The Serious Side to a Funny Incident: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “Changed My Thinking”

 

Anthony Nutter and the Attack on Colonial Tax Officials

Anthony Nutter: 1630-1685 (Maternal 9^th Great-Grandfather)
 

When I first saw the engraving pictured below, I was amused. The man depicted laughing uproariously at the two other men scuffling in the fireplace was my ninth-great-grandfather, Anthony Nutter. The violence depicted looked like a bar brawl to me. I assumed the men had drunk too much and had gotten into a scuffle. The description accompanying the illustration referred to Anthony as a “tall big man” who accompanied his friend Wiggin when they “visited Mason when the latter got his wig burned.” That description trivializes the incident, which was far more serious than I’d surmised. Rather than a scuffle amongst friends, the fight was political—an act of resistance by colonial settlers against British overreach. I had to drastically change my thinking about the meaning of the illustration.

Anthony Nutter was the son of Hatevil Nutter and his wife Ann Ayers Nutter. Anthony was born in England around 1630, and traveled to what is now Stratford County, New Hampshire with his parents and siblings sometime prior to 1640.  In 1662, at the age of 32, he married Sarah Langstaff. They had at least eight children, perhaps more than ten.

Anthony first lived in Dover Neck, New Hampshire, but eventually moved across the Piscataqua River to what is now Newington, New Hampshire, but was then called Welshman’s Cove on Bloody Point. He inherited the property from his father in 1674, and fortified the house into a garrison. Anthony became a freeman in 1662, and was a “corporall” in 1667, and was called a “leftenant” by 1683. These titles probably referred to militia positions—the colonists needed to protect themselves from raids by native tribes and the French. He served as a selectman in 1666 and 1667, as a Representative to the colonial General Court for six years between 1674 and 1684, and was named to the Provincial Council in 1679. He was obviously a respected citizen.

Historical Marker in the Bloody Point area of New Hampshire

So what led him to participate in a brawl with colonial bigwig Robert Mason and the Lieutenant Governor of New Hampshire Walter Barefoot?

In the 1680s, there was conflict in the colonies over the control of land in what is now New Hampshire. The area had originally been part of the Massachusetts Colony, but was eventually separated into a separate entity called a “royal province”. At that time, a man named Rober Mason asserted a claim that his family owned all the land in the province, and he arrived in the area with a warrant from the king and the expectation that all the colonists would begin paying him to lease their lands.  As might be expected, the colonists objected. They believed they had clear title to their lands and refused to pay rents, taxes or any other fees to any government entity connected to Mason.

Mason curried favor with the Provincial Governor, Edward Cranfield, so Cranfield attempted to enforce the lease arrangement. He was unsuccessful; his officers were unable to enforce his orders. Cranfield returned to England, turning over his duties to his Lietuenant Governor, Walter Barefoot.

The book Colonial Life in New Hampshire describes what led to the Nutter/Wiggin incident:

“Barefoot was not an improvement over his predecessor and used every means in his power to annoy the colonists. During his short stay an incident occurred which shows the contempt with which the government was held by the settlers. Thomas Wiggin and Anthony Nutter, who had formerly been members of the assembly, called one day at the house of Barefoot to remonstrate with him concerning the injustice of his proceedings. Mason, who was his guest at the time, was also present. During the discussion, the visitors told Mason very plainly and forcibly that his claim to the land amounted to nothing. This so enraged him that he took hold of Wiggin to force him from the house.

Wiggin, who was a powerful man, seized Mason by the collar and threw him with great violence across the room and into the fireplace, where his clothing and legs were severely burned. Barefoot upon coming to his assistance was treated even more severely. Several of his teeth were knocked out and two of his ribs were broken. Mason meantime called loudly upon his servants to bring his sword, but upon its being brought, Nutter quickly took it from him, and mocked the discomfiture of the highest officer of the state.”

Another description of the incident said that the fight was broken up by neighbors who were alerted by the screams of Barefoot’s maid.

Neither Nutter nor Wiggin faced any criminal charges for their altercation with two powerful men, even though both of those men were left with fairly serious injuries. Nutter and Wiggin had walked into the meeting with confidence, unafraid of Mason and Barefoot. While they were both big, strong men, I believe they felt more emboldened by the support of their fellow colonists. They knew that powerful titles and rank meant little so far from England and the king. The outcome proved them right. Barefoot soon lost his position and was replaced, while Mason was never able to assert his claim of ownership over the province’s land.

The fight at Barefoot’s house seems to have occurred in the early to mid 1680s when Anthony Nutter was in his early fifties. In 1685, he contracted smallpox. The journal of Rev. Pike noted:

“Feb 19. Lt. Anthony Nutter of Welch-Cove deceased of the smal-pox bef: it came out.”

