I*/*'.

«f|^^ J k'*

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Gift of
Edith and Maude Wetmore
in memory of their father
George Peabody Wetmore
B.A. 1867

RHODE ISLAND

Historical Tracts,

]^0. 5.

PROVIDENCE :
SIDNEY S. BI DK K.
1879.

Copyright by
SIDNEY S. BI'DEU.
1879.

MEMOIE

CONCBKNING THE

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS

FEEISrOH SETTLEES

COLONY OF RHODE ISLAND.

ELISHA R. POTTEE.
Author of the Early History of Narragansett.

PROVIDENCE :
SIDNEY S. RIDER
1879.

Copyright by
SIDNEY S. RIDER.
1879.

PREIJMINAEY MEMOIR.

Of the numerous French settlements in America,
those in Canada, Maine, and some others, probably
had their origin in the love of enterprise and adven
ture. But the motives which produced the settle
ments in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and the south
eastern States, were, in a great measure, religious.
The reformation which took place in the sixteenth
century was attended with almost unceasing wars
and civil convulsions. The principle of tolerating
all religious opinions to the utmost limit consistent
with the preservation of public morality and order,
was then almost unknown. Religion was regarded
by all governments as a part of the machinery of
state, and to attack the established church was of
course rebellion against the powers that were.
The Lutheran reformation soon spread over

6 HISTORICAL TKACT.
Europe. In France the protestants were generally
known by the name of Huguenots. The origin of
this name is not certainly known.
In 1562 the dissensions between the two religious
parties in France had arisen to such a height that
an open war broke out between them. The Cath
olic party for the greater part of the time from the
beginning of the troubles until the repeal of the
Edict of Nantes and the expulsion of the protestants
from France, had the advantage of having all the
power of the civil government exerted in their
favor. The war continued with more or less violence
until 1572 when the leaders of the protestant party
having been invited to Paris on pretence of bringing
about a general reconciliation, the ever memorable
massacre of St. Bartholomew took place. In this
massacre seventy thousand protestants, including
almost all the leaders of the party, fell victims to the
bloody spirit of religious persecution.
The Catholics in France and at Rome celebrated
this event with thanksgivings and jubilees, and med
als were struck to commemorate their victory.
This massacre took place in the reign of Charles

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 7
the Ninth, and during the remainder of his reign the
conscientious protestants enjoyed no rest. Henry
the Third, who was supposed to favor protestantism,
was assassinated in 1589. Henry the Fourth suc
ceeded, and quiet was restored to the nation for a
time. Henry the Fourth, who before his coming to the
throne of France had been King of Navarre, had been
educated a protestant, and was naturally inclined to
favor their cause. On his accession, from motives of
policy, the greater part of his subjects being attached
to the Church of Rome, he made a public profession
of the Catholic religion, but he was of too enlarged
a mind to lend himself to be the instrument of
oppression to any party and to endanger the peace of
France and the stability of the government, by a
vain endeavor to produce a uniformity of religious
opinion. In the year 1598 he published the celebrated Edict
of Nantes, so called from the city of Nantes where
it was signed. By this a free toleration was granted
to the protestants in matters of religious opinion ;
the offices of the state were made accessible to them ;

8 HISTORICAL TRACT.
funds were allowed them for the maintenance of their
worship ; and for a further security to them against
the malice of their persecuting foes and against any
sudden change of policy in the government, certain
cities were assigned to them as places of refuge and
defence. The giving to the protestants the control of cer
tain portions of the kingdom seems inconsistent with
all modern notions of religious freedom. It may
have been justified by the turbulent state of the
times. But it laid the foundation of much of the
subsequent troubles.
During the whole of this prince's reign the terms
of the Edict were faithfully adhered to. He perished
by assassination in 1610, and with him the hopes of
the protestants for security in time to come.
During the succeeding reign of Louis the Thir
teenth, the Edict of Nantes was several times sol
emnly reaffirmed, and the confirmation by Louis the
Thirteenth, dated March 12, 1615, is especially re
markable for its expressions of liberality and tolera
tion of religious differences.
Had the protestants been governed by wise and

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 9
moderate counsels, their fate might have been differ
ent. But they bitterly assailed Henry the Fourth, for
his change of religion, and they suffered themselves
to become the victims and tools of ambitious nobles
whose only motive was to obtain power in the state
for themselves. The ambition of the nobles to con
trol the government was, for several generations, the
source of almost constant civil war, and although re
ligion was generally the pretext, yet it was sometimes
merely a pretence, and frequently not unmixed with
political motives. Louis the Thirteenth laid siege to
Rochelle, which had become practically almost inde
pendent,* and it was compelled to surrender in 1629.
But even then the free exercise of their religion was
guaranteed to them by the Edict of Grace, signed by
Cardinal Richelieu. f
But the strength of the Huguenots as a party was
now broken, and in 1685 Louis the Fourteenth, un
der the influence of the clergy, repealed the Edict of
Nantes. The open profession of the reformed relig
ion was prohibited, the ministers of the reformed
* Weiss's History of the Trench Protestant Refugees, i., 48.
fWelss's  " " i., 4S, 50.

10 HISTORICAL TRACT.
faith compelled to leave the kingdom, and a series
of persecutions commenced which drove away from
their country a large proportion of the reformed ;
in effect, all those who preferred the enjoyment of
their own religious opinions to compliance with the
religion of the state. This was a blow to the pros
perity of France from which it was long in recover
ing. The persecuted fled to England, Holland,
Geneva, Brandenburgh and America. The number
has been variously estimated ; sometimes as high as
a million. They were not of the poorer or more
ignorant classes of society. They comprised within
their ranks a large portion of the wealth, intelligence,
and enterprise of the country, and were glady wel
comed by the nations to which they fled, as a valu
able acquisition not only to their numbers, but to
their intellectual resources and manufacturing indus
try. Those who settled at New Rochelle in the State of
New York, in New York city, on the James River in
Virginia, on the Santee River and in Charleston,
South Carolina, came over during the troubles which
preceded and followed the revocation of the Edict of

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 11
Nantes, and from the same motives which prompted
the settlements made in Massachusetts and Rhode
Island. Among their descendants were many who
took an active part in our American Revolution, and
who were' otherwise distinguished as statesmen or
public benefactors. It will suffice to mention the
names of Jay, Laurens, Maiiigault, Marion, and
Boudinot. Within a few years after the repeal of the Edict,
the settlement in Massachusetts was made by about
thirty French families. They received a grant of ten
or twelve thousand acres of land in the township of
Oxford, from the proprietors of the township, and
there they continued to live and the settlement flour
ished until about 1696, when, harassed by attacks
from the Indians and the settlers, they were scat
tered over the country. Most of them went to Bos
ton. As they had fled to this country for the sake
of religious opinion, it may naturally be supposed
that after their arrival here, they would maintain and
respect the ordinances of religion. While at Oxford
they maintained a minister of their own sect, and
when they had removed to Boston they built and for

12 HISTORICAL TRACT.
a long time supported a church in which services
were performed in their vernacular tongue. Here, as
elsewhere, they and their descendants were of respect
able condition in society, and some have left behind
them good and great names which will lo^ig be re
membered. For a more particular account of this
settlement reference may be made to a very able and
learned Essay on the History of the French Protes
tants, by Rev. Abiel Holmes of Cambridge.*
* Massachusetts Historical Collections, volume xxii.

THE FRENCHTOWN SETTLEMENT.

October 12, 1686, Richard Wharton, Elisha
Hutchinson, and John Baffin, a committee of the
so-called Proprietors of the Narragansett Country,
made an agreement with Ezechiel Carre, Peter Le
Breton, and othjer French emigrants, for the settle
ment of a plantation in the Narragansett Country, to
be called Newberry, but subsequently the location
was changed on account of its remoteness from the
shore, and by another agreement, dated November
4, 1686, the Proprietors or Bay Purchasers agreed
to convey to the emigrants a tract in the township of
Rochester,* "above ye Long Meadow Kickameeset
about Capt John fones his house wherein Each Fam-
*This was the new name given to Kingstown, in June, 1686, by the Govern
ment of Dudley, the predecessor of Andros. See Early History of Narragan
sett, page 106. 3

14 HISTORICAL TRACT.
ily yt desires it shall have one hundred acres of up
land in two Divisions viz A house lott Containing
twenty Acres being twenty Rods broad in ye front
laid out in due ordi' wth Street or high way of Six
Rods broad to run between ye sd lotts upon wcli they
shall front Secondly yt ye Second division to make
Sd hundred acres of upland shall be laid out on ye
Western Side of ye S<i house lotts as near as ye Land
will bear yt all ye S^ Meadow wth yt yifch Ueth Ad
jacent between ye Southern Purchase & a west line
yt is to run from John Androes Northern Corner
above ye Path shall be divided into one hundred
parts each one to have his proportion according to
ye quantity of Land he shall take up & Subscrib for
yt there shall be laid out for ye S<l Mr. Ezechiel Carr6
ye pr. sent Minister one hundred and fifty acres of
upland & meadow in ye same manner proportionable
Gratis to him & his heires forevr & one hundred
acres of upland & meadow proportionable to an Or-
thordox Protestant Ministrey & fifty acres of like
land towards the maintainance of a Protestant School
master for ye Town forev'""
The copy of the agreement is signed by Wharton,

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND.

15

Hutchinson, and Saffin, and deeds were to be exe
cuted when the terms were complied with. The
names of the French settlers who signed the coun
terpart were probably the same as those which appear
on the plat, viz. :

William Barbret
Paul Collin
Jean Germon DechampsFougereGrignon
Legar6
Robineau
Petter Ayrault Magni Junior
Magni Senior
Dauid Junior
Dauid Senior
Chadcneforetier
Ezechiel Carr6, Ministre
Louis Alaire

GrasilierAmian
Lafou BelhairMilard
Jouet Renaud Le gendre
Bertin dit Laronde
Menardeau GalayRatier
Dauid Beauchamps
Moize le Brun
Le Breton
La Vigne

16 HISTORICAL TRACT.
Jamain Tauerrier
Bussereau Bouniot
Le moine ' Arnaud
Abraum tourtellot Lambert
La Veue Galay Rambert
Targ6 Junior Coudret
Targe Senior Jean Jullien

*

It is impossible from the plat to locate the place of
settlement exactly, but the tradition in the Mawney
family and in the neighborhood points to the Mawney
farm and the land around and north of the Briggs
corners, so called, as being the site of it. On the
northerly part of the Mawney farm in the south-east
corner of East Greenwich, is a place by a spring
which has always been known as the French orchard.
Here are the remains of foundations of cabins or
huts, shell banks, etc., and in my youth there were
the remains of trees said to have been planted by the
French. Whether this was so or not, the place is
well identified as having always gone by that name,
* In presenting these names, we have faithfully followed tlie manuscript copy
which has been furnished us from the British State Paper Office, both as to the
division of words or the use of capitals. Errors may possibly have arisen in
transcribing, but they must have occurred before the document reached us.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 17
and the country around it has always been known as
Frenchtown. The land is now owned by Robert G.
Mawney. At a place south of the road leading east from the
Briggs corners after crossing the river, are also the
apparent remains of cellars, or foundations of small
houses, where was probably another collection of
dwellings, as they would uaturally at first build
their temporary habitations near each other for
mutual assistance and protection.
The highways upon the French plat do not agree
with any highways upon the East Greenwich plat,
which is the one by which the present titles to land
there are held.
Dr. Ayrault, in his memorial, says that the English
ran two highways through his land, and that Thomas
Matteson fenced in a part of it, and Samuel Bennett
and William Weaver built upon it, and from the
position of these names upon the East Greenwich
plat, the probability is that Dr. Ayrault's land was
at the Johnson four corners, next north of the Briggs
corners. Dr. Ayrault says that the settlement consisted of

18 HISTORICAL TRACT.
forty-five families, and that they soon built twenty-
five houses and a church. They had laid out lots for
a church and a school and a lot for the minister,
Ezechiel Carr6. They began to improve their land,
then a wilderness of woods and rocks, and seem to
have been suffered to remain there without any seri
ous difficulty for several years. When subsequently
war broke out between France and England, the
French settlers were, by resolution of the General
Assembly, of March 3, 1689-90,* allowed to remain
unmolested on their taking an oath to comply with
the conditions prescribed in the King's Proclamation
of War.
In the summer of 1687 the English settlers mowed
the grass on the bog meadows, and Governor Andros
made an order for the division of it, one-half to the
English claimants and the other half to " the French
families there, who being strangers and lately settled,
and wholly destitute and have no other way to sup
ply themselves." t Dr. Ayrault does not mention
this in his memorial.
*R. I. Colonial Records, ill., 264.
t Massachusetts Historical Collections, third series, volume vii., 182. Early
History Narragansett, 220.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 19
But about two years after this, more serious
troubles began between them and the English inhab
itants, which led to the breaking up of the settle
ment and the removal of nearly all. Dr. Ayrault
states that two families removed to Boston and the
rest to New York, but it is well-known that the Le
moines (Mawneys) and Targes (Tourgees) remained
there, and Dr. Ayrault himself remained in East
Greenwich for several years afterwards and finally
removed to Newport, and was one of the first pro
moters of the foundation of the Episcopal Church
there.* To a person unacquainted with Rhode Island his
tory, it may seem strange that any dissension should
arise between the English settlers, many of whom
had been driven from Massachusetts on account of
their religion, and a number of French settlers who
had been obliged to leave their country for the same
cause. They were alike, protestants, and all con
tending for the largest liberty of conscience.
But there were land speculators and rings in those
days as well as now, and then as now some of the
leaders stood high in the church.
*See Arnold's Rhode Island, volume i.. Appendix G.

