Ezra ROBERTS

                   1. The earliest Roberts I have in our records is Mr. Roberts (Robbard) who was probably born in England about 1643. He was married to Catherine Leeke born 1641. The record does not show when he came to America but he died in Connecticut in 1726. The record shows his second of three children born in 1666 in Middletown, Middlesex, Connecticut.  The birth place of the first child, William born 1663, is indefinite so presuming that William was born in England would mean that Mr Roberts, came to America between 1663 and 1666.  There is an important narrative which gives us some insight about the lives and attitudes of these early settlers. If we believe that the framers of our constitution were inspired then we would do well to look back to the very early settlers and their choices about self rule.  Notice in the following narrative the sentence which I have high-lighted.  This note by Vernon R. Beeler 3 Mar. 2001.

The following quotation is taken from "Roberts Family - Connecticut to California," by Daphne R. Hartle. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah Book 929.273 R541 h, Pages 16 & 17.

To understand more clearly the background of our progenitors and know the conditions under which they lived, thereby better understanding ourselves, we must study the history of their day as well as the geography where they lived and worked and loved and reared their families.  Therefore, let us go back to when our first parents came to this country.

We find in the history the early settlers of New England came to America thoroughly imbued with the spirit of law and order.  Every possible condition of community living was anticipated and prepared for in England before a ship sailed for Massachusetts Bay, and but four years had elapsed after the landing at Plymouth before cattle were brought to the new country.  Accordingly, when the pilgrims sailed forth for in the Connecticut wilderness, we find them driving cattle before them.

We have also found that the settlers of Mattatuck were not a mere band of adventurers bound together by a common purpose and a common sympathy; nor yet a confederacy of independent individuals, at liberty at any time to withdraw from the general government voluntarily submitted to, but that they were pre-eminently a unit in regard to social, political and religious matters.  It was not each persons privilege to select for himself a portion of land on which to found a home and raise sustenance for his family, but the major vote of those men who were qualified to act determined where each one should pitch his tent, as it were, and where he should be privileged to expend his efforts to produce the good things of life.  When each man's vantage ground had been duly carved out for him, he could not build upon it such a domicile as he liked, and reside upon it when it suited him to do so; but in all things he was subject to the rule of the others, whether he would or would not.  In like manner he must not choose for himself what form of religious worship he would sustain, or whether he would support any form, but must submit to the governing voice of others in this, as in minor matters.

IN VIEW OF THE ABOVE ORDERLY AND DIGNIFIED ARRANGEMENT, IT IS INTERESTING  TO WITNESS THE EXTREME CAUTION AND CARE WITH WHICH THE COLONISTS APPROACHED A CONDITION INCIDENT TO THE NEW LIFE , AND FOR WHICH THEY HAD NO PRECEDENT IN ENGLISH LIVING. When the necessity lay before them "in their beginnings" to improve their land in a common way that should best advance the public good.  It was ordered that each town "should choose seven able and discreet men, who were to take the common lands belonging to each of the towns into sad and serious consideration, and after a thorough digesting of their own thoughts, they were to sit down under their hands in what way the lands might in their judgement be best improved for the common good."  If five men in any one town agreed on the way of improvement suggested, that agreement decided the law for that town.

In 1640, there was an order that anyone who performed a marriage should keep a record of it.  In 1644 it was ordered that the Town Clerk should keep a record of the marriage and births of the children afterward.  In 1650 marriages births and deaths were included in the requirement; but the time for rendering the certificate was extended from three days to one month.

We find in those records that Ephraim Roberts, son of Ezra and Mercy Adkins Roberts who was born 9 May 1746 in Middletown, married Phoebe Clark, 28 December 18770 in Waterbury and their son Daniel was born 7 December 1771 in Waterbury. (End of quotation)

2. Ephraim Roberts' proxy baptism was first done by Horace Roberts, his grandson, in 1841 in the Mississippi River at Nauvoo, Illinois.