GENERATION 11

GENERATION 10

Biography

WILLIAM TUTTLE (TUTHILL) came to Boston on the ship Planter in 1635 at the age of 26, with his wife ELIZABETH MATHEWS, age 23, children John, Anne and Thomas, his mother, ISABEL, 2 brothers and their wives and children. The ship left London (Gravesend) April 2, 1635 (possibly April 10) and arrived in Boston June, 7, 1635.

He was permitted to build a windmill in Charlestown in 1636 and was a proprietor there. ELIZABETH united with the church at Boston July 24, 1636. She was dismissed to the church in Ipswich, Sep. 8, 1639, and they doubtless lived there for a time.

WILLIAM was part owner of the ketch Zebulon, of Ipswich, and was associated to some extent in business with John Tuttle, of Ipswich. He and John owned land deeded them by George Griggs for debt, and the same George Griggs gave him a mortgage of house and land on Beacon Street, Boston, Oct. 8, 1650, after WILLIAM had moved to New Haven, New Haven, CT.

About 1639, they moved to Quinnipiac, later called New Haven. In, 1641 WILLIAM was the owner of the home lot of Edward Hopkins, who had removed to Hartford, CT. This lot was on the square bounded by Grove, State, Elm and Church Streets. In 1656 he bought from Joshua Atwater, his original allotment, mansion house and barn, with other lands. He made his home there until his death, and his widow after him until her death, a period of twenty-eight years.

He shared in the division of common lands in 1640 and afterward. He and Mr. Gregson were the first owners of land at East Haven, CT, and he surveyed and laid out the road from the ferry at Red Rock to Stony River. His land there was bounded by a line running from the old ferry (where the new bridge over the Quinnipiac is now) eastward to a spring which forms the small stream now called Tuttle's Brook, thence south along this brook to Gregson's land at Solitary Cove, thence west to a point on the New Haven Harbor near the chemical works and Fort Hale, thence north along the harbor to the point of beginning. It included Tuttle's Hill.

In 1659 he became owner of land at North Haven. He sold or conveyed to his children most of his property before he died. At the time of his death, his land was appraised at 120 pounds. This land is now occupied by Yale College. WILLIAM and ELIZABETH are ancestors of Jonathan Edwards, the famous theologian and leading educator at Yale.

WILLIAM and ELIZABETH had seats of honor in the First Church of New Haven. Judging from the seat assignment, he was among the foremost men of New Haven as early as 1646-47. He was interested in the projected settlement from New Haven on the Delaware, which failed on account of the opposition of the Dutch in New Netherlands.

He filled many positions of trust and responsibility in the colony; was commissioner to decide on an equivalent to those who received inferior meadow lands in the first allotment; was fence viewer in 1644, road commissioner in 1646, commissioner to settle the dispute as to boundary between New Haven and Branford in 1669, and to fix the bounds of New Haven, Milford, Branford and Wallingford.