| Notes |
- The Tilton Family
Among the 12 original patentees of old Monmouth is John Tilton, who arrived 1640 in Lynn Co., Mass. At this time in Lynn the most noted, influential person among the Baptists was Lady Deborah Moondie, afterwards long & favorably known among the original settlers of Long Island.
The following extract from the Lynn Records dated Dec. 13th, 1642:
The Lady Deborah Moodie, Mrs. King & the wife of John Tilton were presented for holding
The proceedings agains them resulted in their leaving Lynn & the next year 1643, we find mentioned Lady Moodie, the Tiltons, Wm. Goulding, Samuel Spicer & others at Gravesend, LI, founding the settlement from which afterward many person to Old Monmouth. No sooner did the Quakers begin to promulgate their views, than the Dutch authorities issued severe edicts against them & all who harbored those abominable impostors, runaways & strolling people called Quakers.
The following year John Tilton was fined £12 Flemish money for harboring a Quaker woman. From that time forward both Tilton & his wife seem to have strongly sympathized with the persecuted sec & soon cast their lot among them altogether, which greatly excited their of the Dutch & especially of old Governor Peter Stuyvesant. On the 5th Oct, 1662, John Tilton & Mary his wife were summoned before the Governor & his council at New Amsterdam charged with having entertained Quakers & frequenting their conventicles. They were condemned & ordered to leave the province before the 20th of November following, under pain of corporal punishment.
"Goody Tilton, (Mrs. Tilton), was not so much condemned for assisting at conventicles as for having, like a sorceress, gone from door to door to lure & seduce the people, yea, even young girls, to join the Quakers."
1662 Sept 19th, John Tilton was fined, as the record says, for permitting Quakers to quake at his house at Gravesend. Many other persons were prosecuted at this time by the Dutch on similar charges. Here, being again persecuted by the Dutch, they seem to have determined to seek some place where they could worship God as they pleased. The lands in Monmouth county impressed them so favorably that the following year 1663 they made large purchase of the Indians.
After the conquest of the Dutch by the English, ... John Tilton found he could remain at Long Island without molestation & leave his share in his Monmouth purchases to his children. He died at Gravesend, L.I, in 1688, his wife died a few years before in 1683. His will dated 15 of 7th month 1687 was recorded at Brooklyn , L.I.
. In the quarterly court records ... "At the same court, December 14, 1642, the Lady Deborah Moodie, Mrs. King & the wife of John Tilton were presented, for holding that the baptism of infants is no ordinance of God." From these historical relations we learn the reason why the Lady Moody, her son Sir Henry Moody, Ensign Baxter, Sergeant Hubbard, John Tilton & many others of her associates & friends, left New England & planted themselves at Gravesend, where they hoped to enjoy the most perfect freedom of opinion, unawed by the civil power & be allowed unmolested to propagate those religious principles which to them seemed most agreeable to their principles of reason & justice. - - - [1, 2]
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1600 - 1683 (83 years)