20 HISTORICAL TRACT.
The charter of Rhode Island of 1663 had secured
to Rhode Island certain limits. But for all the outer
borders of their territory they had for many years to
contend with Connecticut and Massachusetts. It
was not until 1746 that Rhode Island gained posses
sion of the eastern portion of their charter grant ;
the western portion, and especially the Narragan
sett country, was the subject of continual conflict ;
Rhode Island did not acquire peaceable possession
of it until 1707 ; the boundary was not actually set
tled until the decision of the King in council in 1728.
This conflict of jurisdiction gave rise to great con
fusion in claims to lands.
In June and July, 1659, Major Humphrey Ather-
ton and his associates, afterwards known, sometimes
as the Atherton compa,ny, and again as the Bay
Purchasers, purchased from the Indian sachems two
large tracts of land, Quidneset and Boston Neck.
These were called the northern and southern pur
chases. 'They included some of the most valuable
lands in the west part of the Colony, both from qual
ity of soil aud from their advantageous situation, on
Narragansett Bay.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 21
This company consisted at first of Major Hum
phrey Atherton, of Massachusetts, John Winthrop,
Governor of Connecticut, Richard Smith, Sen., and
R. Smith, Jr., of Wickford, William Hudson and
Amos Richardson, of Boston, and John Tinker, of
Nashaway.* Major Atherton had been employed by
Massachusetts in negotiating with the Indians, and
having been for several years superintendent of the
praying Indians, he had thus acquired an influence
with them. They made offers of land to Roger Wil
liams to induce him to become one of the company,
but he refused and informed them that their pur
chases were illegal. f It will be seen that the com
pany was so formed as to combine different influ
ences, and included besides persons from Massachu
setts and Connecticut, some from Rhode Island.
Subsequently Wharton, Saffin, Edward Hutchin
son, and others, became interested in the purchases. f
But the trouble about the Frenchtown lands grew
out of another transaction. The Commissioners of
* Potter's Early History of Narragansett, 269, 58.
t Roger Williams's Letter to Major Mason. See Early History of Narragan
sett, page 162.
J Early History of Narragansett, 269, etc.

22 HISTORICAL TRACT.
the United Colonies had undertaken to impose a fine
upon the Indians in the jurisdiction claimed by
Rhode Island, and on non-payment, had sent a mili
tary force and compelled the Narragansett sachems
to execute a mortgage, September 29, 1680, of their
whole country to them.* The Indians not paying
the fine, theAtherton company paid it for them, and
the sachems made a new mortgage of the whole
country to the company, conditioned to pay the
money in six months. On the expiration of that
time two sachems, with some other Indians, in Sep
tember, 1662, delivered formal possession by turf
and twig, to the Atherton partners. How much the
Indians knew of the effect of these proceedings may
be imagined. It was nothing but a mere farce.
The Rhode Island Legislature afterwards, in 1672,
confirmed the Boston Neck and Quidneset pur
chases, f but they never acknowledged the validity of
this mortgage. If these lands were within the limits
of the Rhode Island charter, as they were afterwards
decided to be, then all these proceedings were wholly
* Early History of Narragansett, 60, 234.
t Early History of Narragansett, 214, 77.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 23
void. The Atherton claim had been rejected by
Governor Andros, and the Atherton company had
petitioned the English government for a grant of
land to include the land they had sold to the French.
But it does not appear that they ever obtained it.*
It was under their claim to hold the Narragansett
country by this mortgage, that the Atherton company
had made the grant to the French settlers in ] 686.
Nine years before this time, in October, 1677, the
Legislature of Rhode Island had made a grant of this
territory and established a township, then and still
known as East Greenwich, f and it was platted out to
the settlers. J
These facts are sufficient to enable us to account
for the subsequent troubles.
On the 22d of April, 1700, we learn from the Colo-
*ArnoId's Rhode Island, i., 505, 507.
t A resolution of the Rhode Island Legislature to establish the Greenwich set
tlement had been passed at an earlier date, but In October, 1677, a special grant
of the township was made to certain persons by name. Peleg Sanford and
Benjamin Speere were appointed to survey it. John Smith, of Newport,*
was afterwards appointed in place of Speere. In 1700, the original plat being
lost, a copy was proved and established by the General Assembly. The
plat now in existence bears date 1716, and was made by William Hall, sur
veyor. R.I. Col. Rec, vol. ii., 574 ; and vol. lii., 7, 26, 51, 403.
1 Potter's Early History of Narragansett, pp. 110, 111.

24 HISTORICAL TRACT.
nial Records* that a court of enquiry had been held in
Kingstown to enquire into a riot there, and that Dr.
Ayrault's son Daniel and several Englishmen were
fined foT participation in it. The General Assembly
afterwards set aside a part of the proceedings as ille
gal. But Dr. Ayrault was tried before the General
Court of Tryals at Newport, September 3, 1700, for
nuisance and was ordered to open the highways,
meaning of course the highways as laid out by the
English settlers. Dr. Ayrault says, that they
opened the highways through his land in two
directions. This fact seems to aid us in identifying
the Johnson four-corners, as the location of the land
he occupied.
In 1687, a French protestant visited New Eng
land, and examined the country with a view to
ascertain and report upon its advantages for settle
ment. Some of his letters were published for the
first time in the Bulletin Historique of the Society
• de I'Histoire du Protestantisme Francais, in Febru
ary, 1867. They were translated by E. T. Fisher,
and published in the Liberal Christian, a newspaper
* R. I. Col. Rec, iii., 413. Potter's Early History of Narragansett, 109.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 25
published in New York, and since re-published in
a quarto pamphlet, at Brooklyn, New York,- in 1868,
undei- the title of "Report of a French Protestant
Refugee in Boston, 1687."
He made a visit to the French settlement in
Rhode Island, but unfortunately the letter written in
December, 1687, in which he gave an account of it
is lost. In another letter, November, 1687, he
briefly mentions it thus : " There are at Narragansett
about one hundred persons of the faith. M. Carr6*
is their minister."
This is all the information we can obtain in regard
to the settlement. Several families remained in
Rhode Island without being disturbed : two families
at least in the very neighborhood where the strife
occurred : thus showing that the trouble did not
grow out of their nationality. In a subsequent part
*A sermon by M. Carr^ was printed at Boston in 1689, under the following
title, " The charitable Samatarian, a sermon on the tenth chapter of Luke,
verses 30-36. Pronounced in the French Church at Boston, by Ezechiel Carr^,
formerly Minister of Rochechalais, (sic) in France, now Minister of the
French Colony on Narraganset, translated into English, by N. Walter." This
title Is taken from the Brinley Catalogue. The little volume found its way
from the Brinley sale to the Library of Congress.

26 HISTORICAL TRACT.
of this memoir, we shall give some account of sev
eral of the families of the Frenchtown settlement,
and of some other French settlers in Rhode Island.
It is with great difficulty that their descendants
can now be traced, so great have been the changes
and corruptions of the names. Two or three such
have already been noted, for instance, Le Moine
became Money and still later Mawney ; Ganeaux
became Gano ; Daill6 became Daily or Daly ; Targ6
became Tourgee. Many others might be shown but
these suffice to explain the difficulty in foUowino-
them. Upon the breaking up of the Narragansett
settlement, many of the settlers went to the south
ern states. Among those who probably thus again
emigrated were Pierre Collin, Daniel Jouet, Moyez
Le Brun, Daniel Le Gendre, Louis de St. Julien,
and Legree.

DOCUMENTS

KELATING TO THE

EEENOH SETTLEMEI^TTS

COLONY OE RHODE ISLAND,

FROM THE

BRITISH STATE PAPER OFFICE, LONDON.

THE CONTRACT WITH THE BAY PURCHASERS.

Whereas there was Articles of Agreement made &
Concluded Between Richd Wharton Esq"" Elisha
Hutchinson & John Saffin ye Committee for ye pro-
prietrs of ye Narraganstt Country & Ezekiell Carr6
Peter Berton & oth's french Gentlemen their friends
& Associates whose names are thereunto Subscribed
Bearing date ye 12tli day of Octor last Concerning
ye Settlemt of a Place called Newberry Plantations
in ye Narraganstt Country w^^ upon Second Consid
eration in regard of ye Remoateness of ye same from
ye Sea they have by ye Mutual Consent of ye Sd
Committee declined ye Settlement of ye Sd Planta
tion & ye Sd Master Ezekiell Carre Master Berton in
behalfe of themselves & oth^s their friends & Asso
ciates who have hereunto Subscribed are now Come
to & have made a new Agreemt In manner & forme

30 HISTORICAL TRACT.
following this 4tii day of Nouembr 1686 Annoqr
R R S Jacobi Secundi Anglia & Secundo Viz
Imprimus That ye S^ Richd Wharton Esqr Capt
Elisha Hutchinson & John Saffin ye aforesd Commit
tee do by these Prsents Couenant Grant & Agree to
& 'vvth ye Sd Ezekiell Carre Peter Berton French
Gentlemen their friends & Associates who have here
unto Subscribed to lay out A meet & Conseiderable
tract of Land in ye Township of Rochester* above
ye Long Meadow Kickameeset about Capt John fones
his house wherein Each Family yt desires it shall
have one hundred Acres of upland in two Divisions
viz A house lott Containing twenty Acres being
twenty Rods broad in ye front laid out in due ord'
wtii Street or high way of Six Rode broad to run
between ye S<i lotts upon wch they shall front Sec
ondly yt ye Second devission to make ye S<i hundred
acres of upland shall be laid out on ye Western Side
of ye Sd house lotts as near as ye Land will bear
yt all ye S<i iMeadow wth yt weh lieth Adjacent be
tween ye Southern Purchase and a west line yt is to
run from John Androes Northern Corner above
ye Path shall be divided into one hundred parts each
* See note page 13.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 31
one to have his proportion according to ye quantity
of Land he shall take up & Subscrib for yt there
shall be laid out for ye Sd Mr Ezekiel Carr6 ye
prsent Minister one hundred & fifty acres of upland
& meadow in ye same manner proportionable Gratis
to him & his heires forev' & one hundred acres of
upland & meadow proportionable to an Orthodox
Protestant Ministrey & fifty acres of like land towards
the Maintainance of a Protestant Schoolmaster for
ye Town forev^ yt for Every hundred Acres of Land
be it upland or meadow laid out in forme aforeSd
each one shall pay pay unto ye Sd Comittee or As-
signes twenty pounds in Currant money or in goods
ansWable to their Satisfaction yt those yt are not
able to do or se cause at p'sent to pay for their Land
they shall have three years time for payment at
ye rate of twenty five pounds per hundred acres laid
out as aforeSd & So According to Proportion for
wt Land they shall take up & Subscribe for & in
Case they doe not pay wtliin the tearme of three
years each one Shall pay Interest for ye Same at
ye rate of Six per cent & for wt money any one shall
pay sooner it shall be abated accordingly yt untill

32 HISTORICAL TRACT.
ye Sd Meadow be divided those yt inhabit first on
ye place in AforeSd Shall have the Benefitt of Im-
provemt & likewise of ye undivided Lands Adjacent
untill they be othrwise disposed yt upon payment
of ye money for ye Land as aforeSd & Leagall Deeds
shall be Given Signed & Sealed by ye Sd Committee
to Each one According to his Proportion of Laud
Granted In Wittness whereof the Parties within men
tioned have each for themselves Interchangable Sett
their hands & Scales the day and year above written
Signed Sealed & Delivered
by Mr Hutchinson & Saffin Richard Wharton ( • )
In the presence of Elisha Hutchinson ( - )
Walter Steuen Junr John Saffin ( • )
Lodowick Updick
John Gore
Alexander Huling A true Coppy Extracted out
of ye Originall & Compaired
Octor ye ISthinye year 1692
By me John Heath Conservatr
[Indorsed] Coppy of Mr Wharton &c agreemt with
Ezekiell Carr6 &c for Settleing a town in the Narra-
ganst

THE COMPLAINT AND REMONSTRANCE

DR. AYRAULT.

