THOMAS STANFORD

We have very little information on our family line of Stanfords. We are offering this information which we distributed to our family in 2007.

Thomas STANFORD is the 7th great grandfather of Frances Gray and Gordon McNabb.

We have very little information on the Stanford family. We choose this Thomas Stanford (1650-1695) because our earlier researcher John Graves felt there was a connection. Here is some of what we have in his research. The two books mentioned are our best sources. All we know is that the Stanford family did come from England.

BIOGRAPHICAL: From Moses Stanford, Minuteman: A Stanford Family

History, San Jose, California, 1978. Compiled by Lois Remington Smith.

FHL US/CAN 729.273 St24sl:

Thomas Stanford whose parents and date and place of birth are

unknown, is the earliest ancestor to whom we can trace our lineage by

record. His name first appears in early New England on the records of the

church at Charlestown, Mass. when four of his children were baptized

there in August 1688. He is described in the entry as "ye blindeman now

entering into covenant." After the birth of two more children who were

baptized in the same church, Thomas died in Charlestown on 2 Dec 1695.

There is no record of any estate and he apparently lived in that town on

the Jones estate of his wife. At some unknown time he had married

Sarah (Crouch) Jones, widow of Thomas Jones, who at his death had left

her with five children and was a carpenter in

Sherborn where he witnessed a deed of David Stanford [born abt 1680] in

1720; William b. 4 Oct 1676; a fifth child not named in the estate

papers. Sarah was the dau of William Crouch and Sarah (Lamson) b. ca

1648-50, d. 11 Dec 1707 in Charlestown and was "buried by the town ."

The identity and origins of Thomas have eluded researchers since the

turn of the present century when E.D. Barber compiled a monumental

amount of data on the descendants of George Barbour, among them our

Stanford ancestors. (Barber, Edmund D., Descendants of Capt. George

Barbour of Medfield, 1643-1900 Vol. V Boston (1907) Mss. at New

England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston and Library of Congress,

Washington D.C. The compiler states that there are 3571 direct

descendants of David and Lydia (Morse) Stanford listed in his

manuscript.)

We add this information:

Most who have researched the matter have been inclined to the belief

that our Thomas was in some way related to a Robert and Thomas

Stanford who settled at Casco Bay (now in Maine) around 1648-50. The

fact that a Thomas Stanford of Casco Bay disappears from the meager

records that have survived for that area about the same time that our

Thomas appears in Charlestown records is tantalizing indeed but may

well be pure coincidence. (On two occasions during the Indian wars of

that period the Casco Bay settlements were almost completely

destroyed which drove many of the families to abandon their

settlements entirely and move back to the more secure areas.) There

were other Thomas Stanfords recorded in the same general time period

in New England: Thomas and Robert Stanford arrived in the Winthrop

Fleet of the 1630s but their final place of settlement is not certain.

They are claimed as ancestors by many. They may have been the same

who settled at Casco Bay as noted above. A Thomas Sandford was a first

settler in Dorchester in 1636. Thomas Staniforth is recorded in Concord

in 1644 but apparently left there. A Thomas Stanford served in the

Indian wars in the 1670s among soldiers recruited from the Rowley and

Boston areas and could have been our Thomas. The Staniford family of

Ipswich were connected to the Casco Bay Stanfords and are quite readily

documented. Capt. Thomas Staniford of this family served in the Indian

wars and was for some reason confused by Barber with our Thomas (b. 25

Jan 1712/13) who lived nearly a century later. There was also a "Mr.

Sandiford" living in Charlestown in March 1677-78 but the title "Mr."

denoted a definite status in those days which is not ascribed to our

Thomas in his records.

It has always been assumed that Sarah (Crouch) was the mother of

David Stanford (b ca 1680 and bp 19 Aug 1688), our ancestor, who was

apparently born in early 1780.