Mr William Hilton

Occupation Details
- - Occupation Notes
    - The New England Historical & Genealogical Society notes (showing no sources) that William Hilton was the father of William and Edward Hilton. Other databases, including information from Eric Wil Lamberton, state that Captain Roger Hilton, brother of William Hilton, was actually their father. According to Mr. Lamberton, "Basically no research was carried out in the county of Durham, and assumptions were made that William and Edward were a William and Edward of Northwich. The problem lies in the fact that the parish records for Monkwearmouth for that period were burnt in a fire. The only written evidence is in a book called "The History and Folklore of Old Washington" by Albert Hind who was an antiquarian who lived on the River Wear, and he states William and Edward [who came on the Fortune in 1621] were born at Biddick Old Hall, a few miles from Hylton Castle. All the circumstantial evidence would confirm this." Lamberton goes on to say "I believe the William and Edward [from] Northwich were related, probably descendants of a marriage between Richard Hilton (uncle of this William and his brother Edward) and a daughter of Middleton.....he [Richard] is thought to be the father of Hugh Hilton who arrived at Jamestown in 1619."
      
      Around what was probably the turn of the 16th/17th century, decades before the Mayflower sailed for Plymouth, the Hylton family appears to have had quite a large and successful fishing fleet, fishing in the north sea and off New Foundland. Eric Lamberton says that "both William and Edward Hilton were north sea fishermen operating out of both Monkwearmouth (where the fishing grounds are) and London. (An added note, and interesting tidbit about Monkwearmouth that I just read recently was that it is considered to be the birthplace of stained glass.) William and Edward are believed to have been amongst the first English fishermen fishing off Newfoundland in the early part of the 17th century. The Hyltons had a monopoly on salt production in Elizabethan England; salt was needed to preserve the catch on its voyage back to England where it was sold at the Billingsgate fish market. Edward was a member of the Fisherman's Guild of London."5
      
      On his arrival at Plymouth in 1621, William wrote a letter home to his cousin Anthony Hilton in England asking him to send his wife and children to him. This letter was published in 1622 by Captain John Smith. Click here to read that letter.6,7,8
      
      Brothers William and Edward Hilton came to Plymouth aboard the "Fortune" in 1621, the year after the "Mayflower" arrived in America. The "Fortune," a small ship carrying only 35 passengers, left England in July 1621 and didn't arrive at Plymouth until November 10th of that year. On arrival they found that half the "Mayflower" passengers had not made it through their first winter in Plymouth and had died. The "Fortune" sailed back to England carrying a "cargo of good clapboard as full as she could stow, and two hogsheads of beaver and other skins" which showed the great potential for settling in America, ensuring future settlement at Plymouth.9,10
      
      In the 1623 Plymouth division of land, William Hilton received one acre as a passenger on the "Fortune" and William Hilton's wife and two children received three acres as passengers on the "Anne.11"
      
      In 1623, William's wife Mary and two children (son William and daughter Mary) arrived in Plymouth on the "Anne." Their third child, thought to be called John, was born the next year in 1624.12
      
      The controversy over the baptism of this child by the Rev. John Lyford supposedly started the problems whereby John Lyford and John Oldham were expelled from the Colony after setting up a separate (Anglican) church from that of the Pilgrims. There is an account of Plymouth Colony's trails and tribulations with Rev. John Lyford to be found in William Bradford's book "Of Plymouth Plantation."13 Hubbard also notes in his discussion of the controversy surrounding Lyford and his followers at Plymouth that "the first occasion of quarrel with them was the baptizing of Mr. Hilton's child, who was not joined to the church at Plymouth" [Hubbard 98-94].14 (Also see the NEHGS website for more information on specifically John Lyford and John Oldham)
      
      Jill Draper (e-mail of 3 February 2005) shared her family's historical account of the Hiltons' part in this controversy15: "When another child was born to the 'young' William Hiltons, it could not be baptized at Plymouth, unless the parents joined the Pilgrim Church, which they were not disposed to do, being staunch Anglicans. They appealed to Rev. John Lyford, and arranged a private baptism according to the rites of the Church of England. This precipitated the Lyford-Oldham crisis, and Rev. Lyford was forced to take his family and leave the Plymouth settlement." Jill goes on to say "It was this issue, along with problems with the church's 'Separatists' that was behind the family's migration first to the Piscataqua River, and later to join his brother Edward to help found Dover, New Hampshire."
      