The Complaint & Remonstrance of Petter Ayrault
In Habitant in ye French Town in Narraganstt of
Some Iregularities & Inhumanities Proceed upon him
July 23tli 1700 by Some of ye Inhabitants of ye
Town of East Greenwick in Said Narraganstt yj^t
That upon ye 23tli of Sd July, there Came unto
my house in Sd French Town aft^ Sun Sett a great
number of ye town of Greenwick mixt wtt some of
Warrwick & Chantecutt who told me yt ye Court on
ye othr side ye River wch was keept at ye house of
Pardon Tillinghast in Sd Town desired to speak wth
me I told them I was unwilling to go, out of my
house so late at night who Replyed we have a War
rant & if you will not go fairly we will force you.

34 HISTORICAL TRACT.
Upon wch I asked them for a Sight of their warrant
& to Read ye same to me wch ye Utterly Refused &
putt ye same in their Pocketts notwthstanding I was
very Importunate wth them to give me a Coppy of
their Warrant for my mony wet they absolutely Re
fused & Instantly laid their hands upon me & dragged
me to ye River Side & affwards ov^ sd river & placed
me in their Court as they Called it at yt time of
Night where I was Interrogeted by them or most of
them of Sd Court my Reply to them was I was a
Stranger & Undrstood not English & therefore de
sired I might have an Interpreter they told me I
should have one, on ye Morrow Soe they left me &
my Son Daii^ at liberty upon Samii Bennetts word
yt I would answer it Next day weh accordingly I did
& Gave bond for my appearance to the next Court
lett it be Considred yt I was Sett upon In my own
house at yt Unseasonable time wtt a Warrant weh
they jvere ashamed to read or give a Coppy of In
fine my wife an aged Woman of Sixty years of Age
Infirm & Sick Could not by all her Cryes & Teares
perswade them to Disiste but Contraywise did Strike
& flung hir on ye Pavement.-where she Continued

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 35
Some time for dead all wch I Conceive is not only
UnNaturall & Inhumaine & against all Law & Reason
wch I Submit to a further Determination Pierre Ayrault
Augsst 5tli 1700
Allso ye Most Notorious & III behaviour of Samii
Davis & Abner Spencer to my Son Daniell Ayrault
who they found at my house ye Same time I was
fetcht away & wtiiout cause for ye same they tooke
my Sd Son & Puling him out of my house took by
the head Feet carried him along some Part of the
way to said Tillinghast spoken of S6 flinging down
on the Stones Pulling him a long Giving him no rea
son for their so doing and bringing him before their
Court so called lett him goe whose Complaint of In
justice to them no notice was taken of, thus are we
endangered of being ruened & Destroyed by Such
lawles persons So I have great cause to seek releiff
therein Pierre Ayrault
August: 5- 1700.

36 HISTORICAL TRACT.
Newport August: 7: 1700 Doctor Pierre Ayrault
appeared before us whose names are here Under
written whose are Commissionated to hear & Enquire
into ye Irregularityes Cmomitted in ye Colony of
Rhode Island & Providce Plantations & Sd Ayrault
haveing made his Complaint of Injustice done him
and haveing on the other Leafe Given it Under his
hand did upon his Corporall Oath before us aver it to
be ye Reall Truth. Francis Brinley ^
Peleg Sanford > Commissioi's
Nath Coddington )
[Indorsed.] true Coppy of Perre Ayrault Complaint
of abuse receivd
July 23: 1700.

FURTHER COMPLANT AND REMONSTRANCE

DR. AYRAULT.

May it Please yor Excellency
I Lately made bold to Lay before yo^ Excellency
by Petition Some part of my grivances & wrongs
done me on my lands purchased in ye Narraganstt
Country in ye Town of Rochester of ye proprics
thereof & have here given a Short and true Remon
strance of myself & Distressed Country people Set
tlemt & ye severii Occurances and Passages they &
myself past thro there
Upon the fourth day of Nouembr 1686 Richard
Wharton Esqr &c & on our part our Ministr Ezekiel
Carre & Peter Berton agrees for a Sertain parsell of
Land in Sd Narraganstt Country for Settling A Town
thereon of an hundred acres apiece to a family wch
i

38 HISTORICAL TRACT.
was done & Compleated o^ severii allotments laid out
& a Coppy of ye Articles I make bold to prsent
yor Excellency wth, & -wth a true Coppy of ye Piatt
of or severll Settlemt & Allotment as Laid out &
we was there Settled by ye then Propriers & Gov-
ermt who gaue us ye oath of Alleagance we being
about forty five five familys building about twenty five
houses wtii Some Sellars in ye Ground Setting up
or Church & it being a very wilderness Country fild
alltogether wth wood & stones & no former Improve
ments made thereon yt or Labour charge & trouble
was great but we had A Comfort we could then Injoy
o^ worship to God & had ye Govermts Protection to
us in or Improvemts no p^son disturbing us on our
Labour no Prtending any claime to any of ye soile
but they purchases of Sd Lands by whom we were
Setled we paying all takes to the Goverment as was
laid on us we peaceable Injoyed our Lands & Im
provements wthout any thing of ye least molestation
Under the then Goverment
The then Govermt being Removed we was then
taken Undf ye Govermt of ye Colony of Rhode
Island &c who seemed to treat us civelly also at ye

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 39
first not Molesting us & upon ye 20 of February
i^lf they Genei'll Court past an Act yt we should
be Sent for to Warwick by Majr John Green one of
the Assists whereby it should be signified unto us his
Majties Pleasure of an Act of Indulgance unto such
frenchmen as we, yt we Should be required to take
ye Oath of AUeigance to his then p'sent Majty ^ch
according to Sd GenH Court Act we were sent for
to Warwick & Gave or oath of AUeigance & had his
Majties Act of Indulgence read to us & a Promise of
our Protection from Sd Govermt Undr or Libertys &
Propertys But the obseruance of Sd Act of Indulgence & ye
Protecting of us in C libertys & Propertys wee con
tinued not two years Und^ Sd Govermt before we
were molested by ye Uulgar Sort of they People who
flynging down of o^ fences laying open our Lands to
ruen Soe that all Benefitt thereby we were Deprived
thereof (ruen looked on us in a Dismall State o'
wives & children liveing in fear of ye threats of
many unruly p^sons) & vyt Benefit we Expected
from 01' Lands for Subsistance was destroyed by
Secretly Laying open oi" fences by night & day &

40 HISTORICAL TRACT.
wt little we had pi"serued by flying from fraiice we
had laid out und^ ye then Improvements looked so
hard upon us to see ye Cryes of o' wives & Children
Lamenting their sad fate flying from Persecution and
Comeing Under his Majesties Gracious Indulgance
And by ye Govermt promised us yet we Ruened &
when we Complained to the Govermt we could have
no relief altho some would a helped us we Judge If
by their Patience they could a Born Such III Treat
ments as they must expect to a meet wth by ye Un
ruly Inhabitants their Setfled also many of ye Eng
lish Inhabitants Compassionating or Condition would
a helped us but when they used any means therein
they were Evilly treated so yt these things did put
us then upon looking for a place of Shelter in or Diss-
tresed Condition & hereing yt many of or Distressed
Country people had been protected & well treated in
Boston & Yorke some of or principale persons went
to Boston & York to seek out new Habitations where
ye Govermtts had Compassion of them & gave them
relief, & help to their wives & Children Subsistance
only two familys moveing to Boston & they rest to
New York & their bought Lands some of them & had

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 41
time given them for payment & so was they all
forced away from their Lands & houses orchards &
vineyards taking some small matter from some Eng
lish people for somewt of their Labour thus Leave-
ing all habitations some people got not anything for
their Labour & Improvemts but Greenwich men who
had given us ye disturbance giting on ye Land so
Improved in any way they Could & soon demolished
& puld down or Church
But I being perswaded by many to stay & haveing
fenced in fifty Acres of Land purchased & made very
good Improvements by a large Orchard Garden &
Uineyard & a good house was willing to keep my
Settlement & bear all outrages Comitted Against me
wch furthr shall be related to, and as many prsons
who in their Sickness and Extremity would send for
me to Administer help unto them wch Under God's
Goodness I have been a help to raise many from
Extream Sickness yet have they soon forgot my
Labour & rewarded me wth Endeavours to root me
out of my habitations & by flynging down my fences
yt I might not have any Subsistance by my Land
these Endeavors uot succeeding in all their Endeav
ours and othr Contrivance was against me

42 HISTORICAL TRACT.
Upon the 25 of Janr i6 9| one Giles Pearse &
John Smith agreed togeathr in a Clandistine manner
to gitt me out of my habitation & Improvemts & for
yt end Sd Pearse sells one part of my Land about
twenty five Acres to Sd Smith in Sd Deed Containing
my houses orchards Gardens & most part of ye best
of my Improved Lands & in Sd Deed was allso Com
prehended ye habitations to houses & Lands of three
othr persons then Liveing on Sd Lands this being
about teun years after or Settlements & Improvemts
as mentioned Sd deed tifkeing in Ninety Acres of
Lands (as mentioned all wthin fences & Improve
ments ) & ye same day ye deed was Signed & Sealed
& ye witnesses spoken to not to Deuvlge their
secreed act the same day they went to Greenwich both
Smith & Pearse before a Justice of ye Peace one
John Heath & acknowledged it to be their act before
Sd Justice & ye 27th day of Sd month Sd Justice of
ye Peace who had ye records of Greenwich placed
Sd deed on record & Sd Justice herein was privy &
Knowing to ye Sd Clandistine Acts of Sd Pearse &
Smith who certainly knew ye sale of ye Land Undr
wt Circumstances ye were undr After this Sd Smith

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 43
& Adherance gave me much trouble & ye rest of us
puling down or fences & 1 Complained to ye Author
ity neuer could find relief I Keeping my house yt
ye Could not have any Opportunity to Enter in (to
dispossess me & these Actiones not takeing Effect for
in my distress many of Neighbours did Comfort me)
yt their would be some relief from ye Crown to me
& they Propriers of Sd Country & then anothr pro-
jecet was put in Execution against me for as I have
declared Greenwich men at their pleasure Extended
their lines* time aftr time without any authority as I
Understand from ye Proprietrs of Sd Country or ye
Genii Court & took in at last all ye French Town &
upon ye 14th of febr 16 9 9. Greenwich & Severii of
ye Town of Warwick wth a Plat of such a parsell of
land wch they Called Greenwich Township prsents it
to ye Generii Assembly ye Assembly Confirms ye
Lands comprehended in Sd Plat to be wthin Greeii-
¦?Dr. Ayrault complains that the English kept encroaching on them. He
does not seem to have had the least knowledge that there was a dispute as to
the title to the lands. So far from encroaching on them, there is not the least
evidence that the bounds of the grant made to the English settlers by the Col
ony of Rhode Island were ever changed in that neighborhood. Farther east
they were changed, and the State Records give the particulars.

