Nicholas Guy (c1588-1649)

NEHGS
From NEHGS, website: www.americanancestors.org, The American Genealogist, vol. 65, pgs. 21-3. In the passenger list of the Confidence, sailing from Southampton in April of 1638, we find Nicholas Guy, aged 50, Jane Guy, aged 30, Mary Guy, no age given, along with Joseph Tainter, 25, servant, and Robert Bayley, 23, servant (Hotten p. 195). Nicholas Guy settled in Watertown, very quickly became a deacon of the church and received various grants of land, including the aforementioned farm (of Simon Eyre). He died in 1649, and his widow Jane in 1666. Since Jane Guy in her will called Joseph Tainter her son, and since Joseph's wife was Mary, it has long been assumed that Joseph had married Mary Guy, daughter of Nicholas and Jane. But, as Bond notes in his account of the Tainter family, "There is some perplexity respecting the wives of Joseph Tainer and Henry Cuttris," for Jane Guy also refers to her daughter Mary, the wife of Henry Cuttriss (Bond, p. 596). (The surname Cuttriss soon became regularized as Curtis.)

The resolution is to be found in a careful reading of Jane Guy's will. After the usual religious preamble, she bequeaths to "my sonne Joseph Tainter," then to "my daughter Mary the wife of Henry Curtise," and then to "my sonne-in-law Henry Curtise" (*Middlesex Co. PR Case #9996). This precise language indicates that Joseph Tainter was Jane's biological son, by a Tainter husband prior to her marriage to Nicholas Guy, and that Mary, wife of Henry Curtis, was Jane's daughter. For this to be correct we must assume that Jane's age was seriously understated on the passenger list, and perhaps Joseph's was slightly overstated.

Watertown Founders Monument
He is listed on Watertown Founders Monument, commemorating the first settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts. The town was first known as Saltonstall Plantation, one of the earliest of the Massachusetts Bay Colony settlements. Founded in early 1630 by a group of settlers led by Richard Saltonstall and George Phillips, it was officially incorporated that same year. The alternate spelling "Waterton" is seen in some early documents.