Comfort Dutton

Life Story

Comfort Dutton was born about August 1786, probably in Sussex County, Delaware. On 22 July 1802, she petitioned the Sussex County Orphans’ Court for permission to choose a guardian. The petition called her a minor daughter of Abel Dutton, late of Broadkiln Hundred, and stated that she was fifteen years and eleven months old. She chose Joshua Morris to manage an estate valued at about seventy dollars.¹

The same court page contains the parallel petition of Comfort’s younger sister Minta Dutton, who was fourteen years and four months old and also selected Joshua Morris. The paired petitions provide unusually direct evidence for the sisters’ ages, father, residence context, and guardianship after Abel’s death.

Comfort’s mother was Priscilla Cade Dutton. Richardson Cade’s 1794 will referred to Priscilla Dutton as his deceased daughter and named “Comfort and Aminta Dutton” as her heirs.² Abel Dutton’s own will, written in 1801, named Comfort among his children and identified his later wife Unise or Eunice.³ Together, these records establish Priscilla as Comfort’s mother and Eunice as her stepmother.

A separate Orphans’ Court case-file entry records fees connected with Joshua Morris’s guardianship papers for both Comfort and Minta. It adds little to the formal petitions, but it confirms that the sisters’ guardianship matters were handled together.⁴

On 12 June 1804, Clement Simpson and Hilla D. Stayton entered into a Delaware marriage bond for Clement’s intended marriage to Comfort Dutton.⁵ The bond is strong evidence of the intended union, but it is not itself a marriage return. A separate marriage date of 14 June 1804 appears in family-tree tradition but has not been documented in the records reviewed for this profile.

By 21 March 1805, Comfort’s maternal grandmother Priscilla Cade named her as “Comfort Simpson” and named her sister as “Minta Dutton.”⁶ This provides contemporary confirmation that Comfort had taken the Simpson surname by that date and helps connect the marriage bond to the Dutton-Cade family.

Comfort was Clement Simpson’s first wife. Her sister Aminta later became his second wife. No death record has been found for Comfort, and the commonly repeated date 5 March 1813 is not supported by a cited contemporary record. Clement’s 1812 guardian account for Minty Dutton shows only that Minty was still unmarried and using the Dutton surname on 13 July 1812; it does not establish whether Comfort was then living or deceased.⁷

Family-tree tradition attributes four children to Clement and Comfort: Jane Simpson, Priscilla Simpson, John Dutton Simpson, and Abel or Able Simpson. No single contemporary record naming these children as Comfort’s has been located for this profile. Their parentage should therefore be evaluated separately on the individual child profiles.

Documentary Evidence