44 HISTORICAL TRACT.
wich Township wthout Considring yt Greenwich had
Intrenched upon ye othr towns adjoyuing & they
haveing ye Jurisdiction soon set to work for my
Ruen in anothr way in wt ye Could
And as I have now Sd & given an accoutt of my
Settlemt fenceiug & Improvements & so about four
teen years aftr upon ye 23 of July 1700 two of ye
Assists of Warwick (viz) Benjn Barton & Benjn
Smith came to ye new Township of Greenwich wch
had Swallowed up all ye french Town bringing wth
them a number of Warwick & Greenwich men & at
ye house of one Pardon Tillinghast one of ye houses
in ye french Town there they held a Court of En
quiry as they called it one Capt John Fones wth
Severii othrs hereing of Sd Appointed Court came
to Inspect into their Proceedings & Capt John Fones
took an accott thereof, of yt days Proceedall whilest
he was their wth his oath given to ye same a true
Coppy Thereof I have allso here laid before yor
Excellency also a true Coppy how I was dealt wth
yt Evening aftr Sun Down how there came to my
house a great Numbr of Greenwich & Warwick peo
ple & wthout shewing me any warrant for wt they

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 45
Came for dragiug me Away to their Court house &
ye result of ye Court ye next day & how by their
Plat obtained by ye Assembly in ye month of Feb
ruary 1699 before past they sett out two highways to
run through my Land & bound me in a bond to the
next Court wch by ye Govrs Warrant & othrs Signing
wth him afterwards was laid out one of Sd highways
on one Side of my Land ye whole Length thereof
Runing through my orchard ten Rod in wideth de
stroying my orchard part of w^h Land one Thos
Mattison have since fenced in & Improves & ye
othr highway they ordred to run athirt my Land
takeing away above twenty acres of my Land ye
weh one Samil Bennett & Wm Weaver have built
thereon & Improves Sd Land so yt of my Mty Acres
I haue about twenty Acres left me & ye (known
highway) or Road into ye Country yt allways was &
lay on ye othr Side of my Sd Land since Sd Acfion
ye Widow Smith widow of ye Sd John Smith herein
mentioned have fenced in every part thereof setting
a house on Part of Sd highway & no notice taken
thereof thus I can but in a Brief give yor Excellency
a short Accott of Part of my trouble & Pray all En-

46 HISTORICAL TRACT.
deavours may be used to give Relief to your Dis
tressed & most Humble Seruan't Pierre Ayrault
Greenwich August 20 : 1705.
[Indorsed.] Doctor Ayrault remonstrance of his
Troubles.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE COURT

HELD AT

ERENCHTOWN, JULY 23, 1700.

Narrag : st Att a Court held at ye House of Par
don Tillinghast att ye French Town or Plantation so
called in Kings Province July 23 1700.
Present.
Mr Benjn Barton Assist
Mr BenjQ Smith Assist
Mr John Spencer Justice
Mr John Heath Gierke
Mr Thomas Fry Attorney
The Jury returned but not by the Sheriff (viz)
Mr Peter Greene Foreman
¦ Mr Benjn Greene
Mr Jabesh Greene
Mr Amos Stafford -

48 HISTORICAL TRACT.
Mr Jeremiah Westcot
Mr OtheneU Gorton
Mr Samii Gorton Junr
Mr Charles Holdon
Mr Joseph Stafford
Mr John Potter
Mr John Burton
Mr Thos Burlingham
The Court being Sate ye Jury was called to take
their Engagements which was Administred, unto
them (but not According to Form of ye Oath nor
Engagement to a Grand Enquest) wherein they were
charged in Behalfe of or Soueraigne Lord the King
to Enquire into ye High way's yt were Stopped &
Fenced in but not Nameing ye Town & to make a
returne to yt Court then Mr Attorney Placeing him-
selfe at ye Upper End of ye Table at ye right hand
of ye Justices & Pulled out some papers & Desired
ye Justices & Jury to take Notice of wt he had to
Lay before them then caused an Act of an Assembly
to be read by ye Clarke wherein was granted 5000
Acres of Land to be Laid out in ye Narraganset
Country for ye Settling of an Town & This 5000

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 49
Acres Should be divided amongst Fifty persons
whom ye Sd Assembly did See cause to accommodate
therewth to be to them & their heirs & Assignes
for evr: Provided they did observe ye Prescriptions
& Injunctions yt was laid upon them by ye Sd Grant
& perform ye same accordingly or othrways to for-
fiet ye Sd lands Granted then was read an Ordr for
ye Laying out ye Lands & Shewed a paper wch they
called a Platforme of those Lands laid out by them
selves wthout form & wthout Scale or Compass or ye
Suruayers Name to it or mens to ye divisions Laid
out or anything of Sertainty in it for finding out ye
highway but according to wt those w^h were ye Evi
dences given" into ye Jury wch they doe Say & Aver
to ye weh prsons at yt time may be Known to be
very Young & at yt time not Capable to Know ye
bounds nor Concernes of Each Divisions as ye lines
or bounds then were or where ye highways were
then ye Sd Attorney read An Ordr of their Town
where himself was by them Constituted & Appointed
to be their Attorney & it their behalf to Plead in any
of his Majties Courts of Judicature in defence of
their rights & Priviledges then he read a Coppy of a
5

50 HISTORICAL TRACT.
Letter he had Sent unto ye Govr declareing their
pretended agrieuances as yt there high ways was
stopped & fenced in by some prsons & desired their
might be a Court of Enquiry & a Jury to find out
ye highways & make returne thereof & then he read
ye Goverrs Answer to him yt it should be done
accordingly then he pleaded ye Lands & highways
was laid out According to Ordr & were recorded in
their Booke of records & yt there were Evidences
yt would Shew unto ye Jury where ye highways
were but I did not see those Evidences Sworne in
ye Face of ye Court So ye Jury was sent forth &
some of Greenwich men went wth them then ye Court
rise Up abruptly & disapated Untill their Dinner was
Sett ready for them then ye Jury was sent for to go
to Dinner wth them before they had agreed Upon A
Verdict Aftr Dinner some private Consultation wth
ye Jury they went out again & staid out till Allmost
night only I did obserue yt two prsons of Sd Jury
did come to advise wth ye Justices Privately in ye
Sd house & Aftrwards returned to their Fellows &
neer night as before Sd came & delivered their ver
dict wch was as neer as I can remember in these

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 51
words Following (viz) Wee the Jury Inquiry for or
Soueraigne Lord ye King doe find yt Docter Peter
Auralt hath Presumptiously fenced in ye highway
according to Evidences Given to us & therefore
Guilty ye wch Sd Verdict ye Court did accept then
did I myself make a request unto ye Sd Court to
Grant Mee A Coppy of Sd Verdict weh I did in be
halfe of Doctr Peter Auralt He being ye Object as I
did undrstand they Pitched upon according to Sd Ver
dict but could uot obtain it Neither was ye Sd Doctr
called for to here ye Play made against him nor ye
Evidences given in Unto ye Jury nor their Verdict
when Delivered then ye Court rise up again abruptly
& went into ye house to Confer about some private
Mattrs wch they did Intend to Effect wch I was not
aware of Neithr did I think or Imagine any thing of
wt they Intended weh aftr my Departure they put
in Practice as I am Informed but seeing ye sun was
neer Upon Setting & those of my Company being
desirous to returne home I went into ye house where
ye Sd Justices were & took my Leave of them weh
as I do Conjecture they were glad to here of my de
parture they sent for Sd Doctr Peter Auralt who

52 HISTORICAL TRACT.
Early ye next Morning came to my house & gave me
an accott of their Injurious Actions against him his
son & wife weh their may be severii Evidences yt can
testify to ye Truth therefore Declared and Attested
per John Fones
Newport August : 8 : 1700
Capt John Fones Came before us whose Names
are Under Written and Upon his Corporall Oath did
declare that ye wthin written paper to weh be hath
sett his hand unto is ye truth And nothing but ye
truth Taken as Abovesaid Francis Brinley ^
Peleg Sanford > Commissiors
Natlii Coddington )
[Indorsed] Capt Fones Euidence about Doctr Perre
Ayrault

NOTE ON THE NARRAGANSETT PURCHASES

MASSACHUSETTS BAY PROPRIETORS.

The constant attempt of the authorities of Massa
chusetts to interfere in the affairs of Rhode Island,
and to subjugate the Indians and the chartered terri
tory of the Rhode Island Colony to her jurisdiction,
deserve more than a passing notice, as they were the
cause not only of the troubles with the French emi
grants, but of most of the early troubles and suffer
ings of our ancestors. We should have had no Indian
wars with their attendant massacres, but for their
meddling interference.
Their attempts to convert the Indians to Massa
chusetts Christianity, were not looked upon with
favor by the Rhode Island authorities. These at
tempts were no doubt considered here as a part of a

54 HISTORICAL TRACT.
scheme to gain favor with the Indians and establish
authority over Narragansett. Roger Williams made
many efforts to Christianize the natives, but with
little success. In one of his letters dated 1654, he
says : " At my last departure for England, I was
importuned by the Narragansett Sachems and espe
cially by Ninigret, to present their petition to the
High Sachems of England, that they might not be
forced from their religion, and for not changing their
religion to be invaded by war. For they said they
were daily visited by Indians that came from the
Massachusetts, that if they would not pray, they
should be destroyed by war."^ Ninigret, on being
requested by Mayhew, to give him leave to preach
to his people, bade him go and make the English
good first. They said it was too difficult for them
to understand.^ The conduct of Christian nations
and people, was then as now, the greatest obstacle to
the spread of Christianity.
The ill feeling of the religious people of Massa
chusetts towards the heretics of Rhode Island, was
manifested in various ways. When Rhode Island
1. Potter's Early History Narragansett, 122, 154, 155.
2. Neal's New England, London, 1740, v. 1, p. 275.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 55
for her own protection applied to be admitted into
the Confederation of the Colonies, she was repulsed.
The refusal of the authorities of Massachusetts to
sell powder to the people of Rhode Island, is but
one example of the prevailing spirit.^ This may
have been done under a pretence of a general law.^
They invaded the territory of Rhode Island at
pleasure, and made constant attempts to get the
Rhode Island Indians to submit to them. The Rhode
Islanders and Indians were generally on good terms.
The great Indian war of 1676, was considered by
the people of Rhode Island, as brought on by the
misconduct of the English themselves.'' The great
Sachem Miantinomo had been put to death by the
direction of the Massachusetts authorities, and under
the advice of the elders of the church. < Aud the
editor of Winthrop is obliged to express his con-
1. Colt's History of Puritanism, pp. 295, 524. Benedict's History of the Bap
tists, ed. of 1813, v. 1, p. 466. Arnold's History of Ehode Island, v. 1, pp. 158,
268. B. I. Col. Rec, v. 1, p. 324; letter of Roger Williams.
2. Ancient Charters and Laws of Massachusetts Bay, p. 133, dates in margin
1633, 16.37.
3. Potter's Early History Narragansett, p. 93 ; also E. I. Hist. Col., (Callen-
der,) V. 4, p. 126, in note.
4. Winthrop's History of New England, ed. of 1826, v. 2, p. 131.

56 HISTORICAL TRACT,
demnation of it. These wars against the Indians
were conducted with a savageness not surpassed in
more recent times. Their prisoners who were not
butchered were sold into slavery to the Bermuda, or
West India Islands. ^
The Puritans of Massachusetts, the term is used
to denote the dominant clergy who governed the
colony without regard to mere minor differences of
opinion, have been held up to the world as a set of
saints for whom this world was not good enough.
Let us see.
They professed to be driven over here for the sake
of religious liberty. No such thing. They had
that in Holland. But there they could not lord it
over others. They could not punish heresy in their
flock. And they were afraid of being , gradually
scattered or swallowed up by their Dutch neighbors.
They came over, as most emigrants go to new coun
tries, to better their condition, and they did it.
Never did any set of men know better how to recou-
cile Godliness and land grabbing than they did.
1. Colt's History of Puritanism, p. 411. Potter's Early Hist. Narragansett,
28, 80, 83, 84, 94.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 57
And as for religious freedom, they never allowed it.
Mrs. Hemans' five verses can be enjoyed by those
who can substitute their imagination for facts, but
when she says,
" They left unstained what there they found
Freedom to worship God,"
a greater falsehood was never put into poetry, and
if we enjoy religious liberty at the present day, we
owe no thanks to the Puritans of Massachusetts for
it. For all the outrages and abominations practiced
by the Massachusetts government towards the In
dians and Rhode Islanders, the Puritan clergy must
be held responsible. The clergy were supreme in the
state. No one but a church member could vote,
or be a magistrate or juror. This of course gave the
clergy complete control. i As a matter of course,
all the politicians and office holders were very pious
and very orthodox. If General Butler had been a
candidate for governor in those days, he would have
been obliged to play the r61e of a saint with cropped
1. As to the eflTect of this, see Savage's Winthrop new ed. of 1853, vol. 2, 171,
209.

