John Bissell

John Bissell was "the founder of the W. line of Bissells," settled at Windsor before 1640. His wife died there on 21 May 1641 (source). Their children were John, Thomas and Mary, born in England, and Samuel, Nathaniel and Joyce. In 1648 or 1649 the Connecticut court gave him "the monopoly of a ferry across the Conn. River," and Bissell's Ferry kept the name for a century.

About 1662/3 he gave his homestead and the ferry in Old Windsor to his son John "and rem. with his son Nathaniel to the east side, below the mouth of the Scantic," probably the first family to live there: "Thirteen years later (King Philip's War) the Bissells had neighbors and their house was fortified and garrisoned, as was Thos. Burnham's at Podunk" (Stiles 2:71). His will of 25 Sept 1673 leaves £10 to "my daughter Mary, the wife of Jacob Drake," £30 to "my daughter Joyce, wife of Samuel Pinney," £50 to his son John, 20 shillings to each grandchild, and the rest to "my four sons, John, Thomas, Samuel, and Nathaniel."

King Philip's War. On 21 Feb 1675/6, with the enemy "drawing down into these parts," Connecticut's council at Hartford ordered the east-side farms to bring their corn across the river and their people into garrisons, "and that there be garrisons kept at Nath: Bissell's, Tho: Burnham's, Mr. John Crowe's, and at Nabuck, and Mr. Willys his farme; provided, in every garrison there be six men at least, and that the garrisons be well fortified, and that noe place but such doe remayn inhabited on the east side the sayd River" (Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, 2:410). He was then about eighty-five. A month later Simsbury, a Windsor offshoot, was burned (2:423). His sons John and Nathaniel rode among the Windsor troopers paid "on war account" (Stiles 1:221), and on 27 Mar 1676 the council fined his son Samuel for letting his pressed horse go (PRCC 2:423). John Jr. had married Isabel, daughter of Major John Mason; her brother Capt. John Mason commanded Connecticut's Fifth Company at the Great Swamp Fight and "was there so severely wounded that he died next year" (Soldiers in King Philip's War, p. 465), and in May 1677 John Jr. was confirmed quartermaster of the Hartford County troop (PRCC 2:311).

He died on 3 Oct 1677, "æ. 86" (Stiles). His inventory, taken on 22 Oct 1677, came to £520 16s. 3d. (A Digest of the Early Connecticut Probate Records, 1:184, from the probate record p. 194).

Research: McMillan, Humphrey-Enos and Bell-Gerow: Notable Connections Research; the war: King Philip's War: the Connecticut valley, the Colony of Connecticut, Long Island and New Paltz.