      The NEHGS data confirms this, saying that "William Hilton and his family soon left Plymouth, but his place of residence in the next few years is not certain, and is intertwined with the career of his brother Edward Hilton . A useful document in this regard is the petition of William Hilton, eldest son of the immigrant William Hilton. Although the petition itself is not dated, it was discussed at court in Massachusetts Bay in late May and early June of 1660. William Hilton tells us that "your petitioner's father came over into New England about the year Anno Domini 1621; & your petitioner came about one year & an half after, and in a little time following settled ourselves upon the River of Pischataq[ua], with Mr. Edw[ard] Hilton, who were the first English planters there" [SJC Case #362; NEHGR 36:41-42].16 The petition goes on to claim land up the Merrimack River which had been granted to William Hilton Senior and William Hilton Junior by the local Indian sachem [in 1636]; the petition was only partially successful." (See further mention of this petition some 8 paragraphs below this) This all seems to clarify the further mention in the Winthrop Papers that "Sometime before March 1639, William Hilton had participated in an exploratory expedition up the Merrimack "[WP 4:101].17
      
      "As we have seen above Edward Hilton settled on the Piscataqua sometime between 1625 and 1628, and the petitioner is here claiming that the Hilton brothers made the settlement simultaneously. One posssibility, then, is that William Hilton left Plymouth in later 1624 or early 1625, after the baptism incident, and joined his brother Edward about that time in settling what would become Dover." This scenario would not require any additional place of residence between William's moving from Plymouth and Dover.
      
      On the other hand, Noyes, Libby and Davis state that Hilton "left Plymouth and joined [David] Thomson at Little Harbor with the purpose of starting salt works," and apparently did this in partnership with Gilbert Winslow [GDMNH 334-35, 765 (documentary evidence not seen)].18 This would provide William Hilton and his family with a home prior to the arrival of Edward Hilton, assuming the latter did not come so early as 1625."
      
      John T. Hassam "demonstrated that the immigrant William Hilton had two sons by that same name. The deposition of 1660 was made by the elder of these two sons, who lived in Newbury and Charlestown. A deposition of 1683 proves the younger son William of the immigrant William, for on 30 May 1683 two men testified that 'William Hilton now resident in York...was commonly known, & reputed, to be the son of William Hilton Senior deceased, & formerly lived in York' " [YLR 3:125; NEHGR 31:184, 36:40].19,12
      
      Noyes, Libby and Davis note "that '(b)esides the wife who followed him to Plymouth, and Frances, possibly a widow with children when he married her about 1651, there may have been others, suggesting that if one of his wives should prove to have been a Winslow it would explain his letter writing with Edward Winslow, his association with John Winslow, his removal to Piscataqua with Gilbert Winslow and the marriage of two of John Winslow's sons to his relations" [GDMNH 335 (without, unfortunately, documentary support for the Winslow associations)].18
      
      "There is no date of death for the first wife of William Hilton, and we do not know when he married Frances, so the distribution of his children among his wives is difficult. We assume here that the first wife did not survive long in this country, and that the last four children were all with Frances. Magdalene, who calls Frances her mother, need not have been a Hilton, but since this name also suggests a Winslow connection, and since Libby makes such a point of the low social status of Frances, one might question the exact nature of this relation as well. For the moment we leave the problem in this unsatisfactory state."20
      
      As of 1628, William Hilton had removed from Plymouth to Piscataqua, Dover, New Hampshire and in 1648 to Kittery, Maine, and then in 1651 to York, Maine.
      
      On 31 May 1660 Massachusetts Bay General Court, in "answer to a petition of William Hilton, humbly craving the Court's allowance & confirmation of a deed of gift of six miles square of land lying on the River Pennieconaquigg, being a rivulet running into the River Penacooke, with two miles of the best meadow lying on the northeast side of Pennacook, given to his father & him in the year 1636 by Tahanto, the sagamore there; & the Court, having considered the contents of this petition, judge meet not to grant the same, but considering the petitioner's grounds for the approbation of the Indian's grant, do judge meet to grant that three hundred acres of the said land be set out to the petitioner by a committee chosen by this Court, so as that it may not prejudice any plantation; and this as a final end of all future claims by virtue of such grant from the Indians."21
      
