Humphrey Tiffany, Esq. Squire

SQUIRE HUMPHREY TIFFANY was born 04 June 1630 in London (Middlesex Co.) England, and died 15 July 1685 in Bet. Swansea & Boston, Massachusetts. He married ELIZABETH ? Abt. 1666 in ?. She was born 1645 in Swansea (Bristol Co.) Massachusetts, and died Unknown in ?.

Notes for SQUIRE HUMPHREY TIFFANY: The following information is taken from the article, "Consider Tiffany (1733-1796), author of 'A Tory's View of Colonial America', His Background, History and Genealogy". Researched and prepared by George Bradford TIFFANY; Revised March 2000, Center Harbor, New Hampshire. Full credit is given to Mr. TIFFANY and is only repeated here to inform later members of the TIFFANY lineage of its existance.

Squire Humphrey TIFFANY was born in London, England on 4 June 1630 and christened on the same date in St. John, Hackney Parish, London, England. As an adult, he served as a Justice of the Peace and emigrated to America sometime around 1660. The title of SQUIRE indicates a man of good birth and independent means with a coat of arms granted by the College of Heralds -- from whence comes the TIFFANY Coat of Arms. The TIFFANY escutcheon pictured a knight garlanded with oak leaves, his visored helmet surmounted by the head of a greyhound biting a stag's foot. A chevron and three lions were emblazoned on his breastplate above the motto, 'Patria Fidelis'. A huntsman and a patriot, in short, Squire TIFFANY was a gentleman. But whether he left England to protect his faith, his pocketbook, or both, is not known.

Squire Humphrey and his wife, Elizabeth, were first recorded on the ledgers of the Plimouth Colony of Massachusetts Bay in 1660. Presumably they had arrived from England shortly before that date, thus placing him in his late 20s when he arrived in America. If so, like their Mayflower predecessors, they may well have been fleeing Anglican persecution, for Oliver Cromwell had died in 1658 and his Puritan Roundheads were in rout. On the other hand, if Squire Humphrey had arrived in America during Cromwell's rule, it is also possible, even probable, that he was fleeing the economic chaos that the politically inept soldier had wrought.

1. This and the previous paragraph paraphrase material contained in "The Last Tiffany" by Michael John Burlingham, published in 1989 by Atheneum of New York. The dates were not authenticated.

A mention of Squire Humphrey occurs in the "Records of ancient Rehoboth (Massachusetts) dated 22 January 1663 showing "Humphrey TIFFANY permitted to be a sojourner and to buy and hire." The Latter-Day Saints Ancestral Files show the birth of the couple's first child, Ebenezer(2), as occuring in Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts, in 1663 and the birth of their second child, James(2), as occuring in Milton, Massachusetts, in 1666. 2. Squire Humphrey thus appears to have relocated to Milton, Massachusetts, sometime between 1663 and 1666.

The Town of Rehoboth, Massachusetts, then encompassed the present towns of Attleboro, Rehoboth, Seekonk, and parts of Swansea, Massachusetts and Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

The Records of Milton, Massachusetts, show the third child, Thomas(2), was born on 11 June 1668. 3. Humphrey was listed on the 1678 Tax List in Milton as "Umphrey Tifiny." On 21 October 1680, the Reverend Peter Thacher brought Humphrey's son James(2) to live with him ".....to perfect him in reading, and to teach him to write." James(2) would have been about age 14 at the time. A daughter, Elizabeth(2), was born in Milton on 11 April 1680. Humphrey and his wife, Elizabeth, among several others, were Thanksgiving dinner guests of the Rev. Thacher on 25 November 1680 at the Rev. Thacher's home in Milton. 4. A second daughter, Sarah(2), was born to Humphrey and Elizabeth in Swansea, Massachusetts, on 6 July 1683, leading to the presumption that Squire Humphrey had left Milton by 1682. 5. He was killed by lightning in Swansea, Massachusetts, on 15 July 1685 at the age of 55. 6.

The birth dates given for Squire Humphrey's children were taken from Page 62, "Milton Records -- Births, Marriages and Deaths, 1662-1843", Town of Milton, Massachusetts. Published by Alfred Mudge & Son Printers. Boston, Massachsetts, 1900.

References from the Journal of Rev. Peter Thacher, incorporated as "Appendix B" in "The History of Milton, Mass., 1640 to 1887", edited by A.K. Teele.

On 6 November 1681, the Rev. Peter Thacher, first pastor in Milton, baptized Squire Humphrey's sons Thomas(2), Hezekiah(2), Ebenezer(2), and James(2), who were then all over the age of 11, and the older brothers of William(2), age 9, Consider(2), age 6, and Ephraim(2), age 4, who were not baptized at that time. Squire Humphrey and his wife were clearly members of Rev. Thacher's church. It is interesting to note that Rev. Thacher was a Congregational (Puritan) minister and a colleague of the activist minister, Rev. Cotton Mather. How then, or why, Squire Humphrey's great grandson, Consider(4), became such a rabid member of the Anglican Church to whom Congregationalists were an anathema is a total mystery.

Many dates and places noted herein were abstracted from "The Tiffanys in America" by Ella F. (Tiffany) Wright, published by Idylwood, Mattatuck Press, Waterbury Blank Book Mfg. Co., Waterbury, Connecticut, 1904.

