John Dutton the legendary progenitor of the family in New England 
(circa 1591 - )
9-greats-grandfather of Darrell Allen Martin.
The relationships among John Dutton and his supposed sons Thomas, Samuel, Josiah, and Robert, are according to traditions commonly held among descendants of early New England Duttons and Duntons. It seems prudent to take this approach, if only because the traditions in question are so often repeated (although with many variations) as accepted fact. The situation is most unfortunate. It requires only a little serious research to discover that family histories which have been confidently passed from generation to generation, are based on no more than some scraps of 19th Century speculation. The few grains of truth we do have, preserved through the passage of more than a third of a millenium, seem destined to spring up like tender young shoots of grass only to be overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of falsehoods about the Massachusetts Duttons which swarm about the Internet like locusts, devouring all in their path and blotting out the light.
I would have preferred to ignore all which I could not prove, and concentrate on what I actually know. My painful experience shows that to omit the "Traditions of our Elders" does not bring clarity, but perversely raises the suspicion of ignorance, suggests to the unwary the notion that "something has been missed", and calls all the rest of my work into question. Goodness knows my work deserves questions enough without that! You will, therefore, see the old family relationships recounted in all their fictional glory. My purpose, however, is not approval -- it is to provide a context for critical comment.
John is often reported to have been born in Cheshire, England, circa 1591. There are numerous varieties of speculation about John's birth, some in rather elaborate detail. Since we know next to nothing about him, it is of course impossible to disprove them. He had to have been born somewhere. The ancient home of the Duttons in Cheshire is as good a guess as any. John is said to have married one Mary Neeld. England is the most often claimed place, and the very early 1600s the supposed time. There is an insuperable difficulty; the non-existent bride appears only in compiled genealogical material which confuses several people based merely on a coincidence of name and time. Again, if John Dutton did exist, he likely had a wife; there is no justification for concocting details about her.
Most likely, there really was a John Dutton in the early Massachusetts Bay Colony. He is presumably the "Mr. Dutton" who appears in the male passenger list on the flyleaf of Gov. Winthrop's journal. The title would indicate someone of substance, although not a member of the nobility or gentry.1 Although many more or less confident additional assertions have been made about John, the reality is this: we do not know his antecedents, and we cannot identify his connections with any other Duttons or Duntons in America.
The foundation of these errors is very old. Among the early New England genealogists, Farmer says, "Dutton, -----, came to N.E. in 1630. Thomas Dutton ..." (giving no connection between the two).2 Savage has, "Dutton, John, came in 1630, but I kn[ow] not where he sat down. Thomas ..." (again no relationship stated).3 Cutter, who is prone to speculation, states of Sir Ralph Dutton of Gloucestershire (ca.1575-aft.1630) that, "Several of his sons left the country. It may be that one or more of them settled in New England. (I) John Dutton, the American ancestor, came to America in 1630. He was before the general court of Massachusetts, October 29, 1640. ... It is presumed [based on the interchangeability of spellings of the surname] that the Dutton and Dunton pioneers at Reading, Massachusetts, may have been sons of John Dutton ..."4
Upon this flimsy evidence, unsupported by any primary documentation that I am aware of, many presumed descendants of John have traced their ancestries back to Hodard of Dutton, who held lands under William the Conqueror. In the case of those with an even less analytical bent, John's ancestral lines are said continue back to Noah, Adam, and the Creation.
Well, here are his supposed sons. Caveat lector.5
I would have preferred to ignore all which I could not prove, and concentrate on what I actually know. My painful experience shows that to omit the "Traditions of our Elders" does not bring clarity, but perversely raises the suspicion of ignorance, suggests to the unwary the notion that "something has been missed", and calls all the rest of my work into question. Goodness knows my work deserves questions enough without that! You will, therefore, see the old family relationships recounted in all their fictional glory. My purpose, however, is not approval -- it is to provide a context for critical comment.