58 HISTORICAL TRACT.
hair, white bands and sanctimonious visage and
looked like some of those old ministers whose
pictures, for want of something better, used to be
hung up over the doors and in the recesses of the
old Harvard College library. And he would have
gained in popularity by hanging a few Quakers
and witches. Everything was done under the advice
of the ministers. When the great Sachem Mianto-
nomo was treacherously taken prisoner in a war
between him and other Indian tribes, they advised
his death, and are responsible for the savage man
ner of its execution, and thus in a great measure
for the subsequent wars and massacres. When they
marched into Rhode Island to carry out the great
Indian butchery of 1676, the first of their " Laws and
ordinances of war," provided that no man should
blaspheme the Trinity, on pain of having his tongue
" bored with a hot iron."
The Puritan clergy thus taking the lead in politics
and in war, the Puritan soldiery butchered the In
dians in most approved modern style. And in
treachery they exceeded the moderns of the West.
One hundred and twenty Indians surrendered to

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 59
Captain Eels on a pledge of protection. The gov
ernment, disregarding the pledge, carried them to
Plymouth, and sold and transported them all into
slavery. And the descendants of those men are
probably now slaves in the West India Islands, per
haps in Cuba.i When the Indian Sachem Canonchet
was taken, in order to give the Indian allies a share
in the barbarities, and thus attach them to the whites,
" by the prudent advice of the English command
ers," the Pequods shot him, Mohicans cut off his
head aud quartered him, Ninigret's men burned the
quarters, and his head was sent to the council at
Hartford.^ When King Philip was taken, he was quartered,^
andthe pieces hung on four trees. His head and hands
were carried first to Rhode Island. The Puritans
proclaimed a thanksgiving on the 17th of August,
and on that day his head was carried in triumph into
Plymouth, and after being exhibited through the
1. Potter's Early Hist. Narragansett, 80. Church's Indian War, Drake's ed.,
1829, p. 52. Morton's Memorial, Davis's ed., 1826, p. .443.
2. Potter's Early Hist. Narragansett, p. 96. Hubbard's Indian Wars, 1803,
p. 168. Baylies' Hist. Plymouth, pt. 3, p. 117.
3. Church's Indian War, Drake's ed., 1829, p. 125.

60 HISTORICAL TRACT.
country, was exposed on a gibbet where it remained
for thirty years. i The prayers of Church, to save the
life of Annawon were disregarded, and he was be
headed. Tispaquin, another chief, surrendered on
a pledge of protection from Church,*^ and he was
executed with Annawon, "a dastardly act," says
Baylies, "which disgraced the government," who
thereby basely " violated the English faith. "^ When
Philip's son, a boy of nine years of age, was taken
prisoner, his case was referred to the clergy for
advice. John Cotton and Samuel Arnold were for
putting him to death, quoting texts of Scripture
to sustain their opinions ; others were more merciful,
and he was sold as a slave and shipped to Bermuda.^
In the Pequot war the male Indian children were
sold to Bermuda, the women and female children
were scattered about among the towns. s Some of
1. Baylies' Hist. Plymouth, pt. 3, 452. Drake's Ed. of Hubbard, v. 1, p. 272.
2. As to Church's authority to promise protection, see Baylies' Hist. Ply.
mouth, pp. 3, 150; also Church's Indian War, Drake's ed., 1829, p. 96.
3. Baylies' Hist. Plymouth, pt. 3, 183, 184. Church's Indian War, Drake's
ed., 1829, p. 144. Morton's Memorial, Davis's ed., pp. 453, 455.
4. Baylies' Hist. Plymouth, pt. 3, 190. Morton's Memorial, Davis's ed., p.
455. 5. Hubbard's Indian Wars, ed. of 1865, v. 2, p. 37. Morton's Memorial, Davia'e
ed., p. 193. Hutchinson's Hist. Mass., v. 1., ed. of , p. 307.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 91
the Indians who fled for protection to Rhode Island,
were sold for nine years ; none were sold for life or
sent abroad. The Massachusetts authorities com
plained that the Rhode Islanders had refused to
deliver them up on their demand, that they might
"be proceeded against according to the covenant." i
Drake's Indian Chronicle consists of reprints of
rare tracts and letters written and published during
those early times. It is valuable, not so much for
its exactness of detail, as for its exposition of the
mixture of piety and savageness which actuated the
Puritan people ; and it gives us some facts additional
to those we have.
Captain Mosely took prisoners a father aud son.
They were examined separately ; the father first.
They then examined the son, and lied to him by tell
ing that they had shot his father and threatened that
they would shoot him if he did not confess ; and
ended by shooting them both. 2 In another case they
led an Indian to the gallows, flung the end of the
1. R. I. Col. Eec, V. 2, p. 249. Knowles's Life of Roger Williams, p. 347. Pot
ter's Early Hist. Narragansett, pp. 94, 219.
2. Drake's Indian Chronicle, ed., 1836, p. 25; ed., 1867, p. 149.
6

62 HISTORICAL TRACT.
rope over the post and " hoisted him up like a dog
three or four times," and finally an Indian stabbed
him and sucked his blood. i
Eight Indians came to Boston on an embassy with
a certificate from Captain Smith. ^ One of them
was taken and hanged, because he had killed some
one in the war.^
In 1637, the Puritan soldiers meeting with seven
Pequods, killed five of them, and took one a prison
er alive, him "the English put to the torture, and
set all their heads upon the fort."* The particulars
of this torture are not given. In July, 1676, their
Mohegan allies asked the English to give up to
them one of the Narragansett captives to be tortured.
The English consented. The remainder of the story
is too horrible to be related here, the curious reader
is referred to Baylies' History of Plymouth, an ex
cellent authority, pt. 3, p. 136. The dead body of
the squaw Sachem Weetamore being found, her
head was cut off and carried to Taunton, where it
1. Drake's Indian Chronicle, ed. 1836, p. 27; ed. 1867, p. 153.
2. M^or Richard Smith, well known in Rhode Island history.
3. Drake's Indian Chronicle, ed. 1836, p. 30; ed. 1867, p. 167.
4. Winthrop's History of New England, ed. of 1826, v. 1, p. 223.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN EHODE ISLAND. 63
was set upon a pole.i " We cannot," says Judge
Davis, " peruse without humiliation and disgust the
unfeeling sarcasms with which a reverend cotempo-
rary historian relates this occurrence." s
In the Pequod war, the English attacked and set
on fire the Pequod fort, and destroyed about four
hundred Indians, killing some, hewing some to
pieces, etc. "At this time it was a fearful sight
to see them thus frying in the fire, and the streams
of blood quenching the same. Horrible was the
stink and scent thereof; but the victory seemed a
sweet sacrifice and they gave the praise thereof to
God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them,
thus to enclose their enemies in their hands." 3
When the Indians took female prisoners at Lan
caster, and they suffered no wrong, such treatment
so surprised the Puritan savages that they were
obliged to account for it by a special interposition of
God.* Baylies in his History of Plymouth, says " all
accounts concur in representing the Indians of New
1. Hubbard's Indian Wars, ed. of 1865, v. 1, p.264.
2. Morton's Memorial, Davis's ed., p. 451.
3. Morton's Memorial, Davis's ed., p. 189.
4. Hubbard's Indian Wars, ed. 1865, v. 2, p. 260.

64 HISTORICAL TRACT.
England to have invariably respected the honor of
women." 1 Whatever of a savage character the
Indians did, was attributed to "the malicious hatred
these infidels have to religion and piety."
In 1646, the CouncU of the United Colonies,
Rhode Island not being one, considering the wilful
wrongs and hostUe practices of the Indians, and
their entertaining and protecting offenders, etc.,
provided that the magistrates of either of the juris
dictions may send "some convenient strength of
English," and seize and bring away any of that plan
tation of Indians that shall protect," etc., "women
and children to be sparingly siezed, unless known to
be someway guilty, and because it will be charge
able keeping Indians in prison, and if they escaped,
they will be more violent and dangerous," satisfac
tion is to be again demanded of the Sagamore, and
if denied, the magistrates are to " deliver up the In
dian siezed to the party or parties endammaged,
either to serve or bee shipped out and exchanged for
1. Baylies' History Plymouth, pt. 3, p. 30. Potter's Early History Narragan
sett, p. 94. Drake's Indian Chronicle, ed. of 1836, p. 81. Hubbard's Indian
Wars, p. 117.
Reference might properly have been made in this connection to the treat
ment of Mary Dyer, who was banished and finally hanged on account of her

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 65
neagers as the case will justly beare."i Hazard has
modernized the spelling into negroes.
The Commissioners of the United Colonies ap
proved and authorized the employment of mastiff
dogs against the Indians.^
And read the following : " Whereas Mr. Pincheon
was questioned about imprisoning an Indian at Aga-
wam, whipping an Indian and freezing of him, the
Court is willing to pass over Mr. Plums' failings
against an Indian." This is a vote of the General
Court at Hartford, in 1637.3
When we read of such barbarities as we have re
cited, and then reflect that these were the Indians
who protected our ancestors when they were driven
away by the bigoted white savages of our neighbor
ing colony, and when we reflect that these wars and
brutalities were brought upon them mainly because
of this kind treatment of our forefathers, an old
religious faith, or perhaps, in the estimation of the Massachusetts authorities,
the lack of it. The curious scholar is referred to Bishop's New England
Judged, for an account of these barbarous acts.
1. Hazard's Historical Collections, vol. 2, page 63. Trumbull's Connecticut
Records, 1636-65, p. 531. Blue Laws, Andrus's ed., p. 55.
2. Hazard's Historical Collections, vol. 2.
3. Trumbull's Connecticut Records, 1636-65, p. 13.

66 HISTORICAL TRACT.
fashioned Rhode Islander may be excused for ex
pressing himself in terms of severity.
And yet within a few years we have had a lecture
before our Rhode Island Historical Society, ridicul
ing these our benefactors, and justifying the Puri
tans. Canonicus is represented as allowing Wil
liams to " instruct his people in Christian decency
and behavior, so long as his supply of groceries
lasted." And this was received with apparent grati
fication and a vote of thanks passed by the Society.
How long will it be before they join in the annual
grand blarney celebration at Plymouth, and sing
hosannas to the Puritans, who whipt, scourged and
hung our Quaker and Baptist ancestors.
That the Narragansett Indians were not civilized
in the Puritan sense is no doubt true. But they
were, compared with the other tribes, an agricultural
people. And we have the testimony of Roger Wil
liams to their good and peaceable character, (A. D.
1654) : that they were " more friendly in this than
our native countrymen. * * Have they not
entered leagues of love and to this day continued
peaceable commerce with us ? Are not our families

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 67
grown up in peace among them ?" " The Narragan-
setts as they were the first, so they have been long
confederates with you ; they have been true in all
the Pequod wars to you. « * » ^he Nar-
ragansetts had never stained " their hands with any
English blood, neither in open hostilities nor secret
murders. * * It is true they are barbarians,
but their greatest offences against the English have
been matters of money or petty revenging of them
selves on some Indians on extreme provocations, but
God kept them clear of our blood. * •* Through
all their towns and countries, how frequently do
many and oft times one Englishman travel alone
with safety and loving kindness."'
" Commonly they never shut their doors day nor
night, and 'tis rare that any hurt is done."^ That
they were corrupted afterwards by their intercourse
with the whites, and that they were made more sav
age by the treatment they received, is doubtless
true. Governor Hopkins, in his history of Providence, 3
1. Potter's Early History of Narragansett, pp. 154, 156 157.
2. Williams's Key to Indian Language, vol. 1, E. I. Hist. Col., p. 50.
3. Massachusetts Historical Collections, second series, vol. 9, p. 202.

