THE HAZARD FAMILY 
     
    
   
   
    
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     ; ”I; : THOMAS HAZARD, 3 (Robert, 2; Thomas, I), was born 
     
     ‘ 1 3"??? 1n 1669; he died in 1746. He seems to have taken little inter— 
     
     \ est in town or Colonial affairs, for the records preserve a deep 
     
     ;* silence, when asked to give some items for a sketch of his life. 
     
     9) fi' The old books of land evidence, however, show his name more 
     
     . ‘7‘ “ often than that of any other of the old planters, as a purchaser of 
     
     large tracts ofland, — not bought of the Indians for wampum or glass beads, but 
     
     of the original purchasers, at good prices. Possibly the price £700, paid in 169 8, 
     
     for nine hundred acres, would have been considered a fair valuation one hun— 
     
     dred and fifty years afterwards, before this neighborhood had become a fashion— 
     
     able resort 1n summer. 
     
     One can but speculate as to the nature of the business that enabled Thomas 
     
     Hazard to invest so often, large sums in land. There could have been no suffi— 
     
     cient home market for the products of his large plantations, where all men were 
     
     planters; or for the 1ncrease of his stock of horses and cattle, but he may have 
     
     been a large exporter. If Diedrich Knickerbocker, that veracious historian, can 
     
     be trusted, the Narragansett pacers were even then 1n great demand. It may be 
     
     that he built the ships in which he exported his farm produce and horses. The 
     
     ships, if sold in England, with a deck—load of ship timber “ for the King’s navy,” 
     
     would have been a rich source of gain. There was certainly, previous to 174.6, 
     
     a ship~yard, “ Great Pier" and ware—houses, on the farm that he gave by deed, in 
     
     1739, to his son Jonathan. This farm, situated on Boston Neck is now known 
     
     as the Governor Brown farm and John J. Watson farm; and possibly the pier stood 
     
     where the Watson pier now is. About 174.6, or some time previous, Jonathan 
     
     Hazard sold to his brother George one— half of the pier and one—half of the ware— 
     
     houses and ship— yard. 
     
     In 1684., Thomas Hazard was admitted freeman from Portsmouth; after this 
     
     date his name appears only twice in the Colonial Records, Viz.: in 1696 as free— 
     
     man from Kingstown, and in 1717, as appellant in a law—suit.’ Previous to 1698, 
     
     he made his first purchase of land in Narragansett, buying of Samuel Sewall nine 
     
     hundred acres for £700, being the “land lately occupied by Robert Hannah." 
     
     In 1710 he also bought of Samuel Sewall three hundred acres for £500, also 
     
     five acres of salt marsh and eighty acres near the “ great pond.” In I703, and in 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     1 R.I. C01.Rec., vol. iv, p. 217. 
     
     8 1708,