NUTTING GENEALOGY A RECORD OF SOME OF THE DESCENDANTS OF John Nutting, of Groton, Mass. BY REV. JOHN KEEP NUTTING SYRACUSE, ;-./. Y. C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER 1908 Groton P/antatiolt Toffelht"r .dt/1 Tmm Lini!!S exislirl,§{ ..R.D. 1885. ---,--+---; MUe~ Hea'Y Line" mark Original Lirnits. w If) :J m z w From Dr. Green's "The Boundary Lines of Old Groton" CONTENTS PAGE The story of the work 9 Jonathan Nutting's account book (see also 66) 1:3 John, the Founder . · 15 The Governor's island legend 17 As to our name . 19 And whence came we? 21 Concerning a Nutting coat of arms . 24 Groton . 26 Gibbet hill 27 Groton inn 30 The graveyard 29 The lakes, Baddycook, Massapoag 33 The Nashua river 35 Nod farm . 35 First generation . 40 The Rev. John Fiske's note book. 41 Remove to Groton . 42 Remote accommodations of John Nutting (see also 9.5) 45 John Nutting as a Groton town officer 46 as a land holder . 49 as a soldier . 53 The burning of Groton .53 King Philip's war 53 Return to Groton 61 Second generation 63 Third generation . 65 Jonathan Nutting's account book 66 The first shoe made in Groton 66 Starred names . 69 6 NUTTING GENEALOGY Fourth generation 72 Lieutenant William 72 David, the loyalist . 76 Fifth generation . 78 Nutting cemetery, Westford 79 Abel, the musketeer 81 William, Esquire, of Groton . 82 Continental currency 83 Shays's rebellion . 83 Vaccination . 84 Minute books 85 Captain John of Lexington 87 Uncle Eb's fife 87 John of Northampton 89 Sixth generation 93 Thomas, of Oswego county, New York 93 Asia Nutting's house on John 1 's accommodations 95 William, Esquire, of Randolph 96 The Patch branch 98 The Bardeen branch 98 Joseph Danforth Nutting 99 Professor Rufus Nutting 101 Nutting's English Grammar 101 The Chanzberlain branch. 102 Seventh generation 11:3 Rufus, the organ-maker 117 The Rev. David Hubbard Nutting 118 Mary. Olivia Nutting 120 The Patch branch 120 z~aP~~ 1W The Rev. Jacob Patch and wife 126 The Bardeen branch 127 Sarah Hubbard Nutting 129 !Nbl!X 7 Isaiah Hall Nutting 131 Inductive English Grammar 131 George French Nutting . 131 Daniel Chaplin Nutting 132 The Rev. John Keep Nutting 133 Timothy Dwight Nutting 136 His tin horn eight feet long 136 The Rev. William Jarvis Gregg Nutting 137 The Chamberlain branch. 137 The Rev. Jacob Chamberlain 138 William Isaac Chamberlain 141 Benjamin Franklin Nutting 1 U'i, 264 Mary Adelaide Nutting 144 George E. Nutting 146 Truman Nutting 154 Mary Eliza Nutting 155 Andrew J. Nutting 159 Col. Lee Nutting 159 Eighth generation 162 Newton W. Nutting 162 James Ralph Nutting 164 Mrs Amy Belle Nutting Irish 165 The Rev. Wallace W. Nutting 166 Cordelia A. Gilman Nutting . 169 Maria Gilman Nutting . 170 William Rufus Nutting . 171 The Rev. John Danforth Nutting 172 Ruth Nutting . 174 George Hale Nutting 176 The Patch branch 176 The Bardeen branch 180 The Bennett branch 187 Daniel Chaplin Nutting 190 Jessie Gulielma Nutting 193 NUTTING GENEALOGY Anna Celeste Nutting 193 The Chamberlain branch. 196 ] ames Robert Nutting . 198 ] onathan] ohnson . 201 Frederic Harrison Nutting 202 Lucius Henry Nutting . 203 Ninth generation 212 Frederic George Car1 ton . 212 The Patch branch 216 The Bardeen branch 217 Lillith May Nutting 227 Characteristics of the Nutting family 230 Appendix. N uttings in the Revolutionary war 233 Place Index . , 249 Name Index I, Surnames not Nutting. 252 Name Index II, Given names of Nuttings 266 Errata 278 NUTTING GENEALOGY Before we really Begin The Story of The Work I must have been born with the antiquarian instinct. I always loved to be occupied v.:ith things that belonged to the times long past. An atavism of that sort also seems to have attached to the line of my descent. My grandfather compiled-with assistance hereafter to he mentioned-a Nutting Genealogy. And before me as I write, is a little volume, now almost two centuries old, which contains a beginning of the same sort by my grandfather's grandfather. This compiler had not much material to work up, it is true, for his grandfather was the father and founder of us all. But he did what he could. I have but continued the series thus twice begun. This is the heredity of it. Environment help­ ed. I was born in one of the most ancient homes of our family. It had sheltered three generations of Nut­ tings before my own, of which I was the youngest mem­ ber. In my childhood, the old house showed all its an­ tiquity.