Author: John E. Sweeney
Abel Titus was born on 12 Aug 1761 in Attleboro, Bristol County, Massachusetts. He was the third child and second son of Robert Titus, Jr. and Elizabeth Foster,1 Robert’s second wife. His first marriage was in 1741 to Esther Wilmarth in Attleboro.2 Abel’s parents, Robert Titus, Jr. and Elizabeth Foster, were married on 19 Mar 1755 in Attleboro.3 Elizabeth was born on 4 Jun 1734 in Attleboro, Massachusetts and was the daughter of Alexander Foster and Susannah, maiden name unknown. Abel’s roots in Attleboro were deep. His father, Robert Titus, Jr., was born on 20 Mar 1719 in Attleboro, Massachusetts.4 Additionally, Abel’s grandfather, also Robert Titus, was originally from Rehobeth, Bristol County, Massachusetts but lived most of his life in Attleboro with Abel’s grandmother, Sarah Deering, and he died in Attleboro on 21 Feb 1731.5

Abel’s formative years living in Attleboro with his siblings, five sisters: Molly, Sarah, Jane, Elizabeth and Luna and a brother, named Robert, are not documented. However, it is known that when Abel was a month short of his 16th birthday, when in Attleboro, Massachusetts, he enlisted in the Continental Army for a term of three years.6 He stood just 5feet 4 inches tall,7 yet he was allowed to enlist. He was soon sent to Boston, Massachusetts where he joined his Army major organization of assignment, a regiment called Colonel Henry Jackson’s Additional Regiment of Foot of the Massachusetts Continental Line. He was further assigned to the company of Captain Gowen Brown.8 This Additional Regiment, was eventually to be designated the 16th Regiment of the Massachusetts Continental Line but not during Abel’s three year enlistment. The Regiment was authorized on 12 Jan 1777 in the Continental Army. On 23 May 1777 it was assigned to the Eastern Department and during the spring and summer of 1777 it was to recruit men for its seven companies from Suffolk and Middlesex Counties,9 obviously not exclusively because Abel Titus was from Attleboro in Bristol County.

Presumably following activation of this new regiment, its soldiers received initial entry individual training followed by unit collective training. The Regiment is then recorded as having relocated to Springfield, New Jersey, where consistent with the testimony of the pension file of Abel Titus, the Regiment established its winter quarters.10 The Regiment’s operations following the 1777-78 Winter Quarters are not known in detail. However, Abel Titus in his pension application indicates that he became a member of Captain Turner’s company which had been transferred to the 4th Regiment of the Massachusetts Continental Line for an unknown period of time. The records for the 4th Massachusetts and Jackson’s Additional Continental Line Regiments show that at least elements of both were engaged in operations in the areas of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Monmouth, New Jersey11. Abel’s pension application statements also specify that he was ultimately discharged while a member of Captain Turner’s Company. A Captain Thomas Turner is shown as being assigned to the Regiment even after it was re-designated the 16th Massachusetts Continental Line Regiment on 23 Jul 1780.12 According to the pension record of Abel Titus,13 he specifies that he was not only involved in Battle of Monmouth, on 28 Jun 1778, but that he was also involved in the unit’s service with Major General John Sullivan’s Jul – Sep 1778 Rhode Island Expedition. In Aug 1778, with about 10,000 men, organized into two divisions, reinforced with local Rhode Island militia units, Continental Army Maj. Gen. Sullivan with French naval and marine infantry support under command of Admiral Jean Baptiste Charles Henri Hector, comte d’Estaing, launched a major offensive from Tiverton, Rhode Island. The ground forces were to move to the northeast tip of Rhode Island, preparatory to an attack south toward the British garrison at Newport, Rhode Island. Subsequent major land and naval engagements with the British and Tory forces were largely ineffective, with nearly identical losses on both sides. An unexpected and controversial French naval force departure essentially terminated the American operations and both sides withdrew.14 Other details of the service of Abel Titus are not known. However, it is recorded that on 18 Jul 1780, near Springfield, New Jersey, Abel Titus, as a member of Captain Turner’s company, was discharged from the Continental Army upon completion of his three-year enlistment.15

Then as an 18-year-old Continental Army veteran, Abel initially returned to his parents’ home in Attleboro, Massachusetts. However, by at least 1787 he had relocated to what in 1791 would become the newly created State of Vermont. Vermont had declared its independence from New York State in 1776 and been an independent republic until U.S. Statehood had been granted.16 The Town of Clarendon, organized in 1761, is in Rutland County, Vermont17 and it is likely where Abel Titus met a young woman, named Mary Cotton Place. It is believed her father, Samuel, was among the first settlers of Clarendon. Mary, believed born about 1765, would have been born soon after the arrival of her parents in Clarendon.

At the time of their 21 Feb 1787 marriage in Clarendon, Rutland County, Vermont, Abel would have been 26 years of age and Mary about 22 years age. The newlyweds would begin what became their permanent residence in Clarendon.18 In addition to the standard farmer occupation, it appears Abel also was involved in the manufacture of textiles. Looms and other textile manufacturing equipment were among a household inventory. He and Mary had at least two daughters, Naomi born on 28 Nov178719 and Eunice born on 30 May 1789.20 Naomi (1789-1875) married Jonathan Parker and Eunice married Rufus Parker; both men were cousins. Unfortunately, Mary is believed to have died in Clarendon before 1813.