"He served for a long time as justice of the peace, being familiarly known as "Esquire" Tiffany," from a Book of Biographies, Chapter on Chenango County, page 607.

• Reference: WikiTree Genealogy - SmartCopy: Aug 21 2016, 23:56:24 UTC
• Reference: WikiTree Genealogy - SmartCopy: Apr 12 2017, 2:30:15 UTC

More on Squire Humphrey Tiffany:

Humphrey resided in the Plymouth Colony of Massachusetts Bay but did not stay long, moving within three years to the town of Rehoboth, Massachusetts. Incorporated in 1645, Rehoboth contained the towns of Seekonk, Rehoboth, Attleboro, and Swansea in Massachusetts and Pawtucket in Rhode Island. Squire Humphrey became a resident of the part known as Swansea, so named because emigrants with Baptist sympathies from the town of Swansea in Wales originally had settled it. Having set up Swansea as a Baptist township, the men of Rehoboth continued to be proprietors and landholders in both Rehoboth and Swansea. Many others living in Rehoboth became proprietors in Swansea, and disagreeing with the tenets of the Congregational Church of Christ of Rehoboth, they attended the Baptist Church of Swansea. Did Humphrey hold Baptist sympathies? At a minimum, Baptist theology apparently did not disturb him. In any case, he married Elizabeth of Swansea who had been born about 1645. The records of ancient Rehoboth, January 22, 1663, state, “Humphrey Tiffany permitted to be a sojourner and to buy or hire.” In other words, Humphrey Tiffany had become a citizen of the town.
As with his neighbors, Tiffany’s relations with the local natives were not always smooth. After a run-in with an Indian, he complained to the General Court at Plymouth: “Att the General Court holden att Plymouth the first day of March, Anno Domino, 1663, Humphrey Tiffany made a complaint against an Indian for abuse received.”
Humphrey and Elizabeth had their first child in Rehoboth in 1663 and a second in Milton in 1666. Apparently, the family had moved to Milton sometime between 1663 and 1666. Humphrey Tiffany owed a day’s work to Milton on the highways in 1670, 1672, and 1673; On December 9, 1678, he was one of the three men chosen as highway wardens for 1679. His name appears in rate lists from 1674 to 1680.

On October 21, 1680, Rev. Peter Thacher, the first pastor in Milton, brought Humphrey’s son James, who was about fourteen years old, to live with him: “Oct. 21. I went to Goodman Tiffanys for one of his sons James to live with me. I was to perfect him in reading, and to teach him to write.” Thacher was a Congregational minister and a Puritan colleague of Rev. Cotton Mather, and Humphrey and Elizabeth were clearly members of Thacher’s church. They among others were the reverend’s Thanksgiving dinner guests on November 25, 1680. On November 6, 1681, Rev. Thacher baptized Squire Humphrey’s sons, Thomas, Hezekiah, Ebenezer, and James.
The Squire’s name does not appear in the Milton tax list for January 1, 1681. About this time or a little later, Humphrey left Milton and moved to Swansea where his daughter was born: “Sarah, the dau. of Humphrey Tiffany, and Elizabeth his wife, was born sixth of July 1683.”
Samuel Sewall recorded Humphrey Tiffany’s unfortunate death in 1685 while on the road from Swansea to Boston:
Wednesday, P. M., July 15, 1685. Very dark and great thunder and lightning.
One Humphrey Tiffany and Frances Low, Daughter of Antony Low, are slain with the Lightning and Thunder about a mile or a mile and a half beyond Billinges Farm, the Horse also slain, that they rode on, and another Horse in Company slain and his rider who held the Garment on the Maid to steady it at the time the Stroke a coat or cloak, stounded but not killed. Were coming to Boston. Antony Low being in Town the sad Bill was put up with [regards] of that solemn judgment of God; Fast-day Forenoon, July 15, 1685, 2 persons 3 horses.

For a long time, a metal tablet marked the large tree beneath which he and his companion had sought shelter during the storm and died. The dedication concluded:
Squire Humphrey Tiffany
And Mistress Low,
By a stroke of lightning
Into Eternity did go.

The General Court at Plymouth on October 27, 1685, settled Humphrey’s estate for his wife, Elizabeth:
Att a General Court of this holden att plimouth Oct. 27, 1686. Before Thomas Hinckley, Esq., Gouern and others.
Administration is granted by this Court to Elizabeth, the relict of Humphrey Tiffany, deceased, on all the goods and chattells of sd. Tiffany, she bringing in a true inventory thereof, and giueing bond with two sufficient sureties for her administring according to law. Major John Walley is ordered by the Court to giue ye oath to the inuentory of sd. Tiffany, & to deliuer her the letter of administration granted by the Court, she haueing giuen in bond as afore sd.

Humphrey’s widow Elizabeth by October 18, 1690, married Simon Ray of Block Island. Soon after, she with her five younger children moved there. Simon Ray was a lay preacher and long a chief magistrate at Block Island.

For many years he served as Warden, and in 1688 he was appointed a Justice of the Court of Quarter Sessions at Newport, Rhode Island.
The Vital Record of Rehoboth, 1642-1896 on February 7, 1689, significantly listed Humphrey Tiffany’s heirs as proprietors and not as inhabitants.
Elizabeth in January 1708, testified as to the wishes of her deceased son, Consider Tiffany, in the division of his estate.