* It was weather-beaten and time-stained, just as an artist would have liked it. A great central chimney, with many flues, gave it a homely dignity. Long, sloping roofs came down at the rear, very near to the ground. Moss and lichen did their best to give ar­ tistic touches of color. * The picture of "Kod Farm'' on page 35 shows the house much modernized. This \Vas done \Vhilc I was a lad, but I remember the older building. 10 NUTTING GE?\EALOGY A mighty elm swung its branches over the nearest part of the roof-branches hung with flashing orioles and their swinging nests. The less-used flues of the great chimney were peopled every summer by hundreds of chimney-swallows, which went siffering down into their nests the last thing at night, and came chittering out before sleepy lads liked to waken in the morning. Within this house also were relics and heir-looms, each with its half-dreamy legend, just fitted to help on the ready imagination of the antiquarian small boy. All were equally ancient to me then. As I recall a few of them, I conclude that the most venerable of them all must have been the very long-handled spontoon (a ca­ valry-weapon) reputed to have come over seas with the very first settlers, perhaps with our first ancestor. It looked wicked enough to have come out of the Dark Ages. A pillion, tattered and moth-eaten, which hung above my reach in the "chaise-house" must have been a close second. What delightful shudders it gave me to crane my neck for a near view of those dark stains upon its faded cushion-tokens of the tragedy which had con­ secrated it for a memorial forever! As I then under­ stood the story, my grandmother had been piously ri­ ding to meeting upon that pillion, behind her puritan husband, when the arrow or the bullet of a skulking In­ dian found its mark, and ended her earthly life. Long after both pillion and dwelling had gone up like Elijah hy the fiery wa_y, I learned that this story was true. on­ ly that the grandmother was the very first of my mo­ ther's foremothers in America; that the tragedy took place at Longmeadow, near S}Jringfield; but that the pillion came, first to Westford, and then-with my mo­ ther---to my home. HEREDITARY 1;'\TSTl:\'CT DEVELOPED 11 There was a shoe-maker's bench, on which had been made the verv first shoe ever made in Groton,-in the the yea1 1706: and for aught I know it may have been made out of "Wilyam Shattuck's hyde", which cer­ tainly was paid for about that time. There were Revolutionarv relics, too; the "musket" \vhich Corporal William had carried to Lexington, and its ''accoutrements''--cartridge-box, knapsack, etc.--and the sword, still in my possession, and long reputed to have been used in that battle bv Lieutenant William, the corporal's father. I am sorr;: to say that I feel some doubt as to the sword, as upon seeking documentary proof that the elder William was a Minute-man, I can­ not find it. Outside the house were other stimulants to the bov's imagination. The low hill behind the old dwelling show­ ed p. depression which marked the location of an ancient Indian strong-hold, known as the "Indian Fort". Ev­ ery plowing turned up evidence that this tradition was not without some foundation, in tpe shape of numerous arrow-heads and other Indian relics, including at least one stone axe. We boys believed that the fort had be­ longed to Paugus, the great Sagamore of the Pigwack­ etts. But that could not have been. Paugus was later. Down near the river, another depression was known· to mark the site of a "garrison,"or "White Man's Fort", built for defence against Paugus and such. Tradition was that a skull--the worse for a bullet hole, and part of a rusty fire-lock, had been dug up iri the center of this depression. The old homestend was quite isolated by surrounding forest or river, so that the lads who lived there were in a world by itself, and dependent on their own wit for I~ NUTTING GENEALOGY amusement. And they lived in the atmosphere of the old times. Especially, in the times of the old Indian troubles. My next elder brother, a lad always in the lead among his mates, assumed the role of Paugus, the great chief. For want of other timber, I was obliged to "be" his whole tribe of Pigwacketts. This led to many comical results, and the memory of these plays led me many years after (with my brother's help) to make of ~he~ a series of Boy-stories, for which there is still some mqltlry. Forth from this old home, on the morning after Paul Revere's Ride, came Corporal William, my grandfather, (in response to "The Alarm" ) to march to Lexington.