Rev Timothy DALTON (1578 – 1662)

Timothy Dalton was born about 1578 at Ipswich, England. He married Ruth LEET on 13 June 1615 at Gislingham, Suffolk, England.  Timothy founded a Church called the Church of Jesus Christ in Hampton, New Hampshire. Timothy had been a sizar  (One of a body of students in the universities of Cambridge, who, having passed a certain examination, are exempted from paying college fees and charges. A sizar corresponded to a servitor at Oxford. The sizar paid nothing for food and tuition, and very little for lodging. They formerly waited on the table at meals; but this is done away with. They were probably so called from being thus employed in distributing the size, or provisions.) at St. John’s College, Cambridge and the Rector of Wolverstone before he vanished from England and turned up in New Hampshire, in 1636 as so many Puritans were forced to do. Timothy’s will was proved 8 Apr 1662 in Hampton, New Hampshire.

Our ancestos’ lots are underlined in red. Thomas Coleman’s lot was on today’s Winnacunnet Road near the corner of Park Ave.  He also had a parsonage on the road “to the landing.”. — Map of the homes of the original settlers of Hampton, NH, recreated from published maps and ancient records in 1892

• Lafayette Road, and Winnacunnet Road, Hampton, NH on Google Maps
• The main road going horizontally across the top of the map then, at right, angling down to the right corner, is today’s Winnacunnet Road. At the bottom right corner it leads “To The Sea”.
• Today’s Lafayette Road/Route One starts in the top left and goes vertically down (south) into the thicker road, then about 2/3 of the way down angles sharply off to the left corner in the small road reading “To Salisbury”. That road today is pretty much straight as an arrow north to south.
• Midway down that same road a small road angles off to the left that reads “To Drake Side”. That is today’s Drakeside Road.
• The fat road leading from the point where Route One angles off “To Salisbury” to the right and its meeting with Winnacunnet Road, is today’s Park Ave.
• The two roads leading off the bottom of the map both say “To the Landing”, and at the time were both ends of a single road that went in a loop. Today they are still there, called Landing Road, but are cut off in the middle by a new highway.
• Lastly the small road in the top right is Mill Road.

First called the Plantation of Winnacunnet, Hampton was one of four original New Hampshire townships chartered by the General Court of Massachusetts, which then held authority over the colony. “Winnacunnet” is an Algonquian Abenaki word meaning “pleasant pines” and is the name of the town’s high school.

In March 1635, Richard Dummer and John Spencer of the Byfield section in Newbury, came round in their shallop, came ashore at the landing and were much impressed by the location. Dummer, who was a member of the General Court, got that body to lay its claim to the section and plan a plantation here. The Massachusetts General Court of March 3, 1636 ordered that Dummer and Spencer be given power to “To presse men to build there a Bound house”.

The town was settled in 1638 by a group of parishioners led by Reverend Stephen Bachiler, who had formerly preached at the settlement’s namesake:Hampton, England.  Incorporated in 1639, the township once included Seabrook, Kensington, Danville, Kingston, East Kingston, Sandown, North Hampton and Hampton Falls.

Ruth Leet was born in England. Her parents were Robert LEET and Alice GRUNDY, Ruth died in 1665 in Hampton, New Hampshire. Ruth’s will was proved 8 Dec 1665.

Timothy and Ruth had no children of their own.

Ruth included Mary Carter in her will, but this was actually Mary Parkhurst Carter, her niece.  In any case, this Mary was married to Rev. Thomas Carter was not our Thomas CARTER.

More about Mary Dalton and Mary Parkhust

A Genealogy of the Descendants of Thomas Carter By: Howard Willston Carter
This book contains the history and genealogy of the Thomas Carter
family of Massachusetts.  Published by the author. Connecticut. 1909

Concerning the parentage of Mary, wife of the Rev. Thomas Carter. On page 17 it is stated that Mary, wife of the Rev. Thomas Carter, was in all probability a daughter of George Parkhurst Sr., of Watertown and Boston. Some of the facts leading to that conclusion are here given more in detail.

