TINKER ANCESTRY AND COLLATERAL RELATIVES
TO
EDWARD D. TINKER.
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The name of John Tinker occurs frequently in the early records of the colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. of remarkable versatility, he appears as a manufacturer, a trader with the Indians, an importer of goods and colonists from England, an agent for both the Governors Winthrop, a successful lawyer, and, as "a grave and able man " he expounded the Scriptures in the absence of a minister.
His usual designation of " Mr. "Tinker, a very rare title in those days, is said to indicate that he was a graduate of a university, or that he had high social rank in England. And his use of the "TT" seal suggests his connection, either as nephew or grandson, with Thomas Tinker who came to Plymouth Colony in the Mayflower, bringing wife and son; all three of whom, according to the record of Governor Bradford, dying there in the first sickness after the landing.
John Tinker was in the American colonies as early as 1638. He married in 1651 with Alice Homan, and became an accepted citizen of Boston in 1654. One of the principal founders of both Groton and Lancaster, Mass., he settled in the latter, and was its Town Clerk until his removal to New London, Conn. about 1658. In this last place he was speedily elected deputy to the General Court, or Assembly, of the Colony: and later he was made one of the Assistants to the Governor - the highest offices within the gift of the people. He died in Hartford, in 1662, while engaged in public business. The esteem in which he was held is shown by the fact that the expenses of his last sickness and funeral were paid out of the public traasury, by vote of the General Court.