First settled about 1753, Brattleboro took its name from one of the original patentees, William Brattle (1702-1776), a Massachusetts loyalist.
He was called to the ministry of the Brattle Street church (Unitarian) in Boston before he was twenty years old.
Like his father he was deeply grieved by the liberal theology and Church polity of the new Brattle Street Congregation, and conscientiously opposed its pastor Benjamin Colman, who had been irregularly ordained in England and by a Presbyterian body; but with his father he took part in 1700 in services in Colman's church.
The Liberal leaders, John Leverett (1662-1724), William Brattle (1662-1713) - who graduated with Leverett in 1680, and with him as tutor controlled the college during Increase Mather's absence in England - William Brattle's eldest brother, Thomas Brattle (1658-1713), and Ebenezer Pemberton (1671-1717), pastor of the Old South Church, desired an "enrichment of the service," and greater liberality in the matter of baptism.
Thou need na start awa sae hasty, wi bickering brattle!