On the Parish Registers of Ipswich, Suffolk County, England, are found the following baptisms:–

Phebe, dau. of George and Phebe Parkhurst, Nov. 29, 1612.
Mary, dau. of George Parkhurst, Aug. 28, 1614.
Samuel, son of George Parkhurst, Feb. 2, 1616/17.
Deborah, dau. of George Parkhurst, Aug. 1, 1619.
George, son of George Parkhurst, June 5, 1621.
John, son of George Parkhurst, Oct. 19, 1623.
Abigail, dau. of George Parkhurst, Jan. 1, 1625/6.
Elizabeth, dau. of George Parkhurst, May 18, 1628.
Joseph, son of George Parkhurst, Dec. 21, 1629.
In the so-called “Dalton Deed” (Reg. xxvii, p. 364), Ruth, widow of the Rev. Timothy Dalton, conveys by deed dated March 22, 1663/4 certain property to her “constituted heir,” Nathaniel Bacheller, he paying her a certain sum down, and agreeing to pay the sums mentioned below to the persons named, after her
death:

To Deborah Smith, wife of John, £50
To Elizabeth Merry, wife of Joseph, £20
To Phebe Arnold, wife of Thomas, £20
To Joseph Parkhurst, £20
To George Parkhurst, £20
To Mary Carter, wife of Thomas (Carter of Woburn), £20

The identity of the six names in the two lists is striking, but in addition to this, at least three of the persons mentioned in the Dalton deed are known to be children of George Parkhurst Sr.

Nathaniel Bacheller, the grantee above, had married Deborah, dau. of the above John and Deborah Smith. In 1669 George Parkhurst Jr. writes Bacheller concerning the money coming to him from “my aunt Dalton,” which letter Bacheller endorses as
from “my uncle, George Parkhurst.”

Joseph Parkhurst also wrote Bacheller about the money coming to him from “my aunt Dalton.” Hence George, Joseph and Deborah must have been children of George Parkhurst Sr.

As to Ruth Dalton, wife of Rev. Timothy Dalton, from all the facts known to the writer it would seem that she was not a sister of George1 Parkhurst, but was more likely a sister of his first wife, Phebe. No record of the first wife is found in America, though he again married, about 1643, Susanna, widow of John Simpson.

Unfortunately no record of the marriage of Rev. Thomas Carter and his wife Mary has been found, and the same is true of the marriage of George Parkhurst and his wife Phebe, as also of Rev. Timothy Dalton and his wife, Ruth.

Another fact, although perhaps not of great weight in proving the identity of Mary, wife of Rev. Thomas Carter, is that four of her eight children had the same names as those of children of George Parkhurst Sr., who it should be remembered was a resident of Watertown, where the Rev. Thomas Carter was located at the time of his marriage. A fifth child was named Thomas, probably for the father, thus leaving only three children whose names, so to say, are unaccounted for. Further, it may be stated that there is no birth or other record of a Mary Dalton, dau. of Philemon, brother of Rev. Timothy Dalton.

One possible answer to the question about the two Dalton death records (Deborah and Ruth in 1624) is that Timothy was not only Vicar of Woolverston but also the Rector of Flowton, a small parish 8 miles to the north west of Woolverston. On a second visit to the registers, however, I was also able to clear up the point about Ruth Dalton’s death. I found a will in which “Ruth Dalton, my godchild” was left 20s (shillings) .  So the Ruth who died then was Timothy’s daughter and not his wife. There were several wills in the Woolverston area which showed that Timothy was well thought of in the parish and several times he was asked to be the executor oroverseer of another executor and he was left “10s to preach a good sermon at my funeral.”A list of the records we have include the following: Timothy born about 1577, going to St. John’s, being married in Gislingham in 1615 to Ruth Leet(e) from Little Eversden in Cambridgeshire; the baptism and burial records at Woolverston and very little else. In 1599, Deborah, Ruth Leet’s sister, married Wm. Bolton at Great Cressingham. The writing in these records is so bad that a “B” and a “D” could easilybe mixed up. This is where someone in the United States could help if the recordshave been filmed and are available there.

In April 1635, Philemon Dalton sailed on the ship Increase from England to Boston and arrived in Hampton, five years after the first settlers.  He was accompanied by his wife, Anne Cole Dalton and son Samuel, who was 5 ½ years of age.  Philemon received land grants and according to early map reconstruction, he occupied land facing the cow common.  He was followed by his brother, the Rev. Timothy Dalton who was accompanied by his wife Ruth and son Timothy.  Rev. Timothy had stopped initially in Watertown, MA where his teachings were not in accordance with the norm of the day, and thus removed to Hampton where Rev. Nathaniel Bachelder offered him a post as teacher in his church.  Rev. Timothy had several land grants and expanded his holdings once in Hampton.

