Notes |
- William Arnold was a church warden at St Mary church in Ilchester, England where he copied the dates of his parents birth and marriage; William Arnold own marriage date and the birth of his 4 children. He brought these records to the American colonies when he and his family emigrated to Mass. in 1635. He first went to Hingham, Mass.
In 1636, he went with Roger Williams and 10 other families to found Providence plantations in Rhode Island. He had a town lot in the first settlement there. He was an original member of the first baptist church in the new world. He bought land from Roger Williams.
In 1628, he moved to Pawtuxet and founded that town.
In 1658, Pawtuxet united with Providence.
In 1661, he was a commissioner to the colonial assembly from Providence.
In 1673, he deeded to John Sheldon all rights that he has in the first allotment of Providence.
William Arnold was an educated man in England and learned the Indian language and acted as interpreter many times.
He deeded all his children land, some of which he bought from the Indians.
He died in 1675, age 88 in Providence. This was the year of King Phillips war. King Phillip was an Indian.
http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=:2125498&id=I106122278
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h: Jun. 24, 1587
Ilchester
Somerset, England
Death: 1677
Pawtuxet
Kent County
Rhode Island, USA
He was mentioned as deceased by his son Benedict on Nov 3,1677, and died "after the beginning of King Philip's War", i.e. mid-1675.
He came to New England in 1635, first settling at Hingham, and then Providence by April 1636. In 1638, he settled in Pawtuxet (now Warwick).
Son of Nicholas Arnold and Alice Gully Arnold of Ilchester, Co.Somerset. He was a brother of Joan (Arnold) Hopkins, and therefore his nephew was Thomas Hopkins of Providence,RI.
He married Christian Peake/Peak by 1611.
Children: Elizabeth Arnold Carpenter, Benedict Arnold, Joanna Arnold Rhodes Reape, and Stephen Arnold. There may have been other children that died young.
Thomas Hopkins was great grandfather of < a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=502">Stephen Hopkins who signed the Declaration of Independence and became both Governor and Rhode Island's first serious historian.
Find A Grave contributor Jan adds:
Several Family Histories state deathdate as 7 Sep 1675 in Pawtuxet, Providence Co., RI, but do not explain why they say so.
(findagrave)
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Wikipedia has an extensive amount of info on William Arnold.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Arnold_(settler)#Early_life
William Arnold (24 June 1587 ? c. 1676) was one of the founding settlers of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and with his sons was among the wealthiest people in the colony. He was raised and educated in England where he was the warden of St. Mary's, the parish church of Ilchester in southeastern Somerset. In 1635, along with family and associates, he immigrated to New England, where he initially settled in Hingham in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but soon relocated to the new settlement of Providence with Roger Williams. He was one of the 13 original proprietors of Providence, appearing on the deed signed by Roger Williams in 1638, and was one of the twelve founding members of the first Baptist church to be established in America.
After living in Providence for about two years, Arnold moved with his family and other relatives and associates to the north side of the Pawtuxet River forming a settlement commonly called Pawtuxet, later a part of Cranston, Rhode Island. He and his fellow settlers had serious disputes with their Warwick neighbors on the south side of the river and as a result separated themselves from the Providence government, putting themselves under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. This separation from Providence lasted for 16 years, and as the head of the settlement, Arnold was appointed as the keeper of the peace. He died sometime during the great turmoil of King Philip's War in 1675 or 1676.
Highly unusual for a 17th-century American settler, Arnold began a family record based on entries from the local
parish registers in England and brought this with him to New England; this family record would eventually span more than 200 years and six generations. Nearly 300 years after his birth, a fabricated pedigree for Arnold was published, claiming his descent from 12th-century kings living in Wales. Three and a half decades later, in 1915, his correct ancestry was published, but not before the misinformation had been printed in an important source for Rhode Island genealogy.
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