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Thomas Tupper I

Born: 7 Jan 1578, Bury Co., Sussex, England

 

Parents: Henry Tupper, mother unknown

 

Siblings:

 

Marriage: Anne Hodgson, 12/21/1634

Children: Thomas II

 

Death: 28 Mar 1676, Sandwich, MA

 

The information below was from a book on the Tuppers by Franklin Whittlesey Tupper:
  The birthplace of Thomas Tupper was the parish of Bury at the foot of Bury Hill on the Arun river, four miles north of Arundel, in county Sussex, not far from Castle Arundel.  Nearby is a farm still owned and occupied by a Tupper whose ancestors long had it in possession.

   Thomas served as an apprentice to a family friend, Thomas Hampton, from 1592 to 1599 as a worker in the leather business and learned the trade of shoemaking.  Little is known of his life for the next decade or two after leaving his apprenticeship.  It is presumed that he remained in London the greater part of that period, engaged in his trade of leather-working.  It was about this time that the British East Trading Company was formed and the London and Plymouth Company organized; friends of his old apprentice Thomas Hampton were actively engaged in building ships for foreign mercantile ventures and through Thomas became acquainted with other prominent London merchants who sponsored the first settling of what is now New England.

   In this way his first departure from England came about in 1621 when Thomas was one of the crew with Captain William Pierce and learned the craft of carpentry to add to his trade of leather-working.  Again in 1624 he sailed for North America where he remained a year, then returning to England with a cargo of fur and rare woods. His third voyage was in 1631 when with Captain John Pierce he went to Cape Ann. It is not known how long he stayed in Cape Ann before returning to England.  It appears he did not marry until age 44 from all data obtainable.  Certain facts with relation to his associations with the families of Geere, Launder and Nye hint at an earlier marriage, but nothing has been found on record to substantiate it.  His first marriage was to Katherine Gator in Sussex, England;  his second marriage was to Susan Turner also in England.  He lost both of his spouses to death before

    He eventually settled in Sandwich, Mass. and remained until his death in March 1676. Thomas came to New England soon after the death of Susan  with his daughter Katherine who was about 14 and his son Robert who was 4.  There is no record of the voyage, however by 1637 they were living in Sandwich. He was married to Anne Hodgson or Hudson, a widow, in 1634 at Ipswich.  There are a few documents that list his name as Thomas Topper; most can be definately traced to Thomas Tupper.

   At a sitting of the Court of Assistants held at Plymouth 4/3/1637 permission was obtained from the government of New Plymouth to Begin the settlement which was to be called Sandwich, and Thomas, along with 10 other men were known as the proprietors of the new town. For their service “they shall have liberty to view a place to sit down and have sufficient lands for three score families, upon the conditions propounded by the Governor”. The 10 men were all church members and freemen, and selected by another of the 10 men, Edmund Freeman.  Although they were all personal friends, they represented a wide range of ages and station in life. Thomas Tupper was over 50 at the time and of  “moderate” circumstances.  Sandwich was not incorporated until 1639 and had no town clerk until that date.  William Wood and Thomas Tupper were the first town clerks, although the order in wich they served was not recorded.

  Thomas became an outstanding citizen of the community and served Sandwich in many ways. He represented Sandwich  in the General Court in 1644 and was later made deputy and served continuously for 20 years from 1647 to 1667 without missing a session; he served on juries, local boards and commisions; was a charter member of the church and for three years beginning 1667 was a selectman of the town, this being his last service in civic affairs, retiring when he was over 90 years old.

   He was always active in the church, of which he was a charter member, and was said to be the only one of the ten original proprietors to remain constant in attendance, consistent to Puritan beliefs, and to preach the gospel to others. When the first pastor left Sandwich in 1654, the church was left for many years without a regularly settled minister; Thomas undertook to conduct religious services at the meetinghouse.  Authority was given him by the court to perform marriage, which he did for about 3 years, when the authority was revoked for an indiscretion - allowing a Quaker couple of his acquaintance to marry in their own way, in their home, instead of ratifying it officially before him as the law required.

   The records of the Colony of New Plymouth and of the Massachusetts Bay show that Thomas Tupper acquired large holdings of lands; in 1658 he and his son Thomas were the largest landowners and tax payers in Sandwich.  He farmed to some extent, and worked more or less regularly at his trade of shoemaking, as in legal documents he always stated his occupation as “shoemaker”.  He made many shrewd trades in land and merchandise.

   The old Tupper house in Sandwich, which was built in 1637 when the settlement was not yet a year old, so sturdily built that it stood for nearly 300 years until destroyed by fire around 1920.  It remained in the family for most of that time.

   It seems hardly possible hardly possible that a man so active as Thomas Tupper is shown to in this period was as old as we must figure him from his stated age of 98 when he died, 3/28/1676, since the year of his birth is not known exactly.  In 1643 a list was made of men in Sandwich, ages 16 to 60, able to bear arms, in which appears the name of Thomas Tupper.  If not over 60 that year, he could not have been over 93 when he died.

   Whatever his years may have correctly been, and however clouded in obscurity the early half of his life may be, Thomas Tupper’s accomplishments after he passed middle age, as we learn from the story of Sandwich, stamp him as exceptional in ability and stamina, as well as a good citizen whose high rating in the community was well earned.

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