Samuel Gunn

Samuel Gunn belonged to the first generation of the family born in America. The son of Jasper and Christian Gunn, he grew to adulthood in the Connecticut settlements his parents had helped establish. His surviving record is fragmentary, but it places him securely in Milford as a landholder, husband, and father during the closing decades of the seventeenth century.

Later genealogical compilations commonly give Samuel’s birth as 19 June 1648, probably in Milford, Connecticut Colony. No contemporary birth or baptismal entry supporting that exact date has yet been located, and some older genealogies place his birth considerably earlier. The year 1648 should therefore be treated as the accepted working date rather than a fully verified fact.¹

A Childhood in a Moving Household

Samuel’s early years unfolded during a period of movement in the Gunn household. His father, Jasper Gunn, had emigrated from England in 1635, settled first in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and joined the founders of Milford in 1639. Jasper later spent several years in Hartford before returning to Milford.

If the accepted 1648 birth date is correct, Samuel was born during the family’s Hartford years or near the beginning of them rather than in Milford, as many modern family trees state. The place of his birth remains uncertain.

His father practiced medicine, taught school, operated a mill, repaired metalwork, measured land, and held several positions of public trust. Samuel grew up in a household where practical ability and service to the community were closely joined. Yet the surviving records do not show that Samuel followed his father into medicine or any other identifiable trade.

Jasper died in January 1670/71. Christian Gunn survived him for nearly twenty years. Her will, dated 6 May 1690, confirms her place at the center of the Milford family and helps establish the relationships among Jasper’s surviving children.²

A Landholder at Long Hill

Milford’s early land records provide the clearest evidence of Samuel’s adult life. In the town’s record of divided lands, Samuel received a second half-division of approximately six acres on Long Hill. His parcel was bounded by common land, a highway, and land belonging to Silvanus Baldwin.³

This entry establishes Samuel as a property-holding inhabitant of Milford. Like most men who held divided land in seventeenth-century Connecticut, he probably depended at least partly upon agriculture. The record does not, however, identify him as a farmer, physician, craftsman, merchant, or public officer. No documented military service or formal town office has yet been found.

Samuel appears to have lived within the ordinary working life of the settlement. His land connected him to Milford’s system of common fields, roads, fences, and carefully measured private allotments. These were not merely property descriptions. They were part of the structure through which the town organized labor, responsibility, and membership in the community.

Marriage to Hannah Sanford

Samuel married Hannah Sanford, a member of another early Connecticut family. Milford church records record Hannah’s baptism on 4 June 1671. The exact date of her marriage to Samuel has not been found, but the marriage had taken place by the early 1690s.⁴

Samuel and Hannah had three known children:

• Jasper Gunn, born about 1693 and baptized at the First Church of Milford on 31 March 1695. He later married Ann Thomas in New Haven on 27 January 1719/20.

• Christian Gunn, born about 1695 and apparently named for her paternal grandmother, Christian Gunn.

• Daniel Gunn, born about 1698 and living after his father’s death.

The choice of the names Jasper and Christian preserved the identities of Samuel’s parents in the next generation. In an age when few personal letters or family papers survived, the naming of children often carried memory forward.

Death and Settlement of the Estate

Samuel died in or shortly before 1699, leaving Hannah with three young children. No gravestone or confirmed burial place has been identified, and no surviving will has been located. The court record instead concerns the administration of his estate.

On 12 November 1700, Andrew Sanford, administrator of Samuel Gunn’s estate, informed the court that Samuel’s widow was preparing to marry outside the jurisdiction. Hannah subsequently married Henry Gray of Fairfield. A later court entry, dated 19 March 1700/01, identified her as “Hannah Grey alias Gunn,” preserving both her new married name and her connection to Samuel’s estate.⁵

The administration record is brief, but it fixes several important facts. Samuel was dead by 1700; Hannah survived him; an estate remained to be administered; and the court continued to recognize her legal interest after her remarriage. Because minor children were involved, the settlement would also have protected the property rights inherited through their father.

