George Felt

George Felt (February 28, 1601 – )

Felt was born at Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, England, and is considered the first of the Felt family in America.

He went to Charlestown, Massachusetts Bay Colony, the following year where he helped form a government with thirty-three other colonists in 1633. He erected a cabin at the original settlement, southwest of what was then called Mill Hill, now known as Town Hill, near what today is Galvin Memorial Park. In 1638, an inventory of the some 68 acres of land that Felt owned in Massachusetts included: "One Dwelling house with a garden plott, scituate on the south west of the mill hill, butting southward upon Charls river, northeast upon crooked lane, bounded on the norwest by Nicholas Trerrice, and on the southeast by Ben. Hubbard." He purchased of land at Broad Cove from John Phillips, a Welshman.

In 1684, military officer and fellow Englishman Walter Gendall claimed to own all of Felt's two thousand acres beside Casco Bay. He had purchased one hundred acres from him in 1680.

Personal life Felt's family in Bedfordshire, England, went by the family name Felce. He called himself George Felch, however, when he moved to America. He began to be known as George Felt in his later years.

In 1630, Felt married 29-year-old Elizabeth Wilkinson (1601–1694), with whom he had six children: Elizabeth (born ), George Jr. (1638–1676), Mary (1639–1725), Moses I (1641–1650), Aaron and Moses II (1651–1733). He later lost most of the land in a deed dispute though his son, Moses II, and grandson George III, retained 300 acres.

In 1676, Felt's son and Mussel Cove resident, George Felt Jr., was killed on Peaks Island during the conflicts. He had a "fraught history with the Wabanaki, including land disputes," and was killed in an attack at a stone house in September 1676. The deceased's wife of fourteen years, Londoner Phillippa Andrews, moved to Salem, Massachusetts Bay Colony, where she married twice (to Samuel Platt in 1682 and Thomas Nelson in 1690) before her death in 1709.

Legacy Descendants of George Felt (Felt family) and Elizabeth Wilkinson include American architect John H. Felt; the LDS Church's Children's Organization President Louie B. Felt (by marriage); American politician Nathaniel H. Felt; Egyptologist and inventor George Henry Felt; American Revolutionary War soldier Captain John Felt, who repulsed the British in February 1775 at the Salem Gunpowder Raid; and the American inventor and industrialist Dorr Felt.

George Felt's grandson Joshua Felt (1691–1744), son of Moses II, married Ann Walcott, the younger half-sister of the famed Mary Walcott, one of the "afflicted" girls called as a witness at the Salem Witch Trials in 1692-93. Ann's grandmother was Ann Holyoke Putnam, whose family founded Holyoke, Massachusetts. Felt was the great-grandson of George Felt Jr., who was killed in a Wabanaki raid on Peaks Island, a century earlier, in 1676. thumb Home of the great-great-grandson of George Felt and Elizabeth Wilkinson, Sgt. Peter Felt, Temple, New Hampshire. Known today as the Felt-Tobey-Scott House

George Felt's great-great-grandson Sergeant Peter Felt (1745–1817) was one of six Felt brothers who served in the American Revolution, including at the Battle of Lexington and Concord; all survived, though two were wounded. Peter was a sergeant at the Battles of Saratoga. and among the early settlers of Quincy, Illinois, where he helped found a church.