Author: Hulton, Henry
Biography:
Hulton, Henry (1731-90: ancestry.com)
As the son of Edward and Mary (Lowe) Hulton, he was a member of the Hampshire branch of an ancient Lincolnshire family. His father was a prosperous glover. After an unsuccessful business enterprise that took him to Germany in 1751, he accepted an appointment as Comptroller of Customs in Antigua, 1756-60. That experience led to Customs work in England and Germany after his return. He married Elizabeth Preston in 1766 and in 1767, shortly after the birth of their first child, the family--accompanied by Henry's sister Ann (or Anne)--moved to Boston, where Hulton had been appointed as a Commissioner of Customs with the task of enforcing the unpopular stamp act for the British Government. (He also farmed in Brookline.) On the outbreak of war in 1776 they returned to Britain via Halifax and retired to the Hampshire countryside to raise five sons. Most of Hulton's other publications were government documents, but he left a manuscript record of his years in America that has now been published, and his letters as well as those of his sister make part of the history of Loyalists in the period leading up to the Revolution. (Neil Longley York, Henry Hulton and the American Revolution [2010]; ancestry.com 2 May 2019)