I’m not sure what the reference to “before it came out” means. Before the rash appeared? Anthony Nutter died from the disease at the age of fifty-five. I have been unable to find his probate or burial records.

While I first looked at the story of Anthony Nutter and Thomas Wiggin’s fight with Mason and Barefoot as a humorous incident of drunken machismo, I changed my thinking when I read what led up to the incident. This is an example of the necessity of searching for information that can provide important context. Without context, we can misconstrue our ancestors’ actions and motivations. Where I once saw a drunken brawl, I now see political resistance by colonists against greed and an out-of-touch king.

 

Sources:

New England Historical Society. New Hampshire. “Edward Gove and this One-Man Revolution of 1683”. https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/edward-gove-and-his-one-man-revolution-of-1683/#google_vignette

Colonial Life in New Hampshire. James H. Fassett. Chapter 4. Ginn & Company, Publishers. Boston, Massachusetts, USA. 1899.

Photo of Newington Historical Marker. Wikimedia Commons. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/NewingtonNH_sign.JPG

https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LZ1W-4ND/lt.-anthony-nutter-1630-1685

 

A Young Man’s Big Decision: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “A Big Decision”

 

Lawrence Buckminster Makes His Will Before Setting Sail to England

Lawrence Buckminster: 1619-1645 (Maternal 8^th Great-Granduncle)

 

Sometimes I run across records or documents that make me laugh, and other times I find something that breaks my heart a little. Lawrence Buckminster’s probate record was unique—I had both reactions. Lawrence was barely twenty-five when he made the decision to take to the sea aboard a ship bound for England. As most sailors did in those days, knowing the hazards that ships and sailors faced, he made his will before he left. Sadly, he never returned to Massachusetts, and the will he dictated—filled with humor and pathos—is all that survives of his life.

Lawrence Buckminster was the eldest son of my ninth-great-grandfather, Thomas Buckminster and Thomas’ first wife, Margaret Cossen. Lawrence was born in Sempringham, Lincolnshire, England in September of 1619. He was baptized on September 12, 1619. Lawrence’s mother died in 1629, and his father took Lawrence and his three siblings to colonial America around 1630. Lawrence would have been about eleven years old.

Sempringham church where Lawrence was baptized.

Lawrence’s father remarried, and by Lawrence’s twenty-first birthday, he had eight younger siblings.

Lawrence apparently wrote his will in September 1645, and it was probated in May of 1646. This implies he died in late 1645 or early 1646. None of the details about his cause or place of death was recorded. His body does not seem to have been returned to his family, so he may have been buried at sea.

The remarkable part of Lawrence’s story is his delightfully detailed will. It begins in a rather unusual fashion, which I read as rather wry in tone. Lawrence wrote (or dictated) as follows:

“Seene that I am now bound for the sea & so for England, them smole (small) things that I have heare live & thos desposed of, if Capt. Smith doe not recover my wages againe, then thus I have ordered it if God take me away by death or any turne of God’s providence that I am never like to enjoy it againe…”

Copy of Lawrence Buckmaster/Buckminster's will from Massachusetts Probate Records

This opening is amazingly chatty and really shows personality. I can almost hear a cocky young man describing his possessions as “them small things that I have here”. And then there’s the puzzling line about his ship’s captain, which seems to have a bit of a mocking note: “if Capt. Smith doe not recover my wages againe”. What can we gather from this line? First, Lawrence had sailed with Capt. Smith before, and apparently there was some dispute about Lawrence’s wages. I am surmising that the meaning of the word “recover” in this context is more akin to “revoke” or “confiscate.” It sounds as if Lawrence does not trust his captain to convey any wages earned before his death to his heirs.

Next follows a very detailed accounting and distribution of Lawrence’s possessions. First, he leaves “the piece of land bought of & payd excepted of the said Thomas Spaule” to his sister Elizabeth Buckminster [which he dictates as “Buckmaster”, an alternate spelling during that era]. I am a bit unclear about Thomas Spaule’s [alternate spelling Spowell] connection to the land—had Lawrence bought it from Thomas? It appears that Lawrence’s sister Elizabeth was his favorite of all his siblings, as she received the most valuable inheritance.

Lawrence then begins an itemized distribution of what he described as “smale things in my chest”:

“first a greate coate I freely give to Thomas Spaule & the six shillings due to me from Thomas Wellens with it, My black hatt I do bestow it upon Abigail Sherman, the suite of apparel to my brother Zachary Buckmaster & a shirt and band or two for my ffather, there wilbe left a paire of stockings the best to be given to Matthew Coy, the worser paire or two paire & the chest in which these lye in unto the said Thomas Spaule…”

This section of the will indicates how important and how limited clothing was during that era. Even “worser” stockings were important enough to list in a will. My ancestor Zachary Buckminster received an entire suit of clothing, which would have been a valuable possession. Their father Thomas was to receive a shirt and “band”.

