Thomas Tarbell settled first at Watertown, and then removed about 1663 to Groton about when that town was established. Thomas and his son Thomas, Jr., were original proprietors of Groton, owning a twenty-acre and a six-acre right respectively. Thomas and his children evacuated to Charlestown during King Philip’s war, and Thomas and Thomas, Jr., died in a smallpox outbreak in Charlestown in 1678.