Jonathan Tillotson
Parents
John Tillotson
John Tillotson
1618 - 1670
Spouse
Mary Jones
Mary Jones
1656 - 1739
Children

Jonathan Tillotson - Biography from "Tillotson, Tillison, and Tillitson" by Margaret Tillotson Ragsdale


The following is a snippet from a book by Margaret Tillotson Ragsdale:

     "Brockways owned contiguous acres and seemed chummy. Wolston and Jonathan co-signed an instrument early in 1709; Wolston had drawn lots for the Tillotson brothers; Jonathan and Wolston’s widow signed the administrator’s bond; the Brockway son Jonathan and a Tillotson son, David, were close friends. These incidents cry out the relationship between Mary (Jones) Tillotson and Margaret (Jones) Brockway. The crux of the matter is found, for one illustration, in the 1716 quitclaim by Tillotson sons John and David to Col. Thomas Sanders of Poughkeepsie, NY, of Samuel Brockway’s real estate and the house where he lived which Sanders recovered by execution upon judgement. The Tillotson claim on Brockway property could only be through the Jones girls.'

     'Jonathan moved from Lyme to Saybrook, CT, and no doubt was apprenticed in the tanning trad to his brother John. The apprenticeship ended after the birth of his first child when Jonathan returned to Lyme to establish his own tannery. In compliance with the 1692 licensing act, the New London County court granted him his trade permit on 6 June 1693: “Jonathan Tillotson of Lyme is granted Liberty to Tann Leather & occupy the Trade of Tanning.” A deed between Brockways, dated 10 Aug. 1737, mentioned land north of widow Tillotson’s house “Lying on ye Spott Where Jonathan Tillitson’s Shoop [shop] Stood. His estate included shoemaker’s tools, hides raw and tanned, leather and tan fats. Jonathan, who did not intend to be poor farmed largely in addition to his trade. When he died his livestock consisted of: three yoke of oxen, 13 cows, 12 cattle, three calves and another beast; 44 sheep and two rams; 17 swine; a mare and two horses, and a mare, colt, and horse "in ye woods." Jonathan's earmark of 25 May 1686 “for all Sorts of Cetuers” was “two half penes [pennies] one [on] the under Sid of the near Ear”’ his horse brand was I:T on the near buttock.'

     'On 16 Mar 1681/2 Jonathan and his brother Jacob cosigned a deed by which their a deed by which their mother and stepfather, Jane and John Robbins, sold John1 Tillotson's land at Bride Brook. Since all of Robbins's property, real and personal, secured his administration of the Tillotson estate, Robbins made sure of the heirs’ permission. He reinvested at Four Mile River and from that property on 21 Feb. 1686 [1687 NS] he deeded 50 acres to Jonathan who acted as Jacob’s guardian and promptly conveyed the land to him. The 80-acre headright of their father to land at Four Mile River was divided by lot among John, Jonathan, and James Tillotson on 16 Apr. 1694. Jonathan’s brother-in-law, Wolston Brockway, Jr., and half-brother, Joseph Robbins, were two of those drawing straws for the brothers (see Appendix, BROCKWAY, ROBBINS).'

     'On 20 Apr. 1702 Jonathan appealed to the committee on grievances for Lyme's fourth land division regarding his headright as son of a man who was among the town's original 30 families. Jonathan stated that he was not in Lyme when the division was ordered but had returned and paid his rate (taxes). The committee denied the claim because Jonathan lived outside the township on the order date. Controversy erupted between Jonathan on one part and John Borden and young Isaac Waterhouse (recorded Watterus), Jr., on other parts. Borden had complained to the 1702 grievance committee of Lyme that he had not received his wife’s portion in the fourth land division..."

     Also on quitclaim - *on the same day that John cleared his own title, he and David paid Sanders for a quitclaim on the account of Samuel Brockway of Lyme to “one mansion house where in ye sd Brockway now dweleth” and to land which Sanders had similarly recovered. Brockway was a cousin of the Tillotsons and brother of David’s pal, Jonathan

     Also, I'm not sure how the Waller family connects later on, but this snippet mentions Jane Evans at the end:

     The Waller name, famous in English Civil War history for the eminent Puritan general, comes to Connecticut attention with Samuel, original patentee of New London. He was a yeo-man, late of Lyme but of New London in a 1681 deed. He married there four years later, perhaps to a second wife, and had a son, William, born in 1686. Samuel made deed on 31 Mar. 1722 to his sons, Samuel, Jr., of New London and William of Lyme. Before his marriage in 1704, Samuel Waller, Jr., was the family horse thief. On 3 June 1701 he admitted in court that he and another on the preceding 3 March had stolen gray and bay horses owned by James Harris. Owners customarily turned horses loose in the woods, a practice described by a 1684 will which bequeathed two colts to heirs "to possesse them as soone as they can finde them." Unbranded horses, rounded up and sold, brought in good money. The year after the Harris horse case, John Borden (see Mary2 Tillotson) sued an unrepentant Samuel, Jr., for having driven away two black mares on 23 May. Plaintiffs against Samuel obviously proved ownership of their horses. A delicate decision in an unrelated case mentioned a horse “not properly stolen but very illegally taken away.”

     Baby Jane’s name, “Jeane” in vital records, undoubtedly, was named for her maternal grandmother, Jane (Evans) Tillotson. The Lyme clerk wrote “Jeames” for James, too.

REFERENCES: CT ARCHIVES, NLCC 7:314, 341 (theft); 8:249 (unrelated case). HCC&PR 4:228-9 (1684 will). HEMPSTEAD p 4 (Waller w d). HURD p 259 (Waller patentee). JPT (h parents).

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