Keeler.Harris, Gale Ion, 2005 "The First Wife of Ralph Keeler of Hartford and Norwalk, Connecticut: Probably an Unknown Sister of John Betts of Wethersfield." ''The American Genealogist.'' [http://www.americanancestors.org/databases/american-genealogist-the/image/?volumeId=13263&pageName=177&rId=235863066 AmericanAncestors.org.] accessed 2 June 2016, Vol 80, Page 177. Ralph's children were probably placed, after their mother's death, with her family (their uncle John Betts and his wife) in Wethersfield. The children may have remained there until Ralph remarried.

==Sources==

*Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society. Volume XIV. '''Original Distribution''' of the Lands in Hartford among the Settlers 1639. Hartford, Conn. : Published for the Society, 1860*Records of the Particular Court of Connecticut 1639-1663 Hartford: Conn. Historical Society,1928*Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society. Volume VI. '''Hartford Town Votes''' Vol 1 1635-1716. Hartford, Conn. : Published by the Society, 1897*Barbour, Lucius Barnes, 1982, [http://search.ancestry.com/Browse/BookView.aspx?dbid=48020&pageno=57 ''Families of Early Hartford, Connecticut''], Genealogical Publishing Co. Inc., Baltimore, Maryland and Connecticut Society of Genealogists, Inc., Glastonbury, Connecticut pp.57*[[#S2]] Burnham, Roderick Henry, 1884. [http://search.ancestry.com/Browse/BookView.aspx?dbid=15702&iid=dvm_GenMono000945-00036-0&sid=&gskw= ''Genealogical records of Thomas Burnham, the emigrant, who was among the early settlers at Hartford, Connecticut, U.S. America, and his descendants.'']] Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co.,Hartford, Connecticut*[[#S4]] Torry, Clarence A., 2004, [http://search.ancestry.com/Browse/view.aspx?dbid=3824&path=New+England+Marriages+Prior+to+1700 ''New England Marriages Prior to 1700.''] Genealogical Publishing Co. Inc., Baltimore, Maryland*[[#S5]], [http://www.foundersofhartford.org/founders/index.htm ''Society of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford'']*Jacobus, Donald Lines, et al., Hale, House and Related Families, Mainly of the Connecticut River Valley (Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1952)

== Acknowledgments ==*WikiTree profile Biggs-124 created through the import of Lent_Vise_2011-05-11aa.ged on May 26, 2011 by [[Sypniewski-1

Bryan Sypniewski]]*Profile adopted by [[Thompson-9019