68 HISTORICAL TRACT.
speaking of the execution of Miantonomo by the
advice of the Puritan clergy, says : " This was the re
ward he received for assisting them some years
before in their war with the Pequods. Surely a
Rhode Island man may be permitted to mourn his
unhappy fate and drop a tear on the ashes of Mian
tinomo, who, with his uncle Canonicus, were the best
friends and greatest benefactors the colony ever had.
They kindly received, fed and protected the first
settlers of it, when they were in distress and were
strangers and exiles, and all mankind else were their
enemies, and by this kindness to them, drew down
upon themselves the resentment of the neighboring
colonies." The late Chief Justice Staples, one of the most
painstaking and accurate of our antiquarians, who
resorted to the records for his facts, and not like
some modern lecturers to the imagination for them,
says of him : " If he had not protected the first
settlers of the State of Rhode Island, probably his
liberty would not have been deemed inconsistent
with the safety of the United Colonies. * * He
was sacrificed because he was more liberal in his

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 69
views than his Christian neighbors, more benevolent
in his actions, more catholic in his religion. His
memory should be embalmed in the grateful recol
lections of every inhabitant of the State of Rhode
Island."! And in another work :
"'The descendants of the first settlers of Provi
dence, Rhode Island, and Warwick, should ever
remember the obligations that their ancestors were
under to Miantonomo. * * * When there was
no eye to pity and no power to save in the civilized
world, Miantonomo was their friend, their protector,
their generous benefactor."^
Mr. Savage in his notes to Winthrop,^ says :
" With profound regret I am compelled to express
a suspicion that means of sufficient influence could
easily have been found for the security of them
selves, the pacifying of Uncas and the preservation
of Miantonomo, had he not encouraged the sale of
Shaomet and Patuxet to Gorton and his heterodox
associates." 1. Gorton's Simplicity's Defence. R. I. Hist. Coll., vol. 2, p. 156.
2. Staples' Annals of Providence, 54.
3. Winthrop's History of New England, ed. of 1653, vol. 2, p. 161.

70 HISTORICAL TRACT.
The names of the Puritan magistrates and clergy
who perpetrated these outrages, instead of being
damned to everlasting infamy along with the bigots
and persecutors of all past ages, are still retained
in honor upon the calendar of Massachusetts' saints,
and an annual ovation performed in their memory.
If the wealthy Quakers and Baptists of the present
day had one spark of the spirit of their ancestors, or
any regard for their memory, they would place a
copy of Coit's Puritanism, Sewel's and Gough's his
tories of the Quakers, and Benedict's History of the
Baptists, in every school and village library through
out the land.
It is common to defend the Puritans by saying
that their faults were those of the age in which they
lived. If this is a good defence, their defenders
should have little to say about Archbishop Laud,
or the cruelties of Bloody Queen Mary or any Cath
olic persecutions.
That the old Puritans (clergy and all) bought
and sold slaves may be known to some. But it is
not so well known that they were probably the first
inventors of a fugitive slave law. In October, 1636,

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 71
a treaty was made at Boston, with the great Sachem
Miantonomo. It contained nine articles. But, as
the Indians could not understand them perfectly, a
copy of it was sent to Roger Williams, in Rhode
Island, to interpret it to them. This was probably
a fair specimen of their Indian treaties. It is here
referred to for the fifth article, "to return our fugi
tive servants." ^ In 1643, Massachusetts, Plymouth
and the two Connecticut colonies made a confedera
tion for mutual defence ; in 1672, they renewed it.
One of the articles provided that " if any servant
ran away from his master * * in such case upon
the certificate of one magistrate in the jurisdiction
out of which the said servant fled, or other due
proof, the said servant shall be delivered either to
his master or any other that pursues and brings such
certificate or proof." But this solemn agreement it
seems was hardly needed, for in the letters of a French
Protestant Refugee, written in 1687, it is said : "You
may also own negroes and negresses. There is not
a house in Boston, however small, that has not one
or two," some five or six. "Negroes cost from
1. Potter's Early Hist. Narragansett, p. 21.

72 HISTORICAL TRACT.
twenty to forty pistoles. * * There is no danger
that they will leave you, nor hired help likewise,
for the moment one is missing from the town, you
have only to notify the savages, who, provided you
promise them something, and describe the man to
them, he is right soon found." ^
Selling into slavery was not confined to the In
dians or the blacks. In 1659, a son and daughter
of Lawrence Southwick were fined for " siding with
the Quakers, and absenting themselves from the
public ordinances." Not paying their fines the coun
ty treasurers were authorized to sell them into Vir
ginia or Bermuda.
That the negroes were generally humanely treated
is very probable, but they had little protection from
the laws. Dr. Belknap 3 in 1795, says "the negro
children were considered incumbrances, and were
given away like puppies," and that the severest and
most effective threat to a negro, was that he should
be sold to the West Indies or Carolina.
1. Winthrop's Hist. New England, ed. of 1826, vol. 1, 199.
2. Sewel's History of the Quakers, vol. 1, p. 278. Hinman's Blue Laws, p. 17.
3. Massachusetts Hist. Coll., 1st series, vol. 4, p. 200.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 73
In the "Body of Liberties " of Massachusetts, A.
D. 1641, we find it enacted : "There shall never be
any bond slavery, villanage nor captivity among us,
unless it be lawful captives taken in just wars and
such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are
sold unto us ; and these shall have all the liberties
and Christian usages which the law of God estab
lished in Israel requires." This legal recognitition
of slavery is said to be several years earlier than
can be found in the laws of Virginia or Maryland.'
Of the existence of slavery in Rhode Island, I
have written in another place. ^ The Rhode Island
ers apprenticed or sold some of the Indians for a
term of years in the great Indian war of 1675-6.
They sold none absolutely. They did in May, 1659,
pass a law authorizing the sale of an Indian guilty
of grand larceny, but it was only after conviction
and it was the guilty person who was to be sold.
Even this is not to be justified, but it is not quite as
bad as when one Indian committed a theft, to catch
and sell another one.3
1. Hildreth's History of United States, vol. 1, p. 278.
2. Lecture before the R. I. Hist. Society by the author, February 19, 1851.
3. Rhode Island Colonial Records, vol. 1, p. 412.
7

74 HISTORICAL TRACT.
In an act of the Massachusetts Legislature passed
in May, 1705, entitled "an act for the better prevent
ing of a spurious and mixed issue," etc, it was
enacted that if any negro or mulatto struck a per
son of the English or other Christian nation he
should be severely whipped. To further illustrate
the spirit of the people, the two following extracts
from private letters are introduced, the first, from
Hugh Peters, was written to John Winthrop, from
Salem, probably about 1645. He says :
" Mr. Endecot and my selfe salute you in the Lord
Jesus. Wee have heard of a divideuce of women
and children in the bay and would be glad of a
share, viz. : a young woman or girle and a boy if
you thinke good. I wrote to you for some boyes
for Bermudas which I think is considerable."'
The second is from Emanuel Downing, son-in-law
of Governor Winthrop. It was written in 1637-8.
He says : " A warr with the Narragansett is verie
considerable to this plantation, for I doubt whither
yt be not syniie in vs, hauing power in our hands, to
suffer them to maynteyne the worship of the devill,
1. Massachusetts Historical Collections, series 4, vol. 6, p. 95.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 75
which their paw wawes often doe ; 21ie. If upon a
Just warre the Lord should deliver them into our
hands, we might easily haue men, woemen and chil
dren enough to exchange for Moores, which will be
more gayneful pilladge for us than wee conceive, for
I do not see how wee can thrive untill wee gett into
a stock of slaues sufficient to doe all our business
for our children's children will hardly see this great
Continent filled with people, soe that our servants
will still desire freedom to plant for themselves, and
not stay but for verie great wages. And I suppose
you know verie well how we shall maynteyne 20
Moores (negroes) cheaper than one Englishe ser
vant. " The ships that shall bring Moores may come
home laden with salt which may beare most of the
chardge, if not all of yt. But I marvayle Conecti-
cott should anywayes hasard a warre without your
helps."! We have seen that while the hatred of heresy was
one source of hostility towards Rhode Island, the
passion for land speculation was another. Roger Wil-
1. Massachusetts Hist. Coll., series 4, vol. 6, p. 65.

76 HISTORICAL TRACT.
liams 1 says : " You will find the business at bottom to
be * * a depraved appetite after * * great
portions of land in this wilderness. * « * This
is one of the Gods of New England." Deeds of im
mense tracts were obtained from the Indians by
Massachusetts men on the one hand, and Rhode Island
men on the other. Sometimes there was a consider
ation, sometimes none, and how much the Indians
understood of the nature of a deed may easily be
guessed. For the manner in which treaties were
forced upon them, and how little they understood of
them, repeated illustrations can be seen in the histo
ries of the times. ^
The Colonial Magistrates sent for the Indian
Sachems at pleasure, made charges against them and
compelled them to sign writings of the effect of which
they knew nothing. So King Philip was compelled
to sign a Avriting acknowledging himself a subject of
the English. When at Boston, in 1671, he was told
that he had done so, he indignantly denied it,^ and
1. Potter's Early Hist. Narragansett, p. 162.
2. Potter's Early History of Narragansett, pp. 21, 47, 49, 79.
3. Hutchinson, 1, 281. Baylies' Plymouth, pt. 3, p. 23.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 77
said that it was merely an agreement of friendship
and amity.
Baylies, in his History of Plymouth, gives a char
acter of Philip, very different from that generally
given by the clerical historians.'
The Rev. Samuel Peters has been very much cen
sured for his history of the first colonists of Connec
ticut. That he exaggerated the faults and foibles of
those whom he considered his persecutors, is very
probable. He is commonly understood as represent
ing that they met in solemn meeting and voted
unanimously —
1st. That the earth is the Lord's and the fullness
thereof. 2d. That he has given it to his saints ; and
3d. That we are the saints,
and accordingly they took possession.
This is rather an exaggeration of what Peters does
say, but not much. ^ He says that when the Sachems
refused to give the land to them, they voted themselves
to be the children of God, and that the wilderness in
1. Baylies' Plymouth, pt. 3, p. 169.
2. Peters' History Conneotiout, New Haven, 1829, pp. 46, 66.

78 HISTORICAL TRACT.
the uttermost parts of the earth was given to them.
Be this as it may, nothing better represents the ruling
spirit of the Puritans in their treatment of the In
dians. It represents what was in the minds of all the
people. It is true as a myth, in the sense of the
myths of ancient history. The same thing is now
going on at the West ; except that it is not the
fashion of the present day to profess any peculiar
sanctity. They ask no leave of God or any body
else. Another charge against Peters is, that he repre
sents the first settlers as meeting and voting that
they would be governed by the Laws of God, until
they had time to make better ones. What he does
say (page 54) is that the Colony " adopted the Bible
for its code of civil laws, till others should be made
more suitable for their circumstances." This was
probably founded on some expression in the first
Code of Connecticut, where it appears that they
provided for being governed by the rule of the Word
of God in cases for which they had not provided in
their code ;' or, as Secretary Hinman states it, " for
1. Trumbull's Hist. Connecticut, vol. 1, p. 98.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 79
want of a law in any particular case, shall be judged
by the Word of God."'
The Rhode Island code of laws of 1647, is a most
excellent one. It contains plentiful references to
the laws of England, ^ but no reference whatever to
the Laws of God. But then its authors were here
tics. The Puritans perhaps were not the first to bribe
members of the cabinet and government officers.
They were very cautious and perhaps conscientious
as to using such a wicked word. But Puritan
shrewdness was equal to the occasion. Chalmers
openly charges them with attempting to bribe the
officers and influential men of the English govern
ment. 3 The Massachusetts Council, December 31,
1663, appointed a committee "to improve some
friend or friends in England," * to obtain informa
tion " and prevent all inconveniences the best they
1. Hinman's Blue Laws, pp. 130, 150; also Baylies' History Plymouth, pt. 2
p. 74. Laws of Plymouth.
2. Proceedings of First General Assembly of Rhode Island in 1647, ed. of
Judge Staples. Providence, 1847.
3. Chalmers' Political Annals, pp. 412, 413, 461 ; also History of Revolution
of Colonies, vol. 1, p. 132.
4. Massachusetts Colonial Records, vol. 4, pt. 2, p. 101.

80 HISTORICAL TRACT.
may." The General Court, May 18, 1664, re
ferring to this, authorized the committee to engage
some faithful friends in England, at an expense not
exceeding £400. The General Court had before
this in 1661, authorized a committee for managing
their affairs at London, to remove all obstacles or ob
jections that might lie in their way, and their pro
ceedings were to be kept secret unless the General
Court should call for them.' In 1682,2 they had
authorized the committee managing their English
affairs " to improve any meet instrument for the ob
taining " a general pardon and continuance of their
charter. Hereafter Railroad companies will not wickedly
attempt to bribe members of Congress, they need
only improve them.
Their agents in England, either forged or surrep
titiously procured before it had passed the proper
ordeal, a pretended patent bearing date in 1643,3
giving to Massachusetts the government of the Narra
gansett country, including of course the site of our
1. Massachusetts Colonial Records, v. 4, pt. 2, p. 39.
2. Chalmers' Political Annals, p. 461.
3. Miscellaneous State Papers, v. 1. Secretary of State of Massachusetts.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 81
Frenchtown settlement. Of this pretended patent
Roger Williams says : ' " The Lord High Admiral
President said openly in a full meeting of the Com
missioners, that he knew no other charter for these
parts than what Mr. Williams had obtained, for he was
sure that charter which the Massachusetts English
men pretended, had never passed the table." For
other reasons and authorities, see Mr. Aspinwall's
pamphlet^ upon this subject. No one pretends that
the government of Massachusetts would procure or
countenance a forgery. It was a clique of unprinci
pled land speculators acting under the cloak of their
name and under the garb of piety and hatred of
heresy. And this was the sort of people who caused
a very large part of the conflicts and civil disturb
ances which hindered and delayed the peaceable set
tlement of Narragansett, and of which Rhode Island
has had most unjustly to bear the blame.
The feeling produced by these arrogant assump
tions, by these scourgings, banishings, hangings of
1. Letter to Mason. Potter's Early History Narragansett, pp. .37, 161. See
also the documents in Staples's ed. of Gorton's Simplicity's Defence, p. 205, 195.
2. This exhaustive argument was re-published by Sidney S. Rider, Provi
dence, 1865. A few copies yet remain unsold.