      On 19 May 1642, "Mr. W[illia]m Hilton was among the residents of York who on 22 November 1652 subjected themselves to Massachusetts Bay government and took the freeman's oath" [MBCR 2:292; 4:1:129].22
      
      It is thought that William Hilton was somewhat educated as he wrote several competent, if poorly spelled, letters [NEHGR 21:179; WP 3:119, 120-21, 449].12,17,23
      
      William's listed occupations while living in Kittery are as a tavern keeper and ferry operator. He seemed to appear quite often in court for one thing or the other; a few cases while in Kittery: On 27 June 1648 "Mr. William Hilton being licensed for to keep the ordinary at the mouth of the river of Pascataquack and that none other shall keep any private ordinary there, nor to sell wine, beer nor liquor upon any pretence." On 16 October 1649 "Mr. William Hilton presented [in court] for not keeping victual and drink at all times for strangers and inhabitants, admonished." On 15 October 1650 "for as much as the house at the river's mouth where Mr. Shapleigh's father first built and Mr. William Hilton now dwelleth; in regard it was first house there built and Mr. Shapleigh intendeth to build and enlarge it, and for further considerations, it is thought fit it should from time to time be for a house of entertainment or ordinary with this proviso, that the tenant be such a one as the inhabitants shall approve of" [ MPCR 1:125; 1:135; 1:147].23
      
      While living in Dover and York William held numerous offices:22,23,19,18
           "Deputy for Dover to Massachusetts Bay General Court, 7 March 1643/4, 29 May 1644,
            and 14 May 1645 (disguised as "William Heath") [ MBCR 2:54, 66, 3:2, 10].
           Arbiter, 15 October 1650 [ MPCR 1:144].
           Grand jury, 11 March 1651, 28 June 1655 [ MPCR 1:159, 2:40].
           Jury, 25 November 1650 [ MPCR 1:155].
           Committee to divide land, 19 March 1651/2, 28 June 1655 [ MPCR 1:178, 2:38].
           York Alderman, 1652 [ YLR 1:2:14-15].
           York selectman, 1653, 1654 [ GDMNH 335].
      
      William Hilton and Frances were brought to court on 16 October 1649 in Kittery, Maine. Mrs. Hilton was presented and admonished for fighting and abusing her neighbors with her tongue. At the same court, Mr. William Hilton was presented for breach of the Sabbath in carrying of wood from the woods and for failing to keep food and drink on hand for strangers and inhabitants.24
      
      William Hilton and Frances were brought to court on 15 March 1649/50 in York, York County, Maine. Mr. William Hilton brought cases against Hatevell Nutter, Thomas Hanscom and Robert Mendam. He was still suing Hanscom and Mendam on 11 March 1651/2. On 15 October 1650, Mr. William Hilton and Frances his wife were sued by Mr. Georg Moncke for slander. On 11 March 1651/2, Jeremy Sheires reviled Mr. William Hilton when Hilton was foreman of the jury, and Sheires was fined £2. On 14 October 1651 Mr. William Hilton posted bail for Clement Campion, sued Thomas Way for debt, and sued Michaell Powell for debt.25
      
      On 30 June 1653 in York, York County, Maine, "William Hilton Senior" sued Samuell Allcocke for cutting and carrying away his timber. On 25 October 1653, Mr. William Hilton Senior sued Ann Mason of London and, in a separate action, sued Sir Ferdinando Gorges, for damge done against him.26
      
      On 28 June 1655 in York, York County, Maine, the court found Frances Hilton, the wife of William Hilton, guilty of "railing at her husband and saying he went with Joane [sic, John in the blotter] his bastard to his three halfe penny whores and that he carried a cloak of profession for his knavery." For this offense she was sentenced to have "twenty lashes upon the bare skin, only the execution thereof upon her husband's request to be respited upon her good behavior until the next county court, except any just complaints come in against her. In the meantime, which if they do unto authority then the punishment to be inflicted upon her by order of the commissioners of York at what time they shall see cause to order it." Who knows what the outcome of this offense was -- did Frances get her twenty lashes or did William die before that next county court came up to check whether she had been on her good behavior. My personal opinion is that Frances may well have driven William to an early grave!27
      
           Children of William Hilton and Mary:
      Elizabeth Hilton   b. 27 Jun 1616, d. 1 Aug 1616
      William Hilton+   b. 22 Jun 1617, d. 1699/0
      Mary Hilton   b. 11 May 1619
      John Hilton   b. 1624
      
