William Tuttle and his wife Elizabeth were transported froom Ringstead County, Northampton Englad on April 2, 1635 aboard the ship Planter. The trip required about ten weeks and they arrived in Boston, Massachusetts around July 1635.

The colonial records of Massachusetts and New Haven, Connecticut contain only fragments about William Tuttell. But, from this information we can form some idea of his status in life, as follows:

1. Passenger list indicates that he was a Husbandman. This suggests that he was a proprietor and tilled his own land, as opposed to a farmer, who leased land.

2. He is listed, with others, for Mr. Eaton’s Company on a petition, requesting permission to equip the Ketch, Zebulon, with two guns for trips to the Indies.

3. On the 26th of July 1637, Messers Davenport and Eaton, with their company, arrived at Boston, Massachusetts and in the fall of that year, Mr. Eaton and others, made a prospecting tour of the shore tract on Long Island Sound, between Saybrook and Fairfield. The tour was for the purpose of selecting a site for an independent colony, which they had determined to plant. They had declined the very liberal offers made by Massachusetts to induce them to remain in that jurisdiction. Quinnipiac was selected; a hut put up, and seven men were left to spend the winter. The main body of settlers sailed from Boston, on the 30th of March, and arrived on the 14th of April 1638. During the summer the town plots were laid out and house lots assigned. On the 4th of June 1639, the planters convened in Mr. Newton’s barn and signed the church covenant. On this list, the name of William Tuttell appears for the first time in the records of the Quinnipiac Colony. His name appears on the record between Benjamin Ling and Ezekiel Cheever, among the principal men and toward the head of the list. It is probable that he removed to Quinnipiac between the date of his son David’s baptism on the 7th of April 1639 and the signing of the church covenant on the 4th of June 1639.

4. In 1656, William Tuttell bought of Joshua Atwater, his original allotment, mansion, house, and barn, with certain other lands. This became the Tuttell homestead, and so continued until his death. His widow resided there until she died, a total of twenty-eight years. Her administrators, Thomas, Joseph, and Nathaniel Tuttell sold it approximately a year after her death, to Mrs. Hestor Coster, widow. Mrs. Coster’s will devised the property to the “First Church of Christ in New Haven.” The church sold the property, in 1777, to the Collegiate School, which erected the first college building in 1778. The school was named Yale College, in gratitude of Governor Elihu Yale. The Tuttell homestead was the only land owned by the college for nearly thirty years. After the land was purchased from the Indians, five proprietors have owned it. Viz., Joshua Atwater, sixteen years; William Tuttell and heirs, thirty years; Hestor Coster, five years; The First Church of New Haven, twenty six years; Yale College, to present day.

On this very spot, where William Tuttell lived and died, his great- grandson, Jonathan Edwards, studied, taught, and achieved his “Great and excellent tutorial renown.”

From the foregoing and other information, not included here in, we may infer that William Tuttell was the equal, socially, of any of the colonist. That he lived and brought up his children in a manner befitting his condition and carefully provided for them the means of starting in life. That he was a man of courage, enterprise, intelligence, probity, and piety; a just man, whose counsels and judgment were sought to calm the contentions and adjust the difference of jarring neighbors, and withal, of a tenderness of heart. Unusual in men whose lives were passed in strife and conflict, with despotism, barbarism, and the savage forces of nature.

William Tuttle was born circa 1607. The exact date of his death is not known. He died in the early days of June 1673. On 8 June 1673, his wife Elizabeth, in appearing before the court, said, “My late husband, William Tuttle sold unto John Jones---------.”

No will or mention of a will has been found and it is probable that he made none, his widow calling herself, his lawful Administratrix and that he died suddenly. 9


The birthdate for William in the book I originally copied in the Library of Congress was 1609. The only parts of the information on William that I did not have prior to getting FTM was the modified birthdate, the wife's maiden name, and William's ancestors.

I have no idea how accurate the additional information on William's wife and ancestors may be.1


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William Tuttle is the immigrant ancestor for this family. He was born circa 1607 to Simon Tuttle and Isabel Woods, with a reported birthplace of Ringstead, Northamptonshire, England. He arrived in the American Colony in 1635, landing in Massachusetts and then removing to Connecticut.

She was living with her son Nathaniel at the time of her death.