Person:Samuel Tilton (14)

link 4. Samuel² Tilton (William¹), the eldest son of his father by his wife Susanna, was possibly born in England. Various estimates of his age indicate his birth year as between 1637 and 1640, and, as we have seen, the exact time of the family's emigration is not known. He was a boy in his teens when his father died, and, upon his mother's marriage to Roger Shaw, he went with them to Shaw's home in Hampton.

On April 6, 1660, Roger Shaw, his step-father, deeded to Samuel Tilton "ye son of Susana, my late wife, now deceased," fifteen acres of upland and five acres of marsh in Hampton. Shaw died in 1661, and on June 12 of that year Joseph Shaw, his father's executor, received from Samuel Tilton an acknowledgement that the £30 which Roger and Susanna Shaw had agreed should fall to him when he reached the age of twentyone had been fully paid to his satisfaction. Tilton conveyed the land covered by Shaw's deed to John Clifford of Hampton on October 30, 1661, having bought, three weeks before, twenty acres of upland from Robert Tuck, vintner. He made several other small purchases of land in Hampton between 1662 and 1670. In these deeds he is called a carpenter.

Samuel Tilton married Hannah Moulton in Hampton on December 17, 1662. About 1673 they and a group of their Hampton neighbors moved to the island of Martha's Vineyard where the Tiltons settled on twenty-two acres of land granted to him by the town of Tisbury on February 5, 1674. Two years later, in partnership with Isaac Chase and Jacob Perkins, both from Hampton, he bought one-sixth of Homes Hole neck. Tilton sold his Tisbury land before 1678 and went to live in Chilmark, another Vineyard town, where by various purchases he acquired a large tract in the Kephigon district, bordering on the Sound and extending to the middle line. Here he lived an uneventful life, without known public service, for sixty years.[ History of Martha's Vineyard, Banks, II: 29-39.]

Hannah Tilton died at Chilmark on April 11, 1720, and Samuel Tilton died there on November 29, 1731, "in the 94th year of his age." Parson Homes wrote his character : "He was a man of good understanding, was an antipedobaptist in his judgment, but pious and regular in his conversation. He was against swearin and usery." To the good parson swearing did not mean profanity but the taking of legal oaths, and usury was not a demand for unduly high interest but for any interest whatsoever. Obviously Samuel Tilton shared the religious interests and prejudices of his elder brother John. Samuel Tilton of Chilmark, Duke's County, made his will June 5, 1718, and it was proved March 7, 1732. To his three sons William, John and Josiah Tilton, all of Chilmark, and their heirs and assigns, he left all his lands, buildings and "appurtenances to the same any wise belonging" and all his carpenter's and other tools, after the death of his wife Hannah, to be equally divided between them. To his three daughters Hannah Wing, Mary Allen and Rachel Lumbert, all of his stock, movables and household goods to be equally divided be- tween them, except one great iron kettle which he gave to his granddaughter Ann Lumbert. Executors : sons William and John Tilton. Witnesses : Josiah Torrey, Sarah Torrey, Edward Milton.[ Duke's County Probate, 2 : 69]

When Samuel Tilton, his family and Hampton friends came to Martha's Vineyard, a young girl, Mary Tilton, was with them. Within two years she married Isaac Chase, a young widower of the Hampton group, bore him twelve children between 1677 and 1703, and died in 1746, aged eighty-eight years, according to the inscription on her gravestone. The parentage of Mary Tilton is not proven. Obviously she was closely related to the Tiltons of Hampton. To argue that she was a daughter of William and Susanna Tilton we must set the year of her birth back at least to the winter of 1652-1653 when William Tilton died, and by so doing say that her last child was born when she was fifty, which is improbable. Gravestones are notoriously inaccurate, but they are more apt to exaggerate the age of a very old person than to underestimate it, and Mary's stone would indicate that she was born in 1658. All five of William Tilton's sons had daughters named Mary who lived to grow up and marry during the lifetime of Mary (Tilton) Chase. Of the three boys who were in Hampton with their mother, Samuel, who would have been twenty in 1658, is the most logical candidate for her father, particularly as she went with him from Hampton to the Vineyard. It is most probable that she was his illegitimate daughter, acknowledged and brought up by him and the woman of character whom he married, after the death of her natural mother. [For descendants of Samuel Tilton on Martha's Vineyard, see the genealogical volume of the History of Martha's Vineyard, by Col. Charles E. Banks.]

Probable illegitimate child:

i. Mary, b. about 1658; m. at Tisbury, Martha's Vineyard Oct. 5, 1675, Lieut. Isaac Chase, who d. May 19, 1727, aged about 80; she d., his widow, June 14, 1746, aged 88. Isaac Chase, a blacksmith, had come to Martha's Vineyard from Hampton with Samuel Tilton about two years before this marriage. His will, Feb. 12, 1721/2—July 7, 1727, names his friends William and Josiah Tilton overseers. [Duke's County Probate, 2: 21]

Children :
ii. Hannah, b. Sept. 15, 1663, at Hampton; probably m. Nathaniel Wing. She was Hannah Wing in 1718.
iii. William, b. Nov. 11, 1668, at Hampton; m. March 1090, at Martha's Vineyard, Abiah Mayhew, who d. June, 1739. His will April 11 -Aug. 11, 1715, mentions his son Beriah Tilton and the six children of his daughter Jane Hunt, late of Chilmark, deceased.
iv. John, b. Oct. 23, 1670, at Hampton; m. Sarah Mayhew. His will, March 6-June 25, 1759, mentions his five sons and his daughter Sarah Skiffe, and names his son Thomas his executor.
v. Josiah, b. at Chilmark about 1677; m. Bathsheba Mayhew. His will, Feb. 11, 1750- June 30, 1752, names his wife Bathsheba, his sons Salathiel, Micah and Josiah, his daughters Abiah Mayhew and Bathsheba Skiffe.
vi. Mary, b. at Chilmark about 1680; m. Samuel Allen of Chilmark.
vii. Rachel, b. at Chilmark about 1683; m. Oct. 19, 1707, Jonathan Lumbert of Tisbury.

"Tilton: SAMUEL (5), Hampton, carpenter, m. 17 Dec. 1662 Hannah Moulton (see 16) who d. 11 Apr. 1720. Deeds from step-fa. Shaw 1660, from Robert Tuck 1661, from Nathaniel Batchelder 1662, from John Sanborn 1670. Receipted for Shaw legacy 1661. With Hampton neighbors in 1673, he settled in Martha’s Vineyard where he d. 29 Nov. 1731 in his 94th yr. Lists 386, 399b. Will, 15 June 1718 - 7 Mar. 1732. Ch: Hannah, b. 15 Sept. 1663. William, b. 11 Nov. 1668. John, b. 23 Oct. 1670. Josiah. Mary. Rachel.") ("16 MIRIAM, ag. 23, presum. sis. of (7) and (20), came in 1637 with them and other Moultons, Mrs. Mary, wid., ag. 30 (unident.), and Ruth, ag. 30 (unident.); also Wm.(21). Miriam m. Thos. King (14), whose will 1667 names her and others, incl. cous. Henry (5); cous. Rachel, w. of Christian Dolloff; John (8). Rachel Dolloff was presum. dau. of an unkn. br. of Miriam. Two others of uncert. place: Ruth, m. 3 Apr. 1660 Peter Johnson (24), cannot be reckoned dau. of (7) in view of his will; Hannah, m. 17 Dec. 1662 Samuel Tilton of Hampt. is not surely Anne (7) who must have been older than Hannah’s husb."