The Tanner Family

THOMAS TANNER
One of the original settlers, came from Litchfield, with his son William, being of age. Thomas settled on the old road east of the Burnham place, and died there; house since occupied by John Kellogg. William had sons, - Consider, who removed to Ellsworth; Ephraim, to Warren, and kept tavern opposite the meeting-house; Tryal built the gambrel-roofed house since owned by Tyler Miner, and early in this century went to Ohio, Joseph to Green River, N.Y. Dea. Ebenezer Tanner was also a son of William.

LIEUT. EBENEZER TANNER
He was born to William and Hannah (Newcomb) Tanner of Cornwall, 20 Jan. 1757; enlisted in the Revolution at the age of twenty, from Kent; soon was made Ensign, and Lieutenant, 29 Nov. 1782. He was retired at the end of the war, 3 Jan. 1783. He later resided in Kent, and was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati.

LIEUT. THOMAS TANNER
I cannot trace any relationship between the two Lieutenants Tanner, but it probably was not distant. Thomas was born 30 June 1743, to Thomas and Martha Tanner; married Anna Baldwin of Goshen in Cornwall, 30 Oct. 1765; they had four sons and two daughters, and she died 30 May 1782. He was elected to "tune the Psalm," both before and after the war, and was on the First Church Committee for years. He recruited a considerable number of men for Dr. Simeon Smith's Company that was captured at Fort Washington, 16 Nov. 1776, and was held a prisoner on Long Island until the following May. Meantime he loaned money to less fortunate comrades, most of whom died, or for less necessary reasons could not repay him. On his exchange he landed at Elizabeth, N.J., and only reached home by a long and circuitous journey. The Legislature granted him a repayment of pounds 7-8-2. He was afterward known as "Capt. Tanner," and highly esteemed in church and town.

LIEUT. TRIAL (TRYAL) TANNER
This brother of Lieut. Ebenezer, above, received supplies as a married soldier in the Revolution, having committed matrimony 12 May 1777, when Huldah Jackson took the Lieutenant of twenty-five for her husband. They had two sons and five daughters, born like himself in Cornwall. He was born five days before Christmas, 1751, and enlisted in Capt. John Sedgwick's company in 1775, on the first call for troops, and went to the Northern Department, suffering illness there like many of his comrades. The next year he was in Woodbridge's Company and made Ensign 15 April. On 1 Jan. 1777, he was promoted to a Lieutenancy, and 16 Dec. became Adjutant of Col. Swift's 7th Regiment of the Connecticut Line, but resigned the following April. He probably moved to the West, but was for some years a prominent citizen of his native town.

Taken from A Typical New England Town by E.C. Starr, The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company, New Haven, 1926.