Robert Seeley

Robert Seeley
Born	1602 Bluntisham, Huntingdonshire, England
Died	1668 New York, Province of New York
Nationality	English
Occupation	landowner, second in command in Pequot War,
Known for	Founder of Watertown, Massachusetts, Wethersfield, Connecticut, and New Haven, Connecticut
Spouse(s)	Mary Mason
Children	Nathaniel

Robert Seeley, also Seely, Seelye, or Ciely, (1602-1668) was an early Puritan settler in the Massachusetts Bay Colony who helped establish Watertown, Wethersfield, and New Haven. He also served as second-in-command to John Mason in the Pequot War.

Robert Seeley was born in Bluntisham-cum-Earith, Huntingdonshire, England in 1602. His father William was a joiner (cabinet maker) . In 1623 Robert moved to London, where he became an apprentice cordwainer (shoemaker). He married Mary Mason, widow of Walter Mason, in 1626 and began attending the church of the Puritan minister John Davenport that same year. On 16 September 1627 Robert and Mary's only child, Nathaniel, was baptized at St Stephen's Parish, Coleman Street, London.

In 1630 Robert, Mary and Nathaniel sailed with John Winthrop as a part of the original Puritan expedition to Massachusetts. Soon after arriving in the New World, Seeley became one of the original forty settlers of Watertown, one of Massachusetts' earliest Puritan communities. He employed his training in surveying by laying out many of the plots for the settlers. He was granted freeman status in 1631.

In 1633 or 1634, Seeley joined a ten-man expedition led by John Oldham to the Connecticut River. The group soon established Wethersfield, the first English settlement on the Connecticut River. Oldham's death in 1636, presumed by the colonists to be at the hands of the Pequot, helped touch off the Pequot War in 1637. Seeley served as second-in-command to Captain John Mason in the war. He was severely wounded by an arrow to the head in an attack on a Pequot fort along the Mystic River. Captain Mason, who called Seeley a "valiant soldier", wrote of the incident, "Lieutenant Seeley was shot in the eyebrow with a flat headed Arrow, the Point turning downwards. I pulled out the arrow myself." Seeley carried a permanent scar from the wound.

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