Thomas Durfee -- Spawning a Noble Family from Trouble and Scandal

This is great account put together by my father, Jim Hartley, primarily about one of our ancestors, Thomas Durfee. Thomas Durfee is my 9th great-grandfather. To me, this is a good reminder that good things can eventually come out of bad or questionable situations. Below are my father's words:

Thomas Durfee—Spawning a Noble Family from Trouble and Scandal

In 1660, 17-year-old Thomas Durfee left Exeter, Devonshire, England and emigrated to Rhode Island, a new British colony that was established 24 years earlier by the religious reformer, Roger Williams. Thomas settled in Portsmouth. If family records are correct, during the first five years after his arrival, Thomas Durfee was quite a troublemaker.

Portsmouth Compact

From town meeting records of Portsmouth, on October 13, 1663, Thomas was charged with selling gunpowder to the Indians and was fined five pounds. At the same court session, he was charged with "... speaking and uttering words of great contempt against the Government of this Colony ...." He was required to post a twenty-pound bond and was forbidden to leave the colony without the court's permission.

In early 1664, he was convicted of a breach of contract with his employer, Peter Tallman, and, later that year, of participating in a scandalous relationship with Ann Hill Tallman, a woman 10 years his senior and the wife of his employer.

Evidence suggests that Peter Tallman paid for Thomas’s passage to emigrate to Rhode Island, for which Thomas was to remain in the Tallman household and in Tallman’s employ until the cost of his passage was repaid. But, in June of 1664, Tallman initiated legal proceedings against Thomas for “breach of his bond.” This suggests that Thomas broke his agreement with Tallman. Four months later in October, the courts cleared Thomas of his “breach” after he paid Tallman ten pounds. But, that same month, Tallman entered a new complaint against Thomas—inappropriate attention toward his wife, Ann Hill Tallman.

Ann Hill had married Peter Tallman when she was about 16 years old. They moved from Barbados to Rhode Island in 1650. Between the years 1651 and 1664, she bore Tallman seven children. However, the eighth child born was not Tallman’s. In 1665 the General Court of Portsmouth convicted Ann Hill Tallman and Thomas Durfee of adultery and each was sentenced to be whipped with 15 lashes and pay a fine.

The court asked Ann to return to her husband. Peter Tallman was known to be a disagreeable and volatile man. When Ann told the court that she would rather die than return to her husband, the court granted Peter Tallman a bill of divorce.

Even though Ann was legally divorced, Thomas and Ann were not allowed to marry in Rhode Island because of their previous conviction for adultery. Nevertheless, they remained together in a common law marriage until Ann died in 1683. Since they were not able to legally marry, when their second child was born, Thomas and Ann were convicted of fornication and were sentenced to either lashes with a whip or a monetary fine. Thomas paid the fines. Portsmouth must have eventually accepted their relationship, because Thomas and Ann remained in the area and had five more children. Thomas even became a town constable! And thus the Durfee clan in America was started.

It developed into a noble clan. Those early Durfees became highly respected in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Numerous of Thomas’s and Ann’s descendants fought in the Revolutionary War, one of whom, Col. Joseph Durfee, was an officer in the Continental Army. Joseph served under General George Washington in battles against British General William Howe. Over the years, Durfees served on various town councils and in the state legislature. Two were prominent judges, including one who served on the Rhode Island State Supreme Court.

Edmund Durfee (1788-1845)

Five generations after Thomas and Ann, their descendant Edmund Durfee, Sr., a native of Rhode Island, became a martyr for his faith. In 1831, Edmund and his family were among the earliest adherents to a new Christian denomination in America, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, nicknamed “the Mormons.” But, the Mormons were hated by many. Along with hundreds of other Mormons, the Durfees were severely persecuted. They moved from Ohio to Missouri, and then to Illinois in unsuccessful attempts to find a place where they could live peacefully with others of their faith and practice their religion.

In Illinois, Edmund established residence in a community called Morley’s Settlement. In September 1845, mobs ransacked and burned his home, barn, and grain, forcing him to escape with his family to nearby Nauvoo. A month later, Edmund joined other displaced Mormons to recover their crops in Morley’s Settlement. The property of Solomon Hancock became the central location for that effort. Sometime near midnight on November 15, 1845, a mob set fire to one of Hancock’s haystacks. Edmund and others rushed out to fight the fire and save a nearby barn from burning. A whistle was heard and the ambush began. The mobsters emerged from the darkness and began firing. Edmund was shot and immediately died. Apparently the ambush was a form of sport for the mobsters; a gallon of whiskey was awarded to the first one who could kill a Mormon. After Edmund fell, the attackers retreated back into the darkness of the night.

Edmund’s family and their descendants remained devout followers of their faith. They worked their way to the Utah Territory along with thousands of others, and helped establish various settlements in the Rocky Mountain region.

Although the union of Thomas and Ann started in trouble and scandal, today the Durfee family ranks among the noble families that took root in early colonial America.

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Compiled by James E. Hartley, a Thomas Durfee descendant, from records and notes posted on FamilySearch.org for Thomas Durfee, Ann Hill, Edmund Durfee, and Tamma Durfee; from
http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/durfee/819/“Revised Story of Ann Hill Tallman & Thomas Durfee” by Rick Durfey Balmer, June 26, 2008; and from History of the Church, 7:524.