Hampton, NH Founders Park

The Reverend Timothy Dalton
From JOSEPH DOW’S HISTORY OF HAMPTON
Chapter 19 — Part 2

The second minister of the town, as has already been stated, was Rev. Timothy Dalton, born in England about the year 1577, graduated at Cambridge in 1613, and subsequently,–but at what time is uncertain–engaged in the work of the ministry in that country. He came to New England about the year 1637, being led hither, it is believed, by religious motives. On his arrival, he went first to Dedham, Mass., where he was made freeman Sept. 7, 1637, and probably removed to Hampton about a year and a half afterward, for we find that on the 7th of June, 1639, when the plantation was allowed to be a town, he was here as a freeman and also teacher of the church. His houselot was on the southerly side of the meeting-house green, only a few rods from the meeting-house, and this lot, having been afterward sold to the town, was ever after held and occupied as a parsonage till 1871.

Mr. Dalton must have been in good repute with the magistrates, for when about this time, there were disturbances at Dover, which, it was thought, required the interference of the civil power, he was commissioned, together with Mr. Simon Bradstreet, afterward Governor of Massachusetts, and Rev. Hugh Peters, then a minister of Salem, and subsequently a martyr to the cause of civil liberty, to go there and settle those difficulties; and, as Governor Winthrop remarks, “they brought matters to a peaceful end.”

At the time of his settlement at Hampton, Mr. Dalton was more than sixty years old. The aged pastor who preceded him, was dismissed, after having shared with him the labors of the ministry for two or three years, and Mr. Dalton was then left alone for the space of about six years, during which time he labored faithfully among his people, “even beyond his ability or strength of nature.” At length, through the infirmities of age, or by the failure of his health, he became unable longer to sustain all the cares and perform all the labors incident to the ministerial office in a new settlement, and the town undertook to provide an assistant. Two ministers were associated with him, in succession, the united period of whose labors covers nearly the whole time from the spring of 1647 till his death.

In the early part of his ministry, Mr. Dalton was not paid for his services by a stipulated salary, but he received from the town several grants of land, which were ultimately of considerable value. In 1639, as has been stated, he received 300 acres of land for a farm. This tract was in that part of the town, which is now Hampton Falls, at a place called Sagamore Hill, and embraced a considerable portion of the farms now owned and occupied by the sons of Reuben and Moses Batchelder. A farm, lying in the south part of the town, near Salisbury, was granted to Mr. Dalton’s son, Timothy Dalton, Jr., who died soon after, when the farm came into his father’s possession, and, on the 21st of January, 1652, was confirmed to him by a vote of the town. This act of the town, however, was based on the following condition: “that Mr. Dalton should free and discharge the town of Hampton from all debts and dues for his ministry till he had a set pay given him by the town.” To this Mr. Dalton agreed, and a release was executed accordingly, five days after the confirmation of the last grant. In June, of the same year, this farm was sold to Isaac Perkins.

The records do not show how early Mr. Dalton began to receive a salary, though it appears to have been within a very few years after his settlement. Sometime previous to the first of May, 1645, John Moulton and Abraham Perkins had been appointed to gather up the teacher’s rate. The time of their appointment is not recorded, by at the date just named, it appears that this rate was–some of it at least–still unpaid, and these persons were ordered to collect it by way of distress, within one month, or else forfeit 10s. apiece, to forthwith taken by the constable.

In 1647 the town agreed upon a method of raising money for the support of the ministry. Of every £40 to be raised, each master of a family and each single man, working for himself, or taking wages, should pay 5s., the remainder to be raised on all estates equally, according to their value, of whatever they might consist, except corn, which was to be rate-free.

From about this time–whatever might have been his salary before–Mr. Dalton was to receive £40 a year; but another minister having been soon after associated with him, who probably performed nearly al the ministerial labor, he, four years afterward, released the town from the payment of his salary from midsummer, 1647, to midsummer, 1651.

Mr. Dalton’s ministry continued till the close of his life, and during the whole time of its continuance he retained the appellation of teacher, which was given him at the time of his settlement, while the three ministers, with whom he was at different times associated, were all styled pastors. He died December 28, 1661, aged eighty-four years. In recording his death, the town clerk styles him “a faithful and painful laborer in God’s vineyard.”

Mr. Dalton left no children. His wife, Ruth, outlived him several years. She died May 12, 1666, aged eighty-eight years.

