From Historical Rutland : an illustrated history of Rutland, Vermont, from the granting of the charter in 1761 to 1911 by Rev. F. E. Davison, Rutland, Vt.: P.H. Brehmer, 1911, page 5:
First White Settlers
During the year 1769, Timothy Mead, Zebulon, James (Col.), Stephen, Ezra, and one daughter, emigrated from Nine Partners to what is now Rutland County, Vermont. Three of the sons, Zebulon, James (Col.) and Ezra settled on Otter Creek, West Rutland, between what is now Center Rutland and Procctor. These were the first white people that ever settled in Rutland.
Colonel James, on the 30th of September, 1769, made his first purchase of land in Rutland. There were seventy rights in the whole town, one right containing 350 acres. He bought twenty rights for £ 100 and sold ten the same day for £40, retaining 3,500 acres. The following year, 1770, he was forty years old, with a wife and ten children. The first white child born in Rutland, is said to have been William, September 12, 1770, the eleventh child of Colonel James Mead. The twelfth and youngest child, James, was born December 12, 1773; William, the eleventh child, moved from Vermont to Ohio. He died at Granville, Ohio, November 24, 1854, and on his tombstone is the following inscription:
His family consisted of three children. Mrs. Mead died May 11, 1823, aged ninety-two. The inscription on her tombstone in the old cemetery at West Rutland is:
From sidebar with a photo (omitted here):
This Bible was brought to Rutland by Col. James Mead and for a long time was the only Bible in the settlement. It was borrowed for various purposes social, reliigious and judicial. It has been handed down from one generation to another and is at present the possession of Gov. J. A. Mead. The book contains the genealogies of the various families, and is still in a good state of reservation.
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Stephen, the fourth child of Timothy (1), settled on Otter Creek, three miles below Sutherland Falls in the present town of Pittsford. He had a family of thirteen children. The daughter of Timothy married one of the. Stark family.
Zebulon and Ezra, who also settled on Otter Creek, had families consisting of eleven and fourteen children respectively.
These immigrants were three days moving from Manchester to Rutland. They came over the mountains, stopping the first night in Dorset, the seccnd in Danby, and thus on to Tinmouth and West Clarendon. The third evening they camped in Clarendon, but as it was a moonlight night, they pushed on to their destined home. Fortunately a band of Caughnawaga Indians were encamped in the vicinity, and upon applying for shelter, the red men generously gave their hut to the weary travelers, and built another for themselves. Here Mead and his family lived until late in the fall, during which time a substantial log house was erected in which they wintered.