This websites goals:
1. Identify the ancestors and descendants of
THOMAS NORTON of Guilford (1608-1648)
2. Assist with the reconstruction of all Norton branches.
3. Assist researching any surname connected to Nortons.
4. Assist any genealogist in need.
THOMAS NORTON came to Guilford with Rev. Mr. Whitfield in 1639, was a signer of the Plantation Covenant, and served the town as its miller until his death in 1648. He is stated to have been a church warden of Mr. Whitfield's parish at Ockley in Surrey, a few miles south of London, England, and has been thought to have been connected with the NORTONs of Sharpenhow, Bedfordshire, (New England Register, Vol. XIII., p., 225).
His home lot in Guilford contained two acres and was on the west side of Crooked Lane (now State Street.) This lot fell to his son, JOHN NORTON, on THOMAS NORTON's death, and afterwards was occupied by Lieut. WILLIAM SEWARD, his son-in-law. THOMAS NORTON also owned seventeen and one-half of "upland in the plains" and a parcel of one and one-half acres of marsh land by the sea-side. His wife was named GRACE and her maiden name is supposed to have been WELLS.
Deacon LEWIS M. NORTON of Goshen, Conn., mis-identified him with THOMAS NORTON, son of WILLIAM NORTON and his second wife Denice Cholmsly, and put the date of his birth as about 1582. As resources show that Thomas was 'a young man' when he died in 1648, it is not possible that he was the Thomas born in 1582 as he would have been 66 at that time and not a young man. It is most likely that he was the son of Robert Norton and Anne Hare.
