Isaac Chittenden

Isaac came over from London in 1635, aged 10, with his father "Lynnen wever THO: CHITTINGDEN 51," his mother Rebecca (40) and his brother Henry (6), and a certificate from the minister of Wapping (Hotten, Original Lists, p. 61); the Chittenden family history has them on the Increase. In April 1646 he married Martha Vinall at Scituate.

He was "often a deputy to Court" for Scituate (Deane, History of Scituate, p. 232). In 1666 the Court allowed him "to draw and sell wine and liquors and to keep an ordinary in the towne of Scittuate" (PCR 4:117), and in 1671 he sat on the colony's council of war (PCR 5:64). In 1673 he complained that twelve men, among them Joseph, Thomas and Daniel Turner and three Hatches, had on 14 May "in a roietus way" thrown down "a great psell of fence" he had set up on land laid out to him; the Court called it a riot but judged they meant only "to bring the case to a tryall," and fined them 5s apiece (PCR 5:128).

King Philip's War. At the General Court of 4 Oct 1675 "Generall Cudworth, Mr Constant Sonthworth, Capt Freeman, Mr Laythorp, and Mr Chettenden were appointed to be a comittee in the behalfe of the country, to take an accoumpt of the charges arising by this p[re]sent warr" (Records of the Colony of New Plymouth 5:175); Capt. Freeman was John Freeman of Eastham. For the Narragansett levy, the council of war at Marshfield on 6 Dec 1675 appointed "Major Cudworth, Cornett Robert Studson, and Isacke Chettenden presse masters, for the pressing of able and fitt men att Scittuate to goe forth on the present expedition against the Indians" (PCR 5:183). The town also put him on its committee "to procure clothing, &c. for the soldiers, viz. Gen. Cudworth, Cornet Stetson, Isaac Chittenden, Joseph White" (Deane p. 120). On 29 Feb 1675/6 the colony named a council of war for every town, "Scittuate: Cornett Robert Studson, Isacke Chettenden, Edward Jenkens," with power, with the commission officers, "to order all watches and wardings and garrisons" (PCR 5:186); the same order put Joseph Warren on Plymouth's, Edmund Freeman Jr. on Sandwich's, Jeremiah Howes on Yarmouth's, and John Freeman and Mark Snow on Eastham's.

Benjamin Chittenden, probably his son, was killed with Capt. Michael Pierce near Pawtucket on 26 Mar 1676: "From Scituate, 15 Slain. Capt. Pierce, Samuel Russell, Benjamin Chittenden, ..." (Rev. Noah Newman's letter of 27 March, in Soldiers in King Philip's War, p. 359, and Deane pp. 122-123). His grandfather Thomas Chittenden's will of 1669 had left a legacy "to Benjamin, son of Isaac"; he "fell with Capt. Pierce ... and left no family" (Deane p. 232). That spring, when "twenty-five men were ordered to be pressed from Scituate ... Gen. Cudworth, Lieut. Buck and Isaac Chittenden were appointed press-masters" (Deane p. 121); his son Stephen later married Lt. Isaac Buck's daughter Mehitable.

His death. Isaac came through the great raid on Scituate of 20 May 1676. That June, after sitting at most courts since the 1660s, he was not among the town's deputies (PCR 5). On 29 July he was the first to sign the verdict of a coroner's jury "impannelled ... by Mr Nathaniel Tilden, the constable of Scittuate, to view the corpes of Joseph Ellis, of Scittuate," who had drowned in the harbour: "ISACKE CHETTENDEN" (PCR 5:225-226). He died within three months. On 1 Nov 1676 the Court granted administration "on the estate of Isacke Chettenden, deceased" to Martha Chittenden and Israel Chittenden, with Major Cudworth and Cornet Studson to help settle it (PCR 5:211). Deane's story that he "was slain at Scituate on the memorable 20th May, 1676" (p. 128), which the family history repeats (The Chittenden Family in Massachusetts, p. 4), is a mistake.

Open questions

• How he died, between 29 July and 1 Nov 1676: his administration papers (Plymouth Colony probate) and the Scituate town records.
• Whether Benjamin Chittenden, killed with Pierce, was his son.
• The ship of 1635 (the London list names none).