82 HISTORICAL TRACT.
our heretical ancestors has not yet entirely disap
peared among the older portion of our country peo
ple. And it ought not to, so long as the authors of
these barbarities are defended and canonized as they
are. I have in my youth seen elderly people who
could not speak of the " Massachusetts Presbyte
rians," as they called them, without a gritting of
teeth. We have had a few among our people who have
taken some pains to justify the memory of our an
cestors. The late Hon. Henry Bull of Newport, was
one of the first, and latterly, Benedict in his History
of the Baptists, the late Judge Staples, Governor
Arnold in his History of Rhode Island, Zachariah
Allen, Esq., and Professor Diman, have done good
service in bringing to light the truth on these sub
jects. The conduct of the Puritans and the savage char
acter of their treatment of the Indians, will by
many be justified on the theory that they could not
be dealt with in any other manner. Whether this
excuse is available for a people pretending to Chris
tianity is doubtful. That after the Great Swamp

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 83
fight both parties acted like savages, is undeniable.
The Indians had been nearly destroyed in the fight,
their huts with their women and children, and their
stores of provisions burnt up, and the survivors
driven out in the cold of mid-winter to freeze and
starve. On the part of the whites the fury extended even
to the women. The women of Marblehead, coming
out of church, fell on two Eastern Indians who had
been brought in as captives and " very barbarously "
murdered them.' Aud very lately a monument has
been erected (as the newspapers say) to a woman
who tomahawked and scalped ten sleeping Indians
and then escaped. The wars with the Eastern
Indians were going on at the time of Philip's w^ar.
It is becoming the fashion to erect monuments to
the dead Indians, now that they are out of the way
and can give us no trouble. Matthew xxiii., 30;
Luke ix., 59 : 60.
1. This occurred in 1677. See Hutchinson's Massachusetts Bay, vol. 1, p. 307.

GENEALOGICAL NOTES.

When, many years ago, the writer was collecting
materials for the " Early History of Narragansett "
published in 1835, it was with the utmost difficulty
that the materials could be obtained for the few
pages of family history contained in that work.
Few families had preserved any family records, and
few seemed to care about them. And most of the
information in that work was obtained from the
records with a good deal of labor. From one per
son, the late Thomas B. Hazard, of Peace Dale, who
died A. D. 1845, at the of age 90, he obtained a great
deal of traditional information about Mr. Hazard's
own, and other families, which in every instance he
found to be confirmed by the records, when searched.
Since then the feeling has changed ; every family
has some one engaged in hunting up its history, and

86 HISTORICAL TRACT.
the passion has been carried to a ridiculous extreme.
Those who get up the present fashionable genealogies
begin away back in English history with an account of
all the princes, lords and knights who have borne the
name or any name similar to it. We expect, of
course, to find the descendants of some of these no
bles coming over about 1620, and settling in this
country. But here comes a sudden break ; and the
family history begins again generally somewhat in
this style : The first of the name we find in this
country was  . A few years ago some one
published a genealogical table of one of our old fam
ilies, and represented his ancestor as owning almost
the whole country. Such things as these may flatter
vanity, but they subject the writers, justly, and
sometimes a whole family unjustly to censure.
•. Savage, in his Genealogical Dictionary, volume 4,
page 144, well says : " Much benefit to thousands of
enquirers on our side of the ocean may be derived
from the wise use of a few words in the note of Mr.
Hunter, on pages 6 and 7 of ' The Founders of New
Plymouth,' edition 1854 : ' Mere possession of a sur
name which coincides with that of an English family,

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN EHODE ISLAND. 87
is no proof of connection with that family. Claims
of alliance founded on this basis are not the legiti
mate offspring of laborious genealogical enquiry, but
of self love and the desire to found a reputation for
ancestorial honor, where no such honor is really due.'
Well is the topic explained in further remarks,
founded on experience of more than one gross case
of indecent pretension."
It was formerly very common for sea captains and
travellers to go to the Herald's office, in London, and
procure copies of coats of arms of some one of their
name. These were brought home and sometimes
framed and conspicuously displayed, and may here
after perhaps be used as evidence of connection with
the English family. They are of course worth but
little. There are but two families in this part of the coun
try, who, to the knowlege of the writer, can trace
their families into Europe for many generations be
fore the emigration. The family of Dr. John Clarke,
the colonial agent, can, upon undoubted evidence,
go back several generations in England. Its repre
sentatives are still numerous in South Kingstown

88 HISTORICAL TRACT.
and Westerly ; and the Bernons were of an ancient
and honorable family in Rochelle, in France.
One great difficulty in tracing by our records, arises
from having sometimes many of the same Christian
name living at the same time. In the Reynolds,
Gardner, Hazard and Babcock families, this is
especially the case. In such cases the tracing of the
title to some tract of land, may aid materially. A
very complete genealogy of the Brenton family can
be made from the Land Records of South Kingstown.
Another difficulty arises from the various removals
of families from one town to another. In this re
spect the Quaker Records afford great aid as to the
members of that society. The general course of
emigration was through Massachusetts to Portsmouth
and Newport, and from thence across to the west
side of the Bay. The Misquamicott settlement
originated in Newport. The settlers had to pass a
wilderness, and the name they gave it. Westerly, is
significant of the state of the country at the time.
After the close of our Revolutionary war, and in
fact ever since, there has been a very large emigra
tion from the Narragansett country to the Western

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 89
States. The greatest number of the early emi
grants went to Vermont, to the borders of Hoosic
River in New York, to the Genesee country, in which
name was then included all the country around the
small lakes in western New York, to Wyoming and
Wilkesbarre, and the borders of the Susquehannah
River, and to Marietta in Ohio. And from thence
their descendants have become scattered all over the
Western States. There was also quite a large set
tlement of French from Rhode Island near Chatham
Four Corners and Hudson, in New York.

THE MAWNEY FAMILY.

Le Moine. The christian name of the first Le
Moine is not given on the plat, but by the tradition
in the family, it was Moses. The French settlers,
according to the family tradition, settled around a
spring on the present Mawney farm, and planted an
orchard there, always since known as the French
orchard, and, within the remembrance of the writer,
there were trees there supposed to be remains of the
original orchard. When the settlement was broken
up, the Mawneys must have remained there ; as the
name of Peter Money is on the oldest plat of East
Greenwich known to be in existence, and attached to
the tract of land which has been in the family ever
since. The name seems to have been first changed
to Money, and later to Mawney. The same tradition
preserves the names of two children of Moses :

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 91
First, Peter ; and second, Mary, who married an Ap
pleby, of New York.
Col. Peter Mawney lived the greater part of his
life in East Greenwich, but removed to Providence
before his death, and his will is recorded there. He
died in Providence, September 9, 1754, aged 65, and
is buried, with other relatives, in the old North
Burial Ground. This would make his birth about
1689. He was twice married, first to Mary Tillinghast,
who died February 24, 1726-7, in the 34th year of
her age, and is buried in the Tillinghast burial
ground, next north of the Mawney farm ; second,
to Mercy, daughter of Pardon Tillinghast, who sur
vived him, and died in 1761, the widow of James
Brown, and is buried in the North Burial Ground.
The children of Col. Peter Mawney were :
1. Elizabeth, born November 22, 1714, wife of
Joseph Olney.
2. Mercy, married Thomas Fry, Jr., December
23, 1742. In Col. Mawney's will he mentions his
granddaughter, Mercy Fry.

92 HISTORICAL TRACT.
3. Lydia, married Dr. Ephraim Bowen, June 10,
1746. See Bowen, post.
4 . Mary , married James A ugel I , October 5,1752,
grandmother of the late Prof. William G. Goddard.'
5. John, born August 11, 1718 ; died June 13,
1754. See below.
6. Pardon, born October 5, 1753; went to sea
and never heard from.
7. Sarah, married Joseph Whipple. Their son
Samuel was father of the late Hon. John Whipple,
Brown University, 1802, and their son George was
grandfather of Joseph W. Congdon, attorney at
law at East Greenwich.
8. Amey, married Dr. Samuel Carrew, April 22,
1760; died 1762, age 26; buried in North Burial
Ground. John Mawney, son of Col. Peter, died before his
father, and his will is recorded in Providence. He
married, October 29, 1745, Amey, daughter of Rob
ert Gibbs, who is described on his tombstone in the
North Burial Ground, as descended from the family
of Sir Henry Gibbs, of Dorsetshire, England.
1. Updike's Narragansett Church, p. 155.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 93
Amey, wife of Robert Gibbs, was daughther of Col.
Joseph Whipple, and widow of  Crawford. The
children of John and Amey Mawney were :
1. Pardon, born at Providence, December 27,
1748 ; died on the homestead, in East Greenwich,
given him by his grandfather's will, August 6, 1831.
He married Experience, daughter of Caleb Gardner,
of South Kingstown. See below.
2. Dr. John Mawney, a physician, sometime
sheriff of Providence county, and was in the expe
dition that burnt the.Gaspee. He died in Cranston,
in March 1830, in his 80th year, and was buried in
the North Burial Ground. He married, first, Nancy
Wilson ; second, Elizabeth Clarke. Children :
a. John, married Ruth, daughter of John Glad
ding, and left one child, Elizabeth, who married
William A. Cole, and now resides in Shakopee,
Minnesota. 6. Mary, daughter of John and Elizabeth, mar
ried Henry Valentine, A. D. 1807. Their children
were, first, Maria A. ; second, Edward H. ; third,
John M. ; fourth, Elizabeth; fifth, Horatio; sixth,
Harriet A. ; seventh, Alfred A., now in New York

94 HISTORICAL TRACT.
city. Mrs. Mary Valentine died in Brooklyn, N. Y.,
1864. Henry Valentine died in 1847.
c. Susan, born January 5, 1788 ; married Benja
min P. Ware, 1812. He died in 1816. She died
October, 1869. Of the children, Albert P. Ware,
born August 3, 1813, is now living in Andover, Mas
sachusetts, and Charles M. Ware, born August 23,
1815, is living at Norwich, Connecticut.
3. Hannah, daughter of John Mawney, married
Stephen Harris, January 23, 1775. She died at the
age of 34, leaving one son, Stephen, father of the late
Almoran Harris.
4. Mary died December 25, 1757, aged eleven
years. 5. Nancy died, aged seventeen years.
Pardon, before referred to, died at East Green
wich, August 6, 1831. His wife, Experience, was
born November 1, 1751; married June, 1772. She
died November 28, 1815. Their children were :
1. Peter Lemoine, born April 16, 1773; died in
Moreau, Saratoga county. New York, January 30,
1868. Children : First, ,John G., died at Tyrone,
Steuben county, 1837 ; second. Pardon, deceased ;

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 95
third, Horatio, (Geneva, N. Y.) ; fourth, IsabeUa
Ann ; fifth, Sarah ; sixth, Peter, deceased. John G.
left children : First, Dr. John G., Mazomanie, Dane
county, Wisconsin ; second, Caleb ; third, William
W., Dundee, Yates county, N. Y. ; fourth, Zeruah;
fifth, Mary ; sixth, Sarah ; seventh, Robert.
2. John G., born October 1, 1774, was for many
years clerk of one of the courts of Kent county.
He died December 28, 1846. Children: First,
Marj-; second, William; third, Tabitha; fourth,
Benjamin; fifth, Robert G. ; sixth, Julia, married
Ebenezer Hopkins ; seventh, John G. ; eighth, Har
riet, married Oliver A. Weeks, died October, 1875.
3. One unnamed.
4 and 5. Amey and Nancy, born March 23, 1777.
Nancy died 1787. Amey married first, Capt. Wil
liam E. TUlinghast, of Providence. He died 1817.
Second, Elisha Atkins, of Providence, and after
wards of Newport. B. U. 1816. No children. She
died October 3, 1864.
6. Mary, born April 24, 1779 ; married, July 9,
1810, Elisha R. Potter, of South Kingstown, mem
ber of Congress, 1796-1797 and 1809-1815. She

