Mural of Roger Ludlow buying Fairfield, Connecticut in 1639. The four small figures in the background represent four prominent settlers that accompanied Ludlow. They are Thomas Newton, Edward Jessop, Thomas Staples and Edmund Strickland.
http://www.fairfieldct.org/content/10724/12146/13697.aspx
Edmund Strickland (1610-1670)
There is little information about the early life of Edmund Strickland. He was probably born in England, although it is unsure where. It is possible that he immigrated initially to Watertown, Massachusetts but that is not certain. It is likely, however, that he was a member of a group of Puritans and Congregationalists who received permission to leave Massachusetts and settle in Connecticut. Edmund first turns up in records as a minor figure in the settlement of Ancient Wethersfield around 1635 where some of these Massachusetts Puritans settled. He was a property owner there, but had sold his lot and moved on to the area of Fairfield by 1639.
In September, 1639 Roger Ludlow received permission from the General Court of Hartford to settle the area of Fairfield. He purchased a large tract of land from the Pequonnock Indians. The present town of Fairfield comes from that area, but also several other Connecticut towns including Westport and Bridgewater. There were only 8-10 families in that first group of settlers and Edmund Strickland was one of them. He is thought to have stayed there only a few years. He sold his land in Fairfield around 1640, and it is not certain if he stayed on there for a time or moved right away. He next shows up in records in 1656 when he appears on the Indian Rate List of Middleburg (Newtown), Long Island. I am not entirely sure what the Indian Rate List is, but this 1656 list contains the names of nearly every adult male settler in Middleburg in 1656 and involves the payment of a fee, and this seems to be a form of taxation.
There are few details about his family life. He married a woman named Hannah and two children are known, although it is thought there were other children. His daughter Sarah is our ancestor. Sarah was the maternal grandmother of John Hart, Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Sarah is interesting in her own right and will be the subject of another ancestor profile. Edmund died at Newtown in 1670.
Sources:
Jacobus, Donald Lines. (1944). Strickland notes. The American Genealogist, Whole Number 81, vol. XXI, 85-92.
Mural of the purchase of Fairfield by Roger Ludlow 1639. Retrieved from http://www.fairfieldct.org/content/10724/12146/13697.aspx
Schenck, Elizabeth Hubbell. (1889). The history of Fairfield, Fairfield County, Connecticut from the settlement of the town in 1639 to 1818. New York: Published by the author. (available at archive.org)
Review additional family information at this link: