Mercy Ruscoe

Sawbridgeworth, Hert, England

Birth Notes

b. bet 1604 and 1610.

Farmington, Hartford, CT

General Notes

She married secondly, 25 Nov. 1655, as his second wife, John Steele of Farmington, Conn., who died there 27 Feb. 1664/5.

The next chapter in our history opens with the surprising record at Farmington of the marriage on 25 Nov. 1655, of the widow to the Hon. John Steele, who recorded the marriage in his own hand. But this does not show that the marriage took place in Farmington, rather than in Norwalk, where Mercy lived. It was very common then for the man to record his marriage where he lived, for obvious reasons connected with inheritance. The apparent precipitancy of the marriage of Richard's widow to John Steele may be remarked upon here. Steele undoubtedly knew Richard Seymour and his wife and family before they removed to Norwalk a few years earlier. Mercy, the widow, was no longer young, she had but moderate means and had four sons, of whom three were minors. She was no great “catch,” it would seem, for one of the foremost men of the Colony. Must she not have been uncommonly engaging or possessed of rare qualities of mind and heart to have led the Hon. John, even in those days of dearth of available women, to marry her and bring her back from Norwalk and her Ruscoe relatives there, with her three younger sons? Can she be blamed if it be considered who he was -“his place in the sun” - to have made a “marriage of convenience,” if such it was, though we can only speculate on that matter.

John Steele was one of the eight Magistrates appointed in 1636 by the Colony of Massachusetts Bay to govern Connecticut, before that Colony had established a jurisdiction of its own. From then until 1658 he served without intermission in the General Court or Assembly, as an elected Deputy for Hartford through the year 1645, and thereafter for Farmington. For nearly twenty years he was recorder [Town Clerk] of Hartford, and served for a time in the same capacity for Farmington, after his removal to that town. His time and energies were thus largely devoted to the public service for nearly a quarter of a century. The young Seymours, under his tutelage, must have met many of the leading men of the colony, and have acquired a considerable knowledge of public affairs.

Mercy's remarriage seems to have been a happy one. The date of her death is not known, but she survived her able and distinguished husband, who died 27 Feb. 1664/5. In his will, dated 30 Jan. 1664, he bequeathed to his “dear and loving wife Mercy Steele the house wherein I now dwell and the appurtenances belonging to it.”.

On Mercy's marriage to the Hon. John Steele, her three minor children, John, Zachariah and Richard, became members of his household in Farmington. They could hardly have been better placed in any Connecticut household of the time. It is a pleasure to record that the interests of Richard Seymour's minor children were safeguarded. We quote from Selleck's “Norwalk,” p. 154:

Click here for details of Mercy's family with Richard Seymour