The Tilden Arms.

Judith TildeN, the common ancestor on the maternal side of all the Prebles in America, was descended from a family of great antiquity. Burke, in his " Landed Gentry," under the head of "Tylden of Milsted," says:

"The family of Tylden, one of great antiquity, has been seated in Kent for several centuries. Of three distinct branches into which it separated, the eldest became possessed of Milsted in that County. The second removed into Sussex, and one of its members emigrating, founded the numerous Tildens of America,' while the younger branch settled at Ifield. So far back as Edward III. we find William Tylden paying aid for lands in Kent, when Edward the Black Prince was knighted. The family anciently possessed lands in the Parishes of Brenekly Otterden, Kennington and Tilmanstone. Richard Tylden, Esq., purchased the manor and advowson of Milsted, Kent County, from John Chute, Esq., of Belersden, 16th Sept., 9th of Charles I."

Lieut. Col. Tylden, of the Royal Engineers, who died of cholera in the Crimea (where he was serving as a Brigadier General during the war with Russia), when on a visit to this country, visited the father of the late Charles L. Tilden, Esq., of Lowell, and traced out their common ancestry. On his return to England he sent his kinsmen a drawing of the family arms, which are:

Arms.-Azure, a saltire ermine, between four pheons or.
Crest.-A battle axe erect twined with a serpent proper.
Motto." Truth and Liberty."

The Tyldens of Wye Co., Kent, have the same arms with a broken spear erect or, environed by a green snake for the crest.*

nia Sca." The Sachems of the different tribes attended his funeral, which from motives of policy was conducted with a good deal of pomp and ceremony. In honor of the deceased the Indians made a great collection of many sorts of wild animals, and sacrificed them to the departed spirit. A list of them has been preserved, viz. :

This list is curious as showing the probable relative proportions in which these animals abounded at the date of St. Aspinquid's funeral.

On St. Aspinquid's tombstone is this inscription:

"Present, useful; absent, wanted;

Lived desired; died lamented."

The substance of this note is taken from a pamphlet account of "the Preble families in Portland," printed for private circulation, in 1850, by the late Hon. Judge Wm. Pitt Preble, a descendant of Abraham Preble and Hannah Kelly.

"About fifteen or eighteen years since, there was a Lieut.-Col. Tylden, of the British Army, in this country, with whom my father became acquainted. Although he spelt his name with y instead of i, he was from the same stock, and upon his return to England he sent a drawing of the arms belonging to the family, from which I had my seal engraved." Charles L. Tilden's Letter to G. H. P., April 14, 1843.

THE CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN OF ABRAHAM AND JUDITH PREBLE.

ABRAHAM PREBLE (2-1),

FIRST SON OF ABRAHAM AND JUDITH.

Born 1642; married Hannah Kelley 1685, who died May 9, 1751. He died Oct. 4, 1714.

The first certain record evidence we have of the eldest son of Abraham and Judith Preble is that he was Register of Deeds for the County of York. He took a very prominent and active part in the public affairs of the Province. In 1692, York was destroyed by the Indians, and only fonr garrison houses were left standing, having made a successful resistance. One of these was the garrison house of Abraham Preble. In 1702, he and three others were appointed Judges of the Judicial Court of the County of York or Province of Maine. He was also Captain of the Town, or chief commander of all the military force in it. His original commission as Judge, on parchment, now in the possession of his descendant, William P. Preble, Esq., of Portland, Me., son of the late Hon. William P. Preble, reads as follows:

Anne, by the Grace of God of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the faith, &c. To our Trusty and wel beloved Joseph Hammond, John Wheelwright, Ichabod Plaisted and Abraham Preble, Esqrs., Greeting: Whereas in and by an Act made and passed by the Great and General Court or Assembly of our Province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England, at their session begun and held the Thirty-first day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred ninety-nine, Intituled An Act for establishing of Inferior Courts of Common Pleas in the several countys of this Province, It is enacted that there shall be held and kept in each respective County within the s Province yearly and every year, at the times and places in the sd Act mentioned and expressed, an Inferiour Court of Common Pleas by four substantial persons to be appointed and commissionated as Justices of the same Court in each County, any three of whom to be a quorum for the holding of sd Court, Who shall have cognizance of all civil actions arising or hapening within each County, tryable at the Common Law, of what nature, kind or quality soever, and are thereby impowered to give judgement therein and award execution thereupon. We therefore reposing special trust and confidence in your Loyalty, prudence and ability, Have assigned, constituted and appointed, and by these presents Do assign, constitute and appoint you the said Joseph Hammond, John Wheelwright, Ichabod Plaisted and Abraham Preble, to be our Justices of our sd Inferiour Court of Common pleas in our county of York, within our province of the Massachusetts Bay afores, and do authorize you and every of you respec

