Thomas Tupper

Thomas Tupper was a shoemaker, "Tho: Tupper of the Towne of Sandwidge shoomaker" in a deed of 10 June 1650 (PCR 12:138), and probably came from Bury, West Sussex, next to Pulborough. By 1637 he was at Saugus (Lynn), one of "those tenn men of Saugust" allowed to settle Sandwich on 3 Apr 1637 with Edmund Freeman (PCR 1:57). About 1638 he was presented for "Thom. Tupper, 5 swine vnringed" (PCR 1).

On 1 Mar 1641/2 the grand jury presented him: "Wee psent Thomas Tupper, of Sandwich, for misdemeanor in lacivious & vncleane carriages towards Linceford wyfe, late of Yarmouth," and the next entry reads "We psent Linceford wyfe for the same miscarriage" (PCR 2:36-37). The same court presented Edmund Freeman for lending a gun to an Indian. In 1644 the townsmen pledged corn "unto Thos. Tupper, for as many bolts as would shingle the old meeting-house," Edmund Freeman pledging 10s (Freeman, History of Cape Cod 2).

He was deputy for Sandwich for nineteen years between 1646 and 1665, by the Tupper Family Association's count. On 4 June 1650 he was named the man deputed to marry couples at Sandwich: "For Sandwidg, Tho Tupper" (PCR 2:155). He lost the office four years later: on 7 Mar 1653/4 "Thomas Tupper, for his negligence in not causing Edward Perry, of Sandwidg, to bee by him orderly married, being by the Court appointed to marry psons there, was required henceforth to desist, and is not intrusted with that business any more" (PCR 3:47). By Sandwich tradition, after the first minister left, Bourne and Tupper led worship, each with his own party; Tupper was "a little tinged with the fanaticism so prevalent at that time," and "Messrs. Bourne and Tupper then turned their attention to the Indians" (Rev. Gideon Hawley, 1794, in HCC 2:70n).

On 22 Oct 1656 he released "Edmond Freeman the elder" from "all manor of accoumpts, specialities, and demaunds, from the begining of the world to this present day" (PCR 5:121). On 25 Aug 1664 he, his son Thomas and Benjamin Nye sat on the inquest into Thomas Fish's death at the mill dam (PCR 4:85). In 1667, near ninety, he was granted 120 acres "if hee can find the land" (PCR 4:159). Katherine, the wife of Benjamin Nye, was probably his daughter.

King Philip's War. In 1675 Sandwich named "Thos. Tupper" to its council of war (Freeman, History of Cape Cod 2:68), probably his son Thomas rather than the old man of ninety-seven (see Thomas Tupper). On 26 Mar 1676 his grandson Benjamin Nye, very probably, was killed with Capt. Michael Pierce near Pawtucket (see Benjamin Nye). Two days later the old man died, entered by his son as town clerk: "Thomas Tupper Senir: Deceased the 28th of March ... 1676; hee Died in the 98th yeer of his age, and 2cond month." His wife Anne died ten weeks after him, on 4 June 1676, "in the: 90th: yeer of her age."

Open questions

• His birth: 1578 by his death record, or the baptism of 1590 at Bury, Sussex?
• His years as deputy, in the Plymouth Colony Records.