But non-family members also received bequests. Someone named Matthew Cay or Coy was to inherit Lawrence’s best pair of stockings, and an unrelated young woman, Abigail Sherman, was to inherit his black hat. Was Abigail a sweetheart of Lawrence’s? Or was she an extended relative? Why was she to receive the hat? After all, what was a woman to do with a man’s hat? It seems rather bold to include an unrelated woman in a man’s will in the mid-seventeenth century.

The next passage in the will is very confusing. It reads that Thomas Spaule was to take “a smale caske of Mackrells that Thomas is to send to sea for me for to let them go to sea for his daughter Mary till they come to some thing or nothing, but if that I live to come againe, or desire an account of them by sending to you an account to be given to me.”

After a little research, I discovered that mackerels were salted and packed in casks to be used as food on ships or to be sold abroad. I think what Lawrence was proposing was that a cask of mackerel that Lawrence had intended to export be instead exported by Thomas Spaule on behalf of Spaule’s daughter Mary. In other words, any proceeds of the sale of the cask would go to Mary, unless Lawrence survived his voyage and returned to claim the proceeds or sent for an accounting from England. I did a bit of research on Thomas Spaule’s family, and it appears that Mary was just a baby when the will was written. I wonder if she ever received the proceeds of that cask of salted fish.

The will is signed as follows: “Lawrence Buckmaster in the presence of Thomas Spaule”, with a man named Robert Portons signing as the writer of the document, dated September 27, 1645. It is likely that Lawrence needed assistance to write the document and dictated it to Mr. Portons; like many men of the era, he was probably barely literate.

Thomas Spaule must have been Lawrence’s best friend, as so much of the will and the means of distributing the possessions was entrusted to Thomas. Perhaps this explains the chatty nature of the will—the two friends were sitting in a room discussing everything as the will was written.

Lawrence makes some last-minute amendments, perhaps in response to Thomas’ questions or comments. He writes:

“But the land she is not to make it away nor part fro, but she is not to have it, nor have nothing to doe with it till the yeare of our Lord 1649 & that Mayday, but if she sell it then let Thomas Spaule have the refusing of it, if she let it, then he to hyer it afore another if he please & if I dye at sea then to demand upon inquiry you may true wages for the time & to give my ffather it.

I wonder why Elizabeth was required to wait until May Day 1649 to gain full control over her inheritance? She was born in 1628, so perhaps that date was selected to ensure that she had reached her majority, the age of twenty-one. Also, once again, Lawrence’s friend Thomas received preferential treatment. While Elizabeth was to inherit the land Lawrence owned, she could not sell or rent it out without offering Thomas Spaule the right of first refusal.

It is interesting that seven years after this will was written, a man named William Spowell married Elizabeth Buckminster. I believe William Spowell must have been related to Thomas Spaule/Spowell—perhaps his brother. The two families must have lived near one another and were friendly. I wonder if Elizabeth held onto the land after inheriting it, or did she sell it or lease it to Thomas Spaule? I will have to keep researching to see if there are any land transfer records.

While Lawrence Buckminster may have approached the making of his will with a bit of irreverence, it is also obvious that it was a serious undertaking. He was well aware of the possible consequences of his decision to go to sea. While he left no descendants and few records of his existence, this will provides a window into his short life and the difficult lives of early colonial settlers.

Sources:

Suffolk County (Massachusetts) Probate Records, 1636-1899; Author: Massachusetts. Probate Court (Suffolk County) https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/9069/records/367187?tid=46986934&pid=322685714523&ssrc=pt

Photo Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

The Case of the Missing Mothers: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “A Theory in Progress”

 

Thomas Buckminster’s Two Wives and Nine Children: Which Wife Gave Birth to Which Children?

Thomas Buckminster: 1593-1656 (Maternal 9^th Great-Grandfather)
Margaret Cossen: 1597-1629 (Maternal 9^th Great-Grandmother)
Joanna Robinson: 1597-1676 (Wife No. 2)
 

I’ve been making use of the new Ancestry feature, the Tree Checker program. It helps me identify errors in my tree, and equally important, which individuals in the tree lack sources and records. I discovered that when I originally added the Thomas Buckminster family (my maternal 9^th Great-Grandfather) to my family tree, I had found sources verifying basic birth, death and marriage information for my direct ancestor, Thomas’ son Zachariah Buckminster. However, I had failed to do the same for Zachariah’s eight siblings. I hadn’t even verified which of Thomas’ two wives had given birth to which child. Ancestry’s Tree Checker flagged all of Zachariah’s siblings as “people with no sources”. I decided it was time to rectify this omission.