tively to have, use, exercise and execute all and singular the powers, authority and Jurisdictions to a Justice of the s Court belonging or in any wise appertaining, and you or any three of you to hear and determine all such causes and matters as are by Law cognizable in the sd Inferiour Court of Common pleas, and to give judgement therein and award execution thereupon, and to do that which to Justice doth appertain according to Law. En Testimony whereof We have caused the publick Seal of our province of the Massachusetts Bay afores to be hereunto affixed. Witness Joseph Dudley Esq. our captain General and Governour in chief in and over our sd province. At Boston the second day of July in the first year of our Keign, annoq. Domini 1702.

By order of his Excellency the Governour, by and with the advice and consent of the council.

J. DUDLEY.

SEAL.

J. H. ADDINGTON, Secr'y.

At the date of his death Abraham Preble is said to have held thirteen offices.

On the headstone over his grave, in the old burial place at York, is inscribed:

"This stone is fixed at the head of Abraham Preble, Esqr. Deacon of the Church, Captain of the Town, and one of the Judges in the County of York and universally faithfull to the death, who deceased October 4th, 1714, aged 72."

His widow took administration in his estate, April 4th, 1716 (Prob. Rec. at Alfred). And according to the York Town Records, "Hannah, widow of Abraham Preble died May 9, 1751;" which proves, though he was forty-three or four years of age at the date of his marriage, as Mary their first child was born in 1686, she must have been a young wife, as her death was sixty-five years after that event.

In those days it was common to continue the Christian name of a family down from generation to generation. Accordingly we find an Abraham Preble in very many branches of the Preble family. Hence for one or two generations after his death, whenever there was occasion to refer to this Abraham, the son of the common ancestors, his townsmen and others by way of distinction always designated him as the "great" Abraham.*

The names and dates of birth of his children, all born in York, are found in the first Book of the Town Record of York, at p. 455.

Judge Preble's Pamphlet.

Children of ABRAHAM PREBLE (2-1) and HANNAH KELLY Grandchildren of ABRAHAM and JUDITH.

11-1. Mary, b. June 8, 1686; mar. her cousin Abraham, son o Nathaniel Preble (his fourth wife), and surviving him, married — Howell.

12-2. Abraham, 3d, b. Aug. 21, 1687; d. unm. March 30, 1720. 13-3. Caleb, b. July 7, 1689; mar. Jemima - -, 1719; d. Jan. 7, 1734. He had nine children, four sons and five daughters. His widow, who administered on his estate, married Andrew Gilman, of Exeter, Jan. 30, 1741, and died Jan. 8, 1780. His headstone is inscribed: "Here lies interred Capt. Caleb Preble, aged 45 yrs. and 7 mos. who departed this life Jan. 7, 1734." The record of his death. mentions him as the son of Abraham Preble, Esq., and Hannah his wife. His father during his lifetime gave him half his estate (Prob. Rec. Alfred). The names of his children are, 1st, Hannah, b. Jan. 29, 1720; 2d, Paul, b. March 27, 1722; 3d and 4th, David and Lydia, twins, b. July 8, 1724; 5th, Hepzibah, b. Nov. 17, 1726; 6th, Caleb, b. Feb. 25, 1728; 7th, Lydia, b. Jan. 4, 1731; 8th, Abraham, b. Aug. 22, 1733; 9th, Jemima, b. July 5, 1734. William, a son of Paul, was killed at the battle of Monmouth; and Abraham and David, sons of Paul, b. 1758, served in the American Revolutionary War. There is no male of the name Preble, descended from Capt. Caleb, living. His grandson John, the son of Caleb, who lived in Camden, Me., had a family, and left two maiden daughters, Elizabeth and Miriam, who were living in 1850.

14-4. Hepzebah, b. March 28, 1691; d. unmarried.