Place in the Gunn Family

Samuel’s life did not produce the volume of civic records left by Jasper or by several later Gunn descendants. His importance lies elsewhere. He represents the quieter second generation—the children of immigrants who inherited land, established households, and transformed a colonial experiment into a permanent community.

His descendants formed a collateral branch of the Milford Gunn family. Through Jasper, Christian, and Daniel, the names and relationships of the founding household passed into the eighteenth century.

Samuel’s biography remains incomplete because the record is incomplete. Yet the surviving evidence is enough to place him within Milford’s landscape: a son of Jasper and Christian Gunn, an owner of land at Long Hill, the husband of Hannah Sanford, and the father of three children who carried the family into another generation.

Timeline

• 1648 — Traditionally dated birth of Samuel Gunn; exact date and place remain unverified.
• 1670/71 — Death of his father, Jasper Gunn, in Milford.
• Before the early 1690s — Married Hannah Sanford.
• About 1693 — Birth of son Jasper Gunn.
• 31 March 1695 — Jasper Gunn baptized at the First Church of Milford.
• About 1695 — Birth of daughter Christian Gunn.
• About 1698 — Birth of son Daniel Gunn.
• 1699 — Samuel died, probably in Milford.
• 12 November 1700 — Andrew Sanford appeared as administrator of Samuel’s estate and reported Hannah’s intended remarriage.
• 1700/01 — Hannah remarried Henry Gray and was subsequently recorded as “Hannah Grey alias Gunn.”

Family

Parents

• Jasper Gunn (1607–1670/71)
• Christian Gunn (died 1690)

Wife

• Hannah Sanford, baptized 4 June 1671; later married Henry Gray of Fairfield

Children

• Jasper Gunn, born about 1693
• Christian Gunn, born about 1695
• Daniel Gunn, born about 1698

Related Articles

• Jasper Gunn
• Christian Gunn
• Milford’s First American Generation
• The Gunn Family in Colonial Connecticut
• The First Church of Milford

Research Notes

The birth date

The date 19 June 1648 is widely repeated in modern family trees, including FamilySearch, but no accessible contemporary record has yet been identified as its source. Other compilations claim that Samuel was born at Roxbury in 1635. Until an original church, town, probate, or family record is located, the date and birthplace should remain qualified.

The name “Samuel Baldwin Gunn”

Later genealogies frequently call him Samuel Baldwin Gunn. No seventeenth-century record located during this review gives him a middle name. The Milford land record and estate references call him simply Samuel Gunn. “Baldwin” should not be used as part of his displayed name unless a contemporary document is found.

Occupation and community service

Samuel’s Milford landholding is documented, but no record located thus far establishes a particular trade, public office, church office, or military rank. Describing him as a Milford landholder is supported; assigning him a more specific occupation would exceed the evidence.

Death and burial

Samuel died by 1699 or early 1700. No gravestone or documented burial location has been found. Online memorials that give “burial details unknown” should not be treated as cemetery evidence.

Endnotes

1. “Samuel Gunn (1648–1699),” FamilySearch Ancestors. This is a compiled profile rather than a contemporary record and is cited only as the apparent source of the commonly repeated date.

2. Will of Christian Gunn of Milford, dated 6 May 1690 and proved 1 December 1690, Milford probate records.

3. Milford Third Book of Records, Milford Land Records, vol. 1, p. 165, recording Samuel Gunn’s approximately six-acre second division at Long Hill; accessible through the City of Milford’s Historic Land Records.

4. Susan Woodruff Abbott and Jacquelyn Ladd Ricker, Families of Early Milford, Connecticut (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1979), entries for Andrew Sanford, Hannah Sanford, Samuel Gunn, and Jasper Gunn; see also the indexed summary of Hannah’s baptism and marriages at WeRelate.

5. Donald Lines Jacobus, History and Genealogy of the Families of Old Fairfield, vol. 1 (Fairfield, Connecticut: Eunice Dennie Burr Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 1930), 234; summarized in the Hannah Sanford family record.