William Nutting, who was born in 1752; he served in the Revolutionary War as a corporal, in Captain Asa Lawrence’s company of minutemen; he kept what he called “minute books” in which he recorded the occurrences of every day; he was road-surveyor and constable, in which capacity he raised men and means for the war; the cultivation of Irish potatoes was introduced into Groton by William, “Squire,” as he was called; during the winters he taught school; a lover of music, he composed hymn tunes, and made a singular bass-viol, which he played in church; he wrote for the religious periodicals of his time, and was a leading lay champion of orthodoxy; in 1803, during a smallpox epidemic, he allowed his home to be used as a vaccination station and as a lodging for patients who suffered from the disease; died in 1832, married, first, Mrs. Susanna (French) Danforth, daughter of Colonel Joseph French, of Dunstable; married, second, Mrs. Mary (Barrett) Hubbard, daughter of Deacon Thomas Barrett, of Concord. Issue, by the first marriage, six children. Issue, by the second marriage, six sons.