15-5. Miriam,, b. June 14, 1692; mar. Benj. Stone; d. 1721, and left one daughter, Hepzebah, who married a Coburn.

16-6. Jonathan, b. April 11, 1695; mar. 1st, Rebecca Harvey, who was born in England, and died Sept. 1739; mar. 2d, Mehitable Storer of Wells, widow of Nicholas Sewall of York, in 1768. By his first marriage he had, 1st, Ebenezer, who died an infant. 2d, Abraham, b. March 23, 1722; mar. Hannah Preble, Aug. 11, 1743. 3d, Ebenezer, b. Sept. 23, 1724; mar. Mary Harnden-both killed by the Indians in 1756.* 4th, Jonathan, b. 1725; mar. Elizabeth Harnden,

* His great-grandson, Capt. Geo. A. Preble, wrote me in 1851, that Eben had two sons, Ebenezer and Samuel; and three daughters, Polly, Rebecca and Mehitable, and that he was shot by the Indians while at work in the field, his wife was killed in the house, and the children all carried to Quebec, where they remained prisoners four or five years. At the end of the war they were all brought back by their grandfather, Brigadier General Harnden (who went to Quebec for that purpose), except the oldest daughter Mehitable, who was taken by a French family, and became so much attached to them that she refused to

who died 1808. 5th, Joseph, b. Oct. 22, 1728; mar. Mary Butler, and died Jan. 30, 1808. His widow, born Jan. 30, 1735, died Jan. 24, 1823, aged 88.

Jonathan Preble removed from York to Arrowsic on the Kennebec, and settled on a farm in the north part of that town in 1726. The farm is still owned by his descendants. Sept. 25, 1752, in a deposition at Georgetown, Kennebec, about the purchase of land in Kennebec in 1743 of Robert Temple, he stated he was born in 1694. He was a millwright, and repaired or built a mill on Negawasset pond and stream, in Woolwich, about 1730-31, for Hutchinson, a large proprietor. He was also a farmer and tauner. His descendants live in Boothbay, Alna, Edgecomb, and Bowdoinham, Me., and are scattered up and down the banks of the Kennebec river.

17-7. Ebenezer, b. March 26, 1698, was accidentally shot when twelve years of age by Joseph Moody, a son of old Parson Moody of York, who was commonly known as "handkerchief" Moody, from his wearing a veil over his face all the later years of his life.

I am indebted to Alex. McIntire, Esq., of York, for the following account of this accident, which differs materially from the narrative in Judge Preble's pamphlet.

"Abraham Preble lived within fifty rods of the parsonage house, and placed his son Eben under the tuition of Rev. Samuel Moody.

leave them, and married in France. The next daughter, Rebecca, married Thomas Motherwell, and died April, 1829. The youngest daughter, Mary, died unmarried at the age of ninety-six, at Woolwich, in Dec. 1843, retaining her health and mental powers unimpaired to the last week of her life. She had a distinct recollection of seeing the battle between the armies of Wolfe and Montcalm on the heights of Abraham, and of the capture of Quebec.

Gen. Joseph Sewall's History of Bath (Maine Hist. Coll., Vol. II.) has this account of the

massacre:

"In 1756 a strong party of Indians landed on the head of the Island of Arrowsic and killed a Mr. Preble and his wife who were out in the field planting corn, and took his son and two daughters captives. Mr. P. had a fort or block house there, but so sudden was the attack that he could not escape to it. On their return the Indians proceeded to Harnden's fort in Woolwich, which was near the Bath ferry, and there took prisoner a Miss Motherwell, a relative of their young captives, a girl about eighteen years of age, who happened to be without the garrison. One of the children of Mr. Preble whom they seized at Arrowsic was an infant, and crying for food as they supposed, they laid it in the lap of the damsel they had last taken, and asked her to impart to it the nourishment of a mother. With compassion for the helpless infant, she replied she was not a mother. The tears that fell from her cheek did not soften the savage breast. He seized the child, and dashing its head against a rock, relieved it from further suffering. They carried the other captives to Canada and sold them as servants. After the cessation of Quebec to the British, their grandfather Brigadier General Haranden went to the province, obtained the release of the captives and restored them."

In 1758, Watts's house and one other on the upper end of the island, occupied by Mr. Preble, were the only dwelling houses in Arrowsic, all the rest having been destroyed by the Indians.