"Thomas Rood was executed October 18, 1672 in Norwich, CT, and has the dubious distinction of being the only person executed in North America for incest. His daughter Sarah was publicly whipped. Their progeny, George Rood, was sent to live with his uncle Lt. Thomas Leffingwell. See Savage's Dictionary of English Settlers before 1692 Vol. 3: Rood, Thomas

http://delanoye.org/primary/savagevol3.txt.

-- http://www.daynesfamilytree.com/separatingfactfromfiction.htm

"LEFFINGWELL WHITE": As far as I can see, this surname is a composite created by genealogists, after the fact. All we actually know of any "Leffingwell-Rood" connection, is the fact that Thomas Leffingwell was named as the guardian of Thomas Rood's orphaned son, and called the child's "uncle" in the deposition. The term "uncle" neither does now have, nor has ever had, a precise meaning. In depositions of the time, such as wills, "brothers" and "sisters" also included "brothers-in-law" and "sisters-in-law", and "uncle" and "nephew" followed suit. Even today, the term is nebulous: I knew three "uncle"s as a child: One was the half-brother of my mother; another was the husband of my mother's sister; the third was the second husband of my mother's first husband's sister. Extending this thinking to the Rood and Leffingwell families, it is possible that Thomas Rood's wife Sarah was: 1. Thomas Leffingwell's sister, 2. the sister of Thomas Leffingwell's wife Mary, or 3. some other close relationship, such as adoption of both Thomases into Uncas's tribe. Concerning the women, nothing is known for sure about either of them. There are two traditions in the Leffingwell family: one, that Thomas L made a mysterious journey back to England to get a wife. There is no record of such a journey, either coming or going, and no marriage record. The other tradition is that Mary, or "Mary White" was a daughter of Uncas, the product of young Thomas L's close association with Uncas's Mohegans. I have seen a lot of baloney, trying to pass as genealogy, concerning Mary's identity. Thomas Leffingwell is considered by most kin, as having been the inspiration of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Hawkeye" or "Natty Bumpo" in his work "Deerslayer". In Hawthorne's story, Bumpo was a young white man who, I will note, had been adopted by a Delaware ("Lene Lenape") Indian. Bumpo's side-kick, Chingakskuk, is even described as a descendant of Uncas (who was reconstructed in the legend as a Delaware). Thomas Leffingwell was a footloose teenager of about 15 when he first had dealings with the Mohegans; and he had the sort of rapport and access with them that could only have come from being adopted into the tribe. If one rules out the phantom "trip to England", it is more than likely that the second family legend is true -- namely, that Leffingwell's wife was a Mohegan woman. Whatever Mary Leffingwell's identity, Thomas Rude's equally mysterious wife Sarah must have had the same identity (either English or Mohegan), for the two to have been sisters. Thomas Rood was as intimately involved with Uncas as Leffingwell was, so the possibility that both women were Indians is very real. This is especially true, since Thomas Rood bore the distinctive honor of having been buried in the "Sachem Burial ground" of Norwich, CT. As with Leffingwell, there is no primary evidence of an English origin for his wife. So much for the wives' identities. The other possibility is that Mrs. Sarah Rood was Thomas Leffingwell's sister. If one could produce a will or other such document that would prove this, I would be soundly convinced. As it stands, an English identity for both women is based on a questionable voyage that probably never happened; whereas a Mohegan identity is based on something very probable, but which Nathaniel Hawthorne considered unthinkable: that Natty Bumpo married Chingakskuk's sister. Apart from discovering some hitherto hidden records, there is little one can do to prove one case or the other. "Whole DNA" testing is a possibility. I have undergone such, and found myself to be 7% Native American, +/- 3%. Of course, this could have come from any of my lines, and I have some much less fetchy prospects than Uncas -- who accounts for only 0.1% of my DNA. If someone were a direct female descendant of either Mary (Leffingwell) or Sarah (Rood), of course, they could be DNA tested and end this discussion. As of yet, though, no such person has come forward.

2310. Thomas Mariner /Marriner

• b. ABT 1642 prob. French Huguenot
• Father: poss. Capt. Richard Mariner (see NOTES)
• m. (2311) unknown

2311. unknown

• b. ABT 1640/45 Norwich, New London, CT
• Family: (2310) Thomas Mariner /Marriner
• i. (1155) Mary Mariner

A Thomas Mariner immigrated to Salem, MA in 1650.

SRC: TURK, MARION G. The Quiet Adventurers in North America. Parts 1 and 2. Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1993. 670p. Page: 424 c/o ancestry.com