Stephen Waters: American Patriot

Stephen Waters was born in Sutton on April 13, 1735, in what is the location of the Bullard-Tuttle House, the white house at 11 Waters Road, opposite the Bullard House Pottery. The current house is the second one built on that site. Stephen built the main portion of the Waters house in 1757 on land that was once part of a tract of approximately 600 acres purchased by Richard Waters of Salem. This original large tract was passed from father to son to daughter from 1720 until it was given to the Town of Sutton in 1974 by Dorothea Waters Moran, the seventh generation of Waters to reside at the farm. In his early years, Stephen often accompanied his father on trips to Boston to sell loads of farm products, perhaps stopping for refreshments at Eleazer Flagg’s tavern in Grafton. There he met the tavern keeper’s daughter Huldah, who would later become his wife. Together they had six children including son John who would next inherit the farm. Stephen was a member of the Massachusetts Militia. As a private during the Revolutionary War, he marched in Captain Bartholomew Woodbury’s Company, part of Colonel Jonathan Holman’s regiment, from Sutton to Providence, Rhode Island in 1776. According to the diary of Walter Waters, the well-known Sutton Beauty apple was originally developed by Stephen by grafting from an old tree, long gone by, down in the lower end of the Connecticut orchard. Stephen died in 1819 at the age of 84. His descendent, Dorothea, was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) through his service.