The Laste will and Tistament of Mr. Timothie Dalton Teacher to the Church att Hampton

Being in Reasonable

Helth of body and of Sound and perfect memorie lauded bee God : ffirst I Give and Bequeth unto Ruth Dalton my Beloved wife, the House and land latly purched of Thomas Moulton with all the priveledges therunto belonging to Her and Her Heires for Ever Item I give and Bequeth unto Her my loving wife a certaine^Parscell of medow or march Called or knowne by the name of Burchin Iland to Her and Her Heires for Ever : Item I Doe Give unto the sd Ruth Dalton my loving wife all my moveable Goods and Houseold stuf and Cattle : to Her and Her Heirs for Ever

Item I Give and Bequeth unto my loving Brother Philemon Dalton and to my loving Cossen Samuell Dalton His Sonn the Some of two Hundred pounds wch is to bee payd to my Assignes from the Church & Towne of Hampton paying to Ruth my wife During Her naturall life ten pounds ^Per annum : & I Doe by these ^pre make my wife ruth Dalton my sole Excequetor to this my last will and Testament wittness my Hand and seale the Eight of March one thousand Six Hundred and fifty Seaven or fifty Eight

Timothie Dalton
[Seal]

Signed Sealed and
Delivered in the ^presents
of us
Henrye dow
John Cleford

I Timothie Dalton being sicke & weake of body but sound in understanding praised be God Have & doe by these p^rsents Give & bequeath unto my love[in]g Cossen Bar^th Dalton fiftie acres of land which I purchased of william Estow which lieth att the Head of my farme above saggamour Hill witness my Hand & Seale the one & twentieth of December one thousand Six Hundred & Sixty one

Timothie Dalton
[Seal]

Signed & sealed in the
p^rsence of us
Henery Moulton
Joseph X Huchins
His marke

[Proved April 8, 1662.]
[Essex County, Mass., Probate Files.]

The Last Will and Testament of M^rs Ruth Dalton of Hampton Widow:

Excectrix to the last Will and Testament of M^r Timothy Dalton deceased: being sick and weake of body but firme of understanding and memory. Item whereas I have formerly Bargained and sold unto my Loving Kinsman Nathaniel Bacheler all my Houses and Lands as is specified in his bill of sale bareing Date The Twenty second day of March Anno 1663 or 64 I now Ratify and confirme to him and his heirs forever. It. my will is that the severall legacies mentioned in the aforesaide bill of sale be paide to the respective persons according as it is ther mentioned.

Item whereas I have formerly given to my Cousen Nathanell Batcheler fower oxen, & five Cows; I doe now by will Ratify and Confirme to him. Item I doe give and bequeath unto my Cousen Nath: Batcheler; A feather bed & bedsted, fower blankets, A bolster, two pillows, two chaires, three Cushions, A paire of Andirons, A little Table, he paying unto my Cousen John Smith Junior the Summe of Ten Pound. Item I doe give and bequeath unto my Cousen Deborah Batcheler wife to Nathanell Batcheler; Inprim: two brass kettle, two pots, two platters, two saucers, one scummer, one spit, A basting spoon, A flock bed, and blankets; all which goods she doth Already possesse for her use.

Item to M^rs Mary Carter wife to M^r Thomas Carter of Oburne; I doe give and bequeath by best bed and bolster, fower blankets and two pillows.

Item: I give and bequeath unto my cousen Samuel Daltons son Timothy, one trunk marked T and D.

Item: I give and bequeath to my Cousen Nathanell Batcheler: one warming pan, one case of Bottles.

Item: for the remainder of my goods I give and bequeath them to my cousen Deborah Smith:

And I doe by these presesnts make and Appoint my Cousen Nathanell Batcheler, and my cousen Deborah smith sole excequtors: to this my last will and Testament, and therunto I set my hand and seal, the eight day of the tenth month 1665

Ruth X Dalton
Her marke

Signed and Sealed in the
presence of us witnesses
Seaborne Cotton
X
Robert Smith.

[Proved Dec. 8, 1665.]
[Essex County, Mass., Probate Files, and Norfolk County, Mass., Deeds, vol. 2, p. 73.]

[Inventory of the estate of Ruth Dalton, “Deceased: upon the 12 day of may Anno: 1666:” taken by John Sanborn, Samuel Fogg, and Henry Dow May 24, 1666; amount, £57.5.0.]
[Essex County, Mass., Probate Files, and Norfolk County, Mass., Deeds, vol. 2, p. 73.]

Sources:

“The Rev. Timothy Dalton’s Estate” by George Byrkit

DGS Journal Volume 34, June 2001, Page 9.

This is an extract from a thesis on migrations from England, found in the Bury St. Edmund’s Records Office. It showed that Timothy Dalton sold land and property before his departure to America to the value in modern money of about £750,000. This made him a very rich man in those times.

http://www.hampton.lib.nh.us/hampton/history/probate/timothydalton1657.htm

http://www.dalton-newsletter.com/archives/1997/05-May%2097.pdf

http://www.daltongensoc.com/diharchive/9_4_April_2006/text.html

http://www.hampton.lib.nh.us/hampton/history/dow/chap19/dow19_2.htm