Thomas Tupper

Shoemaker: “Tho: Tupper of the Towne of Sandwidge shoomaker” in a deed of 10 June 1650 (PCR 12:138). Probably from Bury, West Sussex, next to Pulborough; at Saugus (Lynn) by 1637, when he was one of “those tenn men of Saugust” allowed to settle Sandwich, 3 Apr 1637, with Edmund Freeman (PCR 1:57). About 1638: “Thom. Tupper, 5 swine vnringed” (PCR 1).

On 1 Mar 1641/2: “Wee psent Thomas Tupper, of Sandwich, for misdemeanor in lacivious & vncleane carriages towards Linceford wyfe, late of Yarmouth.” The next entry reads “We psent Linceford wyfe for the same miscarriage.” No sentence is shown (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).

Deputy for Sandwich, for nineteen years between 1646 and 1665 by the Tupper Family Association’s tercentenary volume (compiled). On 4 June 1650 he was named the man deputed to marry couples at Sandwich: “For Sandwidg, Tho Tupper” (PCR 2:155). 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). 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 he was granted 120 acres “if hee can find the land” (PCR 4:159).

He died on 28 Mar 1676, 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 later, on 4 June 1676, “in the: 90th: yeer of her age.”

In 1794 Rev. Gideon Hawley, recalling Sandwich tradition, said that after the first minister left, Bourne and Tupper led worship, each with his own party; that Tupper was “a little tinged with the fanaticism so prevalent at that time”; and that “Messrs. Bourne and Tupper then turned their attention to the Indians” (HCC 2:70n). This is tradition; Kardell holds that the first Tupper missionary to the Indians was Thomas Jr.

He is an ancestor only if Mercy, wife of Lt. Matthias Ellis, was Mercy Nye (probable, not proven).

Open questions

• Born 1578 (his death record) or baptised 1590 at Bury, Sussex? Neither English candidate is proven.
• His years as deputy (nineteen, 1646-1665) come from the Tupper Family Association volume and have not been checked in the Plymouth Colony Records.