these provisions were adopted from a 1692 Massachusetts statute to the same 
effect, 85 the act was merely declaratory of the custom already existent in the 
colony by which intestate estates were distributed. 66 Presumably the Connecticut 
legislative intent was the same as motivated passage of the earlier 
Massachusetts law —concern for the younger children. 67 
Let us now examine the facts in the instant cause. In 1717 Wait Winthrop, 
of the well-known New England family, died intestate in Boston, leaving a 
son John and a daughter Anne married to one Thomas Lechmere, a merchant 
of Boston. In addition to personalty, Wait Winthrop died possessed of realty 
in the three colonies of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. 68 In 
February, 1717/8, letters of administration were granted to John Winthrop 
at a Court of Probates in New London, Connecticut, and a bond was 
entered into, conditioned upon making a true inventory of the personalty 
of deceased, exhibiting the same into the registry of the Court of Probates, 
and administering the same according to law. 89 For various reasons such in- 
and estate of any such intestate, as well real as 
personal, in manner following: That is to say, 
one third part of the personal estate to the 
wife of the intestate (if any be) for ever, besides 
her dower or thirds, in the housing and 
lands, during life, where such wife shall not 
be otherwise endowed before marriage; and all 
the residue of the real and personal estate by 
equal portions, to and among the children, 
and such as shall legally represent them, (if 
any of them be dead) other than such children, 
who shall have any estate by settlement 
of the intestate in his life-time equal to the 
others shares; children advanced by settlement 
or portions not equal to the others shares, to 
have so much of the surplusage, as shall make 
the estates of all to be equal; except the eldest 
son then surviving (where there is no issue of 
the first-born or of any other elder son) who 
shall have two shares, or a double portion of 
the whole; and where there are no sons, the 
daughters shall inherit as co-partners" {Acts 
and Laws of the Colony of Connecticut [1702], 
60). 
65 See 1 Talcott Papers, 148. This act was An 
Act for the Settling and Distribution of the 
Estates of Intestates (1 Acts and Res. Prop. 
Mass. Bay, 43). The language of the two 
statutes as to this specific clause is virtually 
identical, mutatis mutandis. 
68 See 3 Pub. Rec. Col. Conn., 396, 400; 4 
ibid., 48, 57-58, 70, 78, for controversy arising 
from distribution made according to this custom. 
See also the observations of Gershom 
Bulkeley on the custom in his Will and Doom, 
3 Conn. Hist. Soc. Coll., 117-18, 130, 226, 228 
and in the Wyllys Papers, 21 Conn. Hist. Soc. 
Coll., 340-47. By a 1638 order of the General 
Court in cases of intestacy the court was to 
"divide the estate to wiefe (yf any be,) children 
or kindred, as in equity they shall see 
see [sic] meet" (1 Pub. Rec. Col. Conn., 38). 
The provision is repeated in the 1650 Code of 
Laws {ibid., 553). For early distributions, see 
1 ibid., 45-46, 135-36, 168, 463, 487, 491. 
From these distributions it appears that a uniform 
double portion to the eldest son was a 
later development. 
67 The preamble stated: "Whereas estates in 
these plantations do consist chiefly of lands 
which have been subdued and brought to improvement 
by the industry and labour of the 
proprietors, with the assistance of their children, 
the younger children generally having 
been longest and most serviceable unto their 
parents in that behalf, who have not personal 
estates to give out unto them in portions or 
otherwise to recompence their labour" (1 Acts 
and Res. Prov. Mass. Bay, 43). 
68 7 Pub. Rec. Col. Conn., 572. A will had 
been drafted in 1713, but was left unexecuted; 
this may have been due to the financial intanglements 
of son-in-law Lechmere. On the 
other hand Winthrop must have known that 
at least in Massachusetts by statute his daughter 
would take one-third of his realty upon 
intestacy (6 Winthrop Papers, 5 Mass. Hist. 
Soc. Coll. [6th ser.], 367). 
69 Letters of administration were granted of the 
goods, chattels, and credits of the intestate. 
The bond entered into by Winthrop and one 
surety to Richard Christopher, then judge of