Colton, George W. "A genealogical Record of the Descendants of

Quartermaster George Colton" Private Circulation by John Milton Colton,

Philadelphia, PA, 1912.

"George Colton, called in the records of the time, Quartermaster

George Colton, was born, tradition says in the town of Sutton Coldfield,

County of Warwick, England, date unknown. He married Deborah Gardner, of

Hartford, Conn., about 1644. Her antecedents are also uncertain. She died

5 September, 1689, in Springfield, Mass. He married, second, Widow Lydia

Lamb, 1 March, 1692, whose maiden name was Lydia Wright, daughter of

Deacon Samuel Wright, of Springfield, Mass., who settled there 1638. It is

thought his paternal ancestor was Nathaniel Wright, merchant, London. She

had been previously married three times.

The name of the Quartermaster's first wife, Deborah Gardner, is

given here as it appears in the record of Jabez Colton, to whose

painstaking labor we owe so much of our present knowledge of the old

Longmeadow families, and from whose compilation all the published accounts

of the Colton families seem to have been copied; but what his authority

for the statement was, cannot be traced. We do not find the name of

Gardner among those of the early colonists, but there was a Thomas Goodner

who lived in Salem in --, and who subsequently settled in Hartford, Conn.

Some who have given much attention to the matter are confident that

Gardner is a clerical error, or a mis-reading of Goodner, and that the

family name of Quartermaster George Colton's wife was Deborah Goodner.

This statement is made here without endorsement, but it is possible that

this may be the fact.

It would be very gratifying if we could trace Quartermaster

George Colton, to his home and ancestry in England. Future search or

accident may bring the desired facts to light, but thus far all attempts

to find records that would settle the questions of parentage, date and

place of birth, and of his arrival in this country, have been

unsuccessful. The records in the parish church in Sutton Coldfield (2),

which seem to

be full and complete from 1603 down, have been examined at

different times for facts relating to our ancestor, and again, lately, for

this work, but without result, and it seems possible, therefore, that he

may have been born and recorded.elsewhere, but, from having spent much of

his early life in that place, that he spoke of it, as his old

home in England.

The first fact we certainly know of him here is his marriage. Of

previous history there are traditions, but these are generally vague,

contradictory, and without proof. The one giving his birthplace as Sutton

Coldfield, a small place about sir miles northward from Birmingham,

England, is the oldest and has apparently. the best foundation, but to

this time repeated searches have failed to reveal his name, or that of any

other Colton with whom he might be connected. The date of his marriage,

about 1644, shows, that he probably was born not much, if any later, than

1620, and that of his death, 1699, points to a year not earlier than 1610;

between these dates, therefore, we may suppose him to have been born.

His name does not appear in any of the known lists of departures

from England, or of arrivals here; but this is easily accounted for by the

political and social conditions of the times. The suggestion has been made

that he probably came in the ship "Lion's Whelp " on one of her many trips

between the old country and the colonies; but of this no positive proof

has been found. The place of landing and the date of his arrival here

must, therefore, much to our regret, remain for the present unanswered

questions.

He reached the Springfield settlement as early as 1644, and

located in Masacksick, Longmeadow, Springfield. He took the oath of

allegiance in 1665, and was made a freeman in 1669-71, and in 1677 was a

Representative in the General Court of Massachusetts. In 1670 he and Capt.

John Pynchon, Benjamin Cooley, Lieut. Thomas Cooper, Rowland Thomas and

Capt. Elizur Holyoke were appointed commissioners to lay out lots, and

organize and sell the lands in the new plantation (of Suffield) by the

General Court of Massachusetts. On the 20th of March, 1672, the General

Committee instructed Lieut. Cooper, and Quartermaster George Colton, to

lay out and establish

the bounds of Suffield, and Charles Fleury, Joseph Leonard,

Samuel Harmon and Joseph Harmon, were appointed to attend them while

performing that duty. In the year 1722 fifty acres of land were laid out

in Suffield, to the assigns of said George Colton, then deceased, in

recognition of public services. Other honorable mention is made of

him in the old records, from all of which it is apparent that he

was a prominent, trusted and public-spirited member of the community in

which he lived. While no records mention anything of the Quartermaster's

physical characteristics, tradition and a knowledge of later generations

leads to the belief that he was spare and wiry in figure, and possessed of

the powers of endurance conspicuous in so many of his descendants.