John is often reported to have been born in Cheshire, England, circa 1591. There are numerous varieties of speculation about John's birth, some in rather elaborate detail. Since we know next to nothing about him, it is of course impossible to disprove them. He had to have been born somewhere. The ancient home of the Duttons in Cheshire is as good a guess as any. John is said to have married one Mary Neeld. England is the most often claimed place, and the very early 1600s the supposed time. There is an insuperable difficulty; the non-existent bride appears only in compiled genealogical material which confuses several people based merely on a coincidence of name and time. Again, if John Dutton did exist, he likely had a wife; there is no justification for concocting details about her.
Most likely, there really was a John Dutton in the early Massachusetts Bay Colony. He is presumably the "Mr. Dutton" who appears in the male passenger list on the flyleaf of Gov. Winthrop's journal. The title would indicate someone of substance, although not a member of the nobility or gentry.1 Although many more or less confident additional assertions have been made about John, the reality is this: we do not know his antecedents, and we cannot identify his connections with any other Duttons or Duntons in America.
The foundation of these errors is very old. Among the early New England genealogists, Farmer says, "Dutton, -----, came to N.E. in 1630. Thomas Dutton ..." (giving no connection between the two).2 Savage has, "Dutton, John, came in 1630, but I kn[ow] not where he sat down. Thomas ..." (again no relationship stated).3 Cutter, who is prone to speculation, states of Sir Ralph Dutton of Gloucestershire (ca.1575-aft.1630) that, "Several of his sons left the country. It may be that one or more of them settled in New England. (I) John Dutton, the American ancestor, came to America in 1630. He was before the general court of Massachusetts, October 29, 1640. ... It is presumed [based on the interchangeability of spellings of the surname] that the Dutton and Dunton pioneers at Reading, Massachusetts, may have been sons of John Dutton ..."4
Upon this flimsy evidence, unsupported by any primary documentation that I am aware of, many presumed descendants of John have traced their ancestries back to Hodard of Dutton, who held lands under William the Conqueror. In the case of those with an even less analytical bent, John's ancestral lines are said continue back to Noah, Adam, and the Creation.
Well, here are his supposed sons. Caveat lector.5
- Appears on these charts
- Pedigree of Darrell Allen Martin
Children of John Dutton the legendary progenitor of the family in New England
- Thomas Dutton+ (ca 1619 - 22 Jan 1686/87)
- Samuel Dunton+ (ca 1620 - 7 Nov 1683)
- Josiah Dutton (s 1620 - )
- Robert Dutton (s 1620 - )
Cited documentation
- [S52] Charles Edward Banks, The Winthrop Fleet of 1630 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1930), unpaginated for list "Mr. Dutton", and pg. 68, "Dutton, ----- In Winthrop's list, but no further record."
- [S89] John Farmer, "Dunton and Dutton," A Genealogical Register of the First Settlers of New-England, additions and corrections by Samuel G. Drake. (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1976 reprint of an 1829 original).
- [S80] James Savage, "Dutton," A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1965 Vol. II).
- [S76] A.M., ed. William Richard Cutter, "Dutton," Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of Boston and Eastern Massachusetts, (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1908), It is just as likely that "our" Thomas Dutton was the son of this Sir Ralph, as that he was a grandson. But don't you dare say I am claiming this to be true!
- [S167] It may be instructive to note the confusion about the immigrant John Dutton that has existed even in the Personal Ancestral File for one of the founders of the Mormons, a descendant of Thomas Dutton of Reading. As of early 1998 the file for the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., AFN 9KGL-W2, had many problems in the generations before Thomas. In part, according to these records, a John Dutton was born 1648 in Cheshire, died 1693 in Pennsylvania, and married Mary (Darlington) Nield 1674 in England. John and Mary are given fifteen children, which are obviously two families, one comprising ten children born 1585-1605[sic!] and the other five children born 1675-1683. Among the first ten are the often-claimed father of our John of New England, Sir Ralph Dutton (1603-ca.1646); plus John himself (1598-1693).