           Children of William Hilton and Frances:
      Magdalene Hilton   b. s 1636
      Mainwaring Hilton   b. by 1646, d. b 4 Jul 1671
      Agnes Hilton   b. s 1647
      William Hilton+   b. 1653
      Citations
      
      [S110] "History and Folklore of Old Washington," by Albert H. Hind (1976), Hind states "William Hylton the pilgrim was born at North Biddick Hall." NEHGS lists William as being born in Northwich, Chester, England, but that is now believed to be incorrect.
      [S13] Conclusions Drawn: Marriage date estimate based on birth of first child in June 1616. Also not sure of place, just guessing it might have been London.
      [S114] New England Historical & Genealogical Register (www.NewEnglandAncestors.org), 31:181.
      [S127] MPCR: Province and Court Records of Maine, 6 volumes (Portland 1928-1975, Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1991), MPCR 2:47; 2:51; 2:54.
      [S107] Hilton Family Information from Eric Wil Lamberton, www.AncestryUK.com, "Hilton Info," e-mails February 6 & 8, 2005 to Kerry Davis.
      [S116] The Complete Works of Captain John Smith (1580-1631) in Three Volumes, Philip L. Barbour, ed. (Williamsburg, Virginia, 1986), pp. 430-431.
      [S117] Young's Pilgrim Fathers, 250-251.
      [S114] New England Historical & Genealogical Register (www.NewEnglandAncestors.org), 31:179.
      [S1] Pedigree of the Family of Hilton (Hylton), (MS, Written circa 1933 by David Manly Hilton; Damariscotta, Maine), Info taken from Ella Gregg Bean's handwritten transcript of the Hilton manuscript; Kerry S. Davis Ancestor Files; Kentfield, Marin County, California. See first noted Hylton, Sir William de Hylton, Knight, b. circa 900, for further information on the Alternate Line starting in 900, which has many of the same people as the more proven Hilton line starting in 1146 with Romanus de Helton. Hereinafter cited as The Hilton Family Pedigree.
      [S125] The Mayflower by Kate Caffrey (Stein & Day, 1974), lists both William and Edward Hilton on the passenger list of the Fortune.
      [S128] PCR: Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England, Nathaniel B. Shurtleff and David Pulsifer, eds., 12 volumes in 10 (Boston 1855-1861).
      [S114] New England Historical & Genealogical Register (www.NewEnglandAncestors.org).
      [S126] Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford.
      [S123] A General History of New England from the Discovery to MDCLXXX by William Hubbard (Cambridge, 1815).
      [S121] Personal communication between Kerry Davis and Jill Draper of St. Louis, MO (e-mail address), distant cousin and fellow Hilton descendant.
      [S118] SJC: Supreme Judicial Court, Massachusetts.
      [S122] WP: Winthrop Papers, 1498-1654, 6 volumes, various editors (Boston, 1925-1992).
      [S119] GDNMH: Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire (Portland, Maine, 1928-1939), by Sybil Noyes, Charles Thornton Libby and Walter Goodwin avis.
      [S120] York Deeds, 18 volumes (Portland, Maine, 1887-1910).
      [S114] New England Historical & Genealogical Register (www.NewEnglandAncestors.org), Most quoted text taken from William Hilton data from NEHGR.
      [S124] MBCR: Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1628-1686, Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., 5 volumes in 6 (Boston 1853-1854), MBCR 4:1:430.
      [S124] MBCR: Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, 1628-1686, Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, ed., 5 volumes in 6 (Boston 1853-1854).
      [S127] MPCR: Province and Court Records of Maine, 6 volumes (Portland 1928-1975, Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1991).
      [S127] MPCR: Province and Court Records of Maine, 6 volumes (Portland 1928-1975, Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1991), 1:135.
      [S127] MPCR: Province and Court Records of Maine, 6 volumes (Portland 1928-1975, Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1991), 1:138; 1:156; 1:145; 1:160; 1:169.
      [S127] MPCR: Province and Court Records of Maine, 6 volumes (Portland 1928-1975, Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1991), 2:11; 2:19.
      [S127] MPCR: Province and Court Records of Maine, 6 volumes (Portland 1928-1975, Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1991), 2:43-44.

Mr William Hilton

Occupation Details

Ancestor Pedigree Chart

Personal Timeline

Individual Additional Information

Details of William's family with Mrs Mary Winslow