Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ludlow, Roger
LUDLOW, ROGER (fl. 1640), deputy-governor of Connecticut, baptised on 7 March 1590, was the eldest son of Thomas Ludlow of Dinton, Baycliffe, and Maiden Bradley, Wiltshire, by Jane, daughter of Thomas Pyle of Bapton in Fisherton-de-la-Mare in the same county (Burke, Landed Gentry, 7th edit., i. 238). He matriculated at Oxford from Balliol College on 16 June 1610, but did not graduate (Reg. of Univ. of Oxf., Oxf. Hist. Soc., vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 311). In November 1612, being then of Warminster, Wiltshire, he was admitted of the Inner Temple (Admission Book, 1547–1660, ed. Cooke, p. 200). Accompanied probably by his younger brother George [see below] he sailed to America with Maverick and Warham in the ship Mary and John, and was one of the first settlers of Dorchester in 1630. Having been appointed an assistant of the Massachusetts colony by the general court in London on 10 Feb. 1630, he removed to Boston in the following May, and continued in that office for four years. He became deputy-governor in 1634, but having been defeated by John Haynes in the contest for the governorship in 1635, he complained bitterly of the unfairness of the election, and for this was left out of the magistracy; his violent temper was probably an additional cause of his want of success (cf. Winthrop, Hist. New Engl., ed. Savage, i. 28, 74, 132, 158). In consequence he removed with some of his adherents and settled at Windsor, Connecticut, becoming chief of the commission of eight instituted for the government of the settlers. In January 1639 he was a member of the Connecticut constitutional convention, and is believed to have drafted the document of constitution. In August he was sent by the general court as an adviser of the Connecticut forces in the second expedition of the Pequot war, accompanying John Mason. Since 11 April of this year he had been deputy-governor of Connecticut, the first to hold that office, but on the election as governor of his old adversary, John Haynes, whom he described as his ‘evil genius,’ he left Windsor and founded the town of Fairfield. In October 1639 he had to apologise ‘for taking up Uncon.’ At Fairfield he was annually elected a magistrate or deputy-governor, and in 1651, 1652, and 1653 was a commissioner in the congress of the United Colonies of New England. Early in 1641 he bought from the Indians the territory on the east side of Norwalk river. On 9 April 1646 he was appointed by the general court to codify the laws of Connecticut. His code was established in 1650, and afterwards published at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1672. It was known as ‘Mr. Ludlow's Code.’ For this service he has been styled the ‘Father of Connecticut Jurisprudence.’
The situation of Fairfield particularly interested Ludlow in the protection of the frontier against the Dutch and Indians, and with other New England commissioners, in consequence of an alleged plot of the Dutch, he voted in 1653 to make war against them, but Massachusetts refused to concur. The Manhadoes also threatened Fairfield, and the citizens then declared war, appointing Ludlow commander-in-chief; but the general court of New Haven discountenanced the project and punished his officers, Basset and Chapman, for attempting an insurrection and for raising volunteers. Ludlow, by reason of this ‘reflection on his patriotism,’ became incensed against the government, and declared that he would no longer live under its jurisdiction. He is generally believed, on the authority of Trumbull (Hist. of Connecticut, i. 218), to have embarked with his family for Virginia in April 1654, carrying the town records with him, a charge long after refuted by the discovery of the volume in Fairfield. He did in fact hire a vessel to go to Virginia, probably intending to take shipping there for England, but the captain was arrested for illicit trading, and his vessel, in spite of Ludlow's protests, was confiscated (New Haven Colonial Records, ii. 69–74). He was in England in August 1656, when he administered to the estate of his brother George. He appears, from a passage in the ‘Memoirs’ of Edmund Ludlow (p. 681, ed. 1698), to have settled in Ireland, but nothing further is known of his life. He was married and had three sons and three daughters. He was the brother-in-law of John Endecott [q. v.] His younger brother, George Ludlow (1596–1655), baptised at Dinton on 15 Sept. 1596, was also a prominent and influential colonist. His name appears on the list of those who desired, 19 Oct. 1630, to be made freemen of Massachusetts. In the beginning of 1631 he returned for a while to England. Grants of land to him, amounting in all to some seventeen thousand acres, are recorded in the Virginia Land Registry; the first, of five hundred acres, ‘in the upper county of New Norfolk,’ being dated 21 Aug. 1638. He was long county lieutenant of York county with the title of colonel, and was member of the council from 1642 to 1655. He died in 1655, leaving no issue by his wife Elizabeth. An abstract of his will is given in Waters's ‘Genealogical Gleanings in England’ (vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 172–3).
[Information kindly supplied by C. H. Firth, esq.; Connecticut Records, ed. J. H. Trumbull; Savage's Genealog. Dict. iii. 129; Mather's Magnalia, bk. ii. p. 33; Roger Ludlow, by W. A. Beers, in Mag. of Amer. Hist. 1882; Doyle's English in America, the Puritan Colonies; Stiles's Hist. of Ancient Windsor, pp. 687–8; Appleton's Cyclop. of Amer. Biog.; Allen's Amer. Biog. Dict. (3rd edit.); Drake's Dict. of Amer. Biog.]