My 9^th Great Grandfather Thomas Buckminster was born in England in 1593, and immigrated to the American Colonies around 1630 following the death of his first wife, Margaret Cossin, in 1629. He settled in the Muddy River area of Suffolk County, Massachusetts and married Joanna Robinson.

Muddy River on a 1777 map of Brookline area near Boston.

I had some theories about his nine children’s parentage. Other Ancestry trees tended to show that second wife Joanna was the mother of at least six or seven of the nine children. I believed that first wife Margaret was actually the mother of not only my 8th Great Grandfather Zachariah, but four or five of his siblings as well. I needed to see if I could verify that theory.

Thomas Buckminster’s first wife died in 1629. Obviously, any children born after that date were the children of second wife Joanna Robinson. So my first job was to find birth records or documents that verified the birth year of the eight siblings.

Muddy River today

I located a transcription of Thomas’ will, made out in 1656 shortly before his death. His heirs included the following children: Zackery (Zachariah); daughters Elizabeth Spowell, Mary Stevens, Dorcas Corben, and Sarah Buckminster, and sons Thomas, Joseph and Jabesh (Jabez). The will offered me some clues about which children were the progeny of second wife Joanna. Thomas noted that sons Thomas, Joseph and Jabesh, and daughter Sarah were all minors under the age of twenty-one. The will instructs that they receive forty shillings “each to be paid when severally ‘one & Twenty years of Age.’” That means that each of them were born after 1636, so could not have been the children of Margaret, who died in 1629. All four, therefore, were Joanna’s children.

But what about the other children? I found birth and probate records for Thomas’ son, Lawrence Buckminster. He was born in England in 1619, so his mother must have been Margaret Cossen. Lawrence was Thomas’ eldest son, six years older than my ancestor Zachariah. Lawrence died at sea in 1645, thus preceding Thomas in death.

As for daughter Elizabeth, I found a baptism record for her dated August 17, 1628. The baptism took place in Sempringham, Lincolnshire, England. This is the same parish where her brothers Lawrence and Zachary were baptized. Although I have found no actual birth record, she was obviously born before August 17, 1628. This confirms she was Margaret Cossen’s daughter. Elizabeth accompanied her father to Massachusetts and married William Spowell in 1652. I have been unable to find a death record for her.

As for daughter Dorcas, I have been unable to find any birth or baptism records for her. Her headstone states that she died January 22, 1721 at the age of 92. That would mean she was born in 1629 when Thomas Buckminster was still in England, meaning Dorcas was Margaret’s last child. Perhaps Dorcas’ birth led to her mother’s death, which occurred in 1629.

Thomas Buckminster’s ninth child was daughter Mary. I was unable to find any birth records for her. However, court records related to her father’s estate hint that she was the daughter of second wife Joanna Robinson Buckminster. Following Joanna’s remarriage, several of Thomas' children petitioned the court that administration of the estate be transferred from Thomas’ widow Joanna to them as Thomas’ children.

“On 27 July 1669, "Jabesh Buckminster, Mary Stevens, Dorcas Corbin, and Sarah Lawrence, son and daughters of Thomas Buckminster sometimes of Muddy River in Boston deceased," petitioned the court to be appointed administrators to their father's estate, referring to the marriage of their mother, Joanna Buckmaster, to Edward Garfield. Among the many depositions collected during the consideration of this petition was one from "Henry Stevens" who "affirmed in court 27 July 16[70] its four years come August next since his mo[ther]in] law Joanna Garfeild died."

Henry Steven’s reference to Joanna as his mother-in-law would suggest that his wife Mary was Joanna’s daughter. Mary’s uncomfirmed birthdate from several Ancestry trees was 1632, which followed the estimated 1630-31 date of Thomas’ marriage to Joanna. Henry and Mary also named one of their daughters “Joanna”. While these things suggest Joanna is Mary’s mother, without any actual documentary evidence, Mary’s parentage will remain theoretical.

So my original theory was only partially correct. I was able to confirm that three of my 8^th great grandfather’s siblings were his full siblings—the children of Thomas Buckminster’s first wife Margaret Cossen. However, I confirmed that four other siblings were the children of Thomas Buckminster’s second wife, Joanna, and that last sibling is probably also her child. I had theorized that at least one and possibly two of those siblings were Margaret Cossen’s children.

I need to continue to research this family to see if there are any additional records that can clarify family relationships. But at least the entire Buckminster family now has records attached to them, and will no longer appear on Tree Checker as “people with no sources.”

Sources:

Photo of Muddy River. Wikimedia Commons. John Stephen Dwyer, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olmsted-Park-Muddy-River.jpg

Henry Pelham’s 1777 Map of Boston area.

Photo of Dorcas Buckminster Corbin headstone. Gravestones of the First Corbins in America.