Reinold Marvin

The emigrant of the Lyme Marvins, elder brother of Matthew Marvin of Hartford and Norwalk. Baptized at St. Mary’s, Great Bentley, Essex, in 1594, son of Edward and Margaret Marvin, he made his home at Great Bentley, where the parish books show him an overseer in 1625 and 1637 and churchwarden in 1627, 1633 and 1634. In 1636 he was assessed two shillings and sixpence for the Essex Ship Money, a tax the Marvin genealogy thinks “led him to follow his younger brother across the ocean” (source).

He is at Hartford in 1638, where Matthew already lived, then at Farmington, where he built a house on a five-acre home-lot beside Mr. Wyllys’s, and then at Saybrook, where he was made a freeman on 20 May 1658, “then in his 64th year,” and was one of those who stayed when part of the church moved away. He held no public office, but the colony records give him the title “Mr. Reynold Marvin.” He built a house on the east side of the river, which became Lyme, and at his death his largest holdings were there.

His wife Marie died in the summer of 1661, her death blamed on witchcraft. His will, “Written from Mr. Renold Marvins mouth” on 23 May 1662, begins: “Unto my son Renold Marvin I giue my house and all my lands. I will that unto each of my grand children there be provided and given a bible as soone as they are capable of using them.” The household goods were to go two parts to Reinold and one to his daughter Mary, who was also to dispose of “my wiues waring cloaths”; his son-in-law William Waller was executor. The inventory of 28 Oct 1662 came to £820 13s. 6d., including “17 Cowes” and “4 oxen,” then an unusual number for one man, and “boockes 40s”; Rev. Sylvester Judd called it “a large sum for that period of Colonial history” (source). His burial place is not known; two old uninscribed stones near his son’s grave in the Duck River burying ground may mark it.

Research: research/hatten/Hatten_Philbrick_Marvin.md.