If Mary’s death information is correct, Abel Titus would have spent almost 30 years as a widower who had apparently concentrated on the accumulation of considerable land for his Rutland County farm. A search of Rutland County land records by a local well-known historian and genealogical author, named Dawn Hance, has revealed that Rutland County Land Record 11-322 shows Abel Titus sold his farm in June 1820 for a total amount of $4,000 to all six of his then grandchildren by Eunice and Rufus Parker. The children, at the time, between the ages of 12 and 2 years of age, had no ability to pay so it must have been merely a paper transaction with no actual payment expected. Two more grandchildren were subsequently born to Eunice and Rufus but after this apparent paper sale. This may have been a transaction to circumvent inheritance rules for the land, now Rutland-Southern Vermont Regional Airport in North Clarendon, to be transferred to his grandchildren. Additionally, Abel had begun drawing his American Revolutionary War pension in Sep 1819. Abel lived to the age of almost 80 years, dying in Clarendon, Vermont on 25 April 1841.21 He is buried in the East Clarendon Cemetery, Clarendon, Rutland County, Vermont.22 Specific detailed Information on the birth and death of Abel’s wife, Mary Place, is lacking.

Copies of recently discovered original 1840s correspondence, thought to have been lost, among Abel’s grandchildren, some of whom residing at widely dispersed locations from Vermont and not included on the original sale documentation, shows a consensus to liquidate the value of the old Rufus and Eunice (Titus) Parker land. A current depressed real estate market at that time was cause for delay.

While vital information on Mary (Place) Titus remains lacking, not lacking and of considerable significance was a Rutland Herald newspaper obituary notice that provided the death date and place of Abel’s daughter, Eunice, as 8 Sep 1847 at the age of 59 in Clarendon, Vermont.23 This was a key piece of genealogical linkage evidence because, included in the death notice, was the death information and relationship of Eunice’s son George D. Parker, 2nd great grandfather of this author. It is through Eunice, nee’ Titus, Parker and Rufus Parker that this author has proven descent from Abel Titus.
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1 Vital Records of Attleborough, Massachusetts to the End of the Year 1849, 1934, pub. by The Essex Institute, Salem, MA, p. 268
2 Ancestry.com North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000 for Robert Titus
3 Ancestry.com Massachusetts Compiled Marriages, 1633-1850, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, UT, Film #1987017, items 2-6 for Robert Titus Jr.
4 Ancestry.com Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 for Robert Titus, Original data: Town and City Clerks of Massachussets Vital and Town Records, Provo, UT: Holbrook Research Institute (Jane & Delene Holbrook)
5 Ancestry.com, Web: Massachusetts, Find A Grave Index, 1620-2013 for Robert Titus.
6 National Archives of the U.S., Microcopy No. 804, Revolutionary War Pension files, Roll 2394, Titus, Abel, File # S 23.972., Massachusetts & Vermont
7 Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, Vol. 15, p. 792
8 Ibid and Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army During The War of the Revolution, 1914, by Francis B. Heitman, p. 124
9 Army Lineage Series, The Continental Army, by Robert K. Wright, Jr., 1986, Center of Military History, U.S. Army, Washington, DC , p. 215
10 National Archives (NARA) of the U.S. Microcopy No. 804, Revolutionary War Pension Files, Rol 2394, Titus, Abel, File #S 23.972.
11 Wright, Op. cit., pp. 206-207 & 215-216
12 Opcit. Heitman, p. 552
13 NARA, Abel Titus, Op. cit.
14 Encyclopedia of the American Revolution, by Mark Mayo Boatner, III, 1969, New York, NY, pp. 790-796
15 NARA Rev. War Pension file Titus, S 23.972
16 Ancestry.com, Vermont Census 1790-1860 Record, Rutland County, TWP: Clarendon, Yr. 1803, p.173, Abel Titus and The Handybook for Genealogists, 11th ed., Walter Fuller, publisher, 2006, Everton Publishers, p.767
17 The Handybook, Op. cit., p. 775
18 Certificate of Vital Record State of Vermont, Clarendon, VT, Book 2, page 147,marriage of Abel Titus to Mary Place, issued Middlesex, VT, 24 May 2007
19 Extract of Dawn Hance notes sent by 7/21/2010 Gsr Watson e-mail
20 State of Vermont Certification of Vital Record – Birth of Eunice “MolyZ” Titus 30 May 1789
21 Certfcate of Vital Record, State of Vermont, Death-Able Titus, Issued Middlesex, VT May 24 2007
22 Clarendon and Shrewsbury Cemetery Inscriptions Rutland County Vermont, Recorded Summer 1991, by Margaret R. Jenkins, Privately Printed in the U.S.A. , p. 16 and Find-A-Grave Memorial # 17874674
23 Rutland Herald newspaper, by George Beaman, Wednesday, 22 Dec 1847,