William Tillotson was born at his father’s farm in Huntington, Long Island, about 1801. In 1827, following his marriage to Charity Blydenburgh, the couple moved to nearby Mount Sinai where he began cutting and eventually transporting cordwood. He shipped aboard the cordwood-carrying sloop FACTOR for several seasons, but in 1842 was crippled by an accident and died three years later.

William’s son Richard started his 61-year seafaring career as a cook on the FACTOR. He owned and/or commanded several coasting vessels including the sloops SERAPH, OLIVE BRANCH, PEARL, CONTRACTOR, JULIA ANN, and EXCEL. During the Civil War years Richard sailed the sloops OBSERVER and MARGARET. In 1871 he sailed a schooner (the ELLA JANE) for the first time, and soon after, the schooner WONDER. In 1884 he purchased the schooner NELSON, but lost her in a storm on the beach at Mount Sinai eight years later.

Richard Tillotson’s last vessel was the sloop GROVER CLEVELAND. He sold her in 1898 and retired from the sea. He spent his final years in comfortable retirement with his wife, Julia, at their home in Mount Sinai.

The Captain’s son, Richard D. Tillotson, would begin his seafaring career in 1880, working for his father aboard the schooner WONDER. By 1890 he had progressed to the command of his own vessel. He sailed cordwood vessels, coal schooner barges, pleasure yachts, oyster schooners, and eventually large three-masters along the eastern seaboard. He managed large sailing vessels during the 1920s, but soon fell victim to the Great Depression. Richard D. Tillotson’s later life was filled with a series of broken marriages and failed attempts to find work. He died at a state hospital in Middletown, New York, in 1940. His son Henry (1891-1919) also is represented in this collection, as are several other family members.

NOTE: For a more comprehensive biography of the Tillotson family please see The Tillotson Family, Long Island Cordwood, and the Decline of East Coast Sail by Willis H. White; Penobscot Press 2008.