Royall Tyler (1757-1826) was a resident of Boston, Guilford, and finally Brattleboro. He served briefly in the militia during the American Revolution and then played a role in Shays’ Rebellion while serving as an aide de camp. In his early law career, Tyler courted future President John Adams’ daughter, Nabby. His comedic play, The Contrast, is a milestone in the history of American theater, and was staged in New York City in 1787 as part of inauguration festivities for George Washington, who also attended the performance. Washington’s copy of The Contrast is in the University of Vermont, Special Collections Library. The university’s performing arts center is named the Royal Tyler Theatre.

Tyler moved to Vermont in 1791, living here for the rest of his life. A Harvard graduate, he became a lawyer, and State’s Attorney for Windham County, then served on the Vermont Supreme Court, including several terms as Chief Justice. He wrote Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Judicature of the State of Vermont, which became the only written record of Vermont cases between 1797 and 1814. In Jacob vs. Town of Windsor, August 1802, Tyler argued that a slave bill of sale is null and void once the slave is brought to the State of Vermont where slavery was illegal.

After five years, Tyler brought his wife, Mary (1775-1866) to a home in Guilford Center. Mary Palmer Tyler, was eighteen years his junior, and they had eleven children. Mary outlived him by forty years. She was author of The Maternal Physician, America’s first child rearing manual, published in 1811. Her memoirs were published by her descendants as Grandmother Tyler’s Book in 1925.

In 1801, the Tylers moved to Brattleboro, living, first, on a farm in the West Village, and finally in a house on the Town Common. Royall & Mary Palmer Tyler are buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery. Tombstone photos and links to other family members may be found at FindAGrave, findagrave.com

In addition to court opinions, Royall Tyler wrote prolifically. His verse and prose pieces, often witty, satirical and topical, were published in many newspapers. He also penned one of America’s first novels, The Algerine Captive: or the Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill: Six Years a Prisoner among the Algerines, published in 1797. The work makes the argument against slavery, years before the abolitionist movement emerged.