96 HISTORICAL TRACT.
died July 26, 1835. He died September 26, 1835.
ChUdren: First, Elisha R., H. C. 1830 ; second,
Thomas; third. Dr. Thomas M., B. U. 1834, U. S.
Navy ; fourth, William Henry, B. U. 1836, attorney
at law ; fifth, James B. Mason, B. U. 1839 ; sixth,
Mary Elizabeth.
7. Moses, born November 4, 1780; married
Elizabeth Arnold, November 1816; died August 1,
1821. Children : First, Robert G. ; second, Han
nah, married Joseph R. Arnold ; third, Elizabeth
Ann. 8. Hannah, born April 13, 1782 ; married first,
Nicholas Tillinghast. One son, Edward N., born
September 11, 1805. Married, second, Jeffrey
Davis, December, 1824. She died Sept. 20, 1860.
9. EUzabeth Cranston, born July 7, 1784; mar
ried October 19, 1806, Jeffrey Davis, of North
Kingstown. She died July, 1814. Children: First,
Abby, married Thomas B. Wilbor, of Coventry ;
second, George Albert ; third, William Dean, who
married Mary E. Congdon.
10. Nicholas G., born March 18, 1786; died
August 27, 1874, on the homestead; unmarried;
will recorded at East Greenwich.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 97
11. Robert Gibbs, born 1788; went to sea in
1811 and never heard from. ¦
12. Caleb, born 1789 ; died 1790.
13. Tabitha, born 1791 ; died 1808.
14. Samuel Ayrault, born May 8, 1792 ; married,
in 1816, Phebe Nichols ; died January 8, 1866.
Children : First, Elizabeth, married Edward
Wheeler, Auburn, New York ; second, Maria, mar
ried MaynardChappell, Henrietta, New York; third,
Isabella Ann, married James G. Maynard, Provi
dence, Bureau county, Illinois.
15. Isabella A., born November 30, 1797; mar
ried Peter G. Taylor, June 27, 1822 ; he died at
Brooklyn, New York, December 20, 1871 ; she
died July 29, 1873. Children: First, Pardon L.,
born 1824, died November, 1860, at Brooklyn, New
York; second, Isabella Ann, born 1826, married,
1848, George W. Frost, of New Market, New
Hampshire; third, Amey Elizabeth, born 1831,
married Walter J. Gilbert.
The account of the French settlers here given, the
locality of the settlement and the name of the first
emigrant of the Mawney family, together with the

98 HISTORICAL TRACT.
earl}' history of the family, were taken down by an
uncle of the writer from the lips of Pardon Mawney
a few years before the death of the latter, in 1831 ;
and when it is considered that Pardon Mawney was
born in 1748, and was soon old enough to have con
versed with some of the emigrants themselves, and
with their families, the tradition becomes more than
ordinarily reliable. Pardon Mawney's grandfather,
who died after the birth of Pardon, must have
been born in 1689, about the time of the settlement.
And until within comparatively a few years there has
been very little change in the families which have
owned the land and lived in the neighborhood.
Pardon Mawney was for many years in his youth
in the house of his uncle Gibbs, in Boston, and while
there attended school. It was during his residence
there that Gov. Hutchinson's house was sacked by the
mob, in August, 1765 ; and he was present when the
furniture was thrown from the windows, and picked
up among the rubbish a pack of playing cards repre
senting scenes in the famous Rye House Plot, which
are still preserved.

THE BOWEN FAMILY.

Dr. Ephraim Bowen, son of Thomas, died 1812,
age 96 j-ears. Married, first, Mary, daughter of
Thomas Fenner, February 9, 1737-8. Second, Lydia,
daughter of Col, Peter Money, June 10, 1746.
Children by first wife :
1. Gov. Jabez, born November 17, 1739; died
in 1815 ; married, December 19, 1762, Sarah,
daughter of Obadiah Brown. She died March 17,
1800. Children: a. Obadiah, born 1763; died 1793.
h. Oliver, born 1767. c Mary, born 1772. d. Ja
bez, born 1774. e. Henry, born 1776; died 1777.
/. Horatio G., born 1779; Librarian of Brown
University ; died March 23, 1848. g. Another, born
1782. h. Henry, 2nd, born 1785; for thirty years
.Secretary of State of Rhode Island.

100 HISTORICAL TRACT.
He married, second, Peddy Leonard, May 21,
1801. 2. Oliver, born November 17, 1742. His son,
Oliver, Jr., was father of Mary Demont Bowen,
lately deceased.
Children by second wife :
3. Dr. William, born March 8, 1747, married
Susan CorUs, 1769, died 1832, aged 86 years. Chil
dren : a. Elizabeth, married Thomas Amory, 1799,
whose children were : Mary ; Harriet, married Robert
H. Ives ; John ; Julia, married Rt. Rev. M. A. D'W.
Howe ; Louise ; Anna ; Helen, married William
Raymond Lee ; Thomas, b. Sarah, married Wil
liam S. Skinner, 1816. c. Maria, married Hon. John
Whipple, B. U., 1802, whose children were : John;
Maria, married Rev. Francis Vinton ; Elizabeth, mar
ried Prof. William Gammell ; Sarah C. married, first,
Robert P. Swann, of Virginia ; second, William H.
Potter; Samuel, died young; Harriet, married Wil
liam S. Slater ; WUliam. d. Harriet, married, 1815,
Commodore Charles Morris, United States Navy,
whose children were : Charles ; Harriet, married
Rev. Dr. Coolidge ; Louise, married William W-

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN EHODE ISLAND. 101
Corcoran, of Washington ; Elizabeth, married Dr.
John L. Fox ; Helen ; R. Murray ; Dr. William B. ;
Maria, married Rev. Mr, Duncan ; George ; Julia,
married Dr. Addison, e. Dr. William C, Bowen,
born June 2, 1785 ; died 1815 ; married Rebecca
Olney, 1812 ; had a son William,
4, Mary, born 1748; unmarried,
5, Sarah, born 1750; married Thomas Lloyd
Halsey, 6, Lydia, born 1752 ; married John Innes Clarke,
1773, of whose daughters, Harriet married, 1811,
Dr. Robert Hare, of Philadelphia, and Anna E.,
married, 1803, Oliver Kane.
7. Col, Ephraim, born 1753 ; married, first, Sally
Angell ; was in the Revolutionary army, and one of
the captors of the Gaspee. Children : First, Wil
liam B., born in 1777, died August 26, 1826. Sec
ond, Julia, born in 1779 ; married John D. Martin,
1803, Third, Nathaniel, died young. Fourth, Sally
A., died young. Fifth, Elizabeth, born in 1787 ;
married Hon. John H. Clarke, B. U, 1809, after
wards Senator in Congess. Mr. Clarke died in 1872.
Their son, Hon. James M. Clarke, B. U. 1838, was

102 HISTORICAL TRACT.
for several years U. S. District Attorney in Rhode
Island. Col. Bowen married, second, Sarah Whipple in
1794. Children: First, Esther; second, George
T. ; third, Sarah ; fourth, Mary.
Col. Bowen died September 2, 1841, at his home
at Pawluxet, in Warwick.
8. Benjamin, born 1755.
9. Dr. Pardon, born March 26, 1757 ; died Octo
ber, 1826, age 69 years ; married Elizabeth Ward,
1780. Had two sons, William, who went South,
and Henry, who died young ; and three daughters,
Esther, married Charles W. Greene, 1806 ; Frances,
who married Charles W. Greene, 1813, and Anna
E., who married Franklin Greene, and is still living
at East Greenwich.
10. Benjamin, born 1759; went to New York.
11. Ann, born 1762 ; married Edward Mitchell,
1792. Mrs. MitcheU died in Charleston, S. C, in
1855, 12. Betsey, born 1765 ; married John Ward,
1792 ; no children,
13, Fanny, 1768 ; married John E. Moore, 1789.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN EHODE ISLAND. 103
Dr. William Bowen, Dr. Pardon Bowen, and Dr.
William C. Bowen, were all of great eminence in
their profession. See Thatcher's New England Medi
cal Biography and Dr. Usher Parsons' Sketches of
Rhode Island Physicians.

THE AYRAULT FAMILY.

In Mrs. Lee's Huguenots in France and in
America,' Dr, Pierre Ayrault is spoken of as
a native of Angers, in France, He will be at
once recognized as the author of the memorial relat
ing to the breaking up of the French settlement.
Like the Mawneys and other families, he remained
and continued on good terms with the neighboring
Rhode Island settlers, thus showing that the disturb
ance could have grown out of no national antipathy.
He probably soon removed to the neighboring village
of East Greenwich, as more convenient for his pro
fessional practice. And in 1699^ we find him joining
with others in the foundation of Trinity Church, in
Newport, where the petitioners are spoken of as
" within this island." This, however, is not conclu-
1. Mrs. Lee's Huguenots, volume 2, page 108.
2. Arnold's History of Rhode Island, vol. 1, p. 659.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND, 105
sive. In 1704 Madame Knight, in her journeyings
south from East Greenwich, on towards New York,
speaks of being joined by the French doctor. In
1711-12 we find from the records at East Greenwich,
that Daniel Ayrault sold to David Greene his house
and nineteen acres of land. This probably was the
time of the final removal of the family to Newport.
Peter Ayrault's will, made in 1705, proved
June 4, 1711, and recorded in the old parchment
book at East Greenwich, mentions his wife Frances,
and his son Samuel, mariner now abroad, giving
to the latter a legacy, and giving the remainder of his
property to his son Daniel,, merchant.
Daniel, the only son of Pierre of whom we have
any mention, was born about 1676-7 and settled in
Newport. In the old parchment book of records
at Greenwich, we find that Daniel Ayrault,
with a number of others, received letters of
denization July 3, in the thirteenth year of
WiUiam Third, A. D., 1702. He married, May 9,
1703, Mary, daughter of  and Judith
Robineau, and grand-daughter of Elias and Susanna
Neau, of New York, Their marriage contract, dated

106 HISTORICAL TRACT.
April, 1703, is given at length in Mrs. Lee's
Huguenots in France and America.' Daniel
died June 25, 1764, aged 87 years, 9 months
and 17 days. She died January 5, 1729, aged 44
years. He married, second, Rebecca, widow of
Edward Neargrass, in 1745. The children of Daniel
and Mary were :
1, Mary, born at East Greenwich, February 16,
1704; married James Cranston, 1720-1; children,
Walter and Mary; married, second, George Gould-
ing, whom she survived, and died in 1764,
2. Pierre, born at East Greenwich, October 4,
1705. 3, Daniel, born at East Greenwich, November
2, 1707 ; married, first, Susanna, Neargrass, in
1735; second, Rebecca Neargrass, in 1737; third.
Hart, daughter of Jahleel and Frances Brenton,
in 1745; she died in 1764, He died in 1770.
Children: a. Stephen, b. Daniel, died young.
c, Mary, died 1792. Children by Hart Brenton :
a. Peter ; b. Hart ; c. Rebecca ; d. Martha, born in
1759, died same year, and three others who died
young. Peter and Hart both died unmarried.
1. Mrs. Lee's Huguenots, volume 2, page 107.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 107
4. Stephen, born at East Greenwich, December
11, 1709. The births of numbers two, three and
four, are on record at East Greenwich.
5. Anthony, born in 1712 ; died in 1726,
6, Elias, born at Newport, February 13, 1713-14 ;
went to sea,
7. Judith, born at Newport, in 1716 ; died
young. 8, Frances, born at Newport, September 2, 1718 ;
married Walter Cranston, March 26, 174T, She
died February 2, 1798.
9. Samuel, born in Newport, March 22, 1720 ;
died August 11, 1798, and buried at the Tillinghast
burying ground, on the farm north of the Mawney
farm, in East Greenwich. He is described on his
tombstone as a merchant.
10. Anthony, died when 4 years old.
11. Susanna, born June 29, 1723 ; died May 3,
1809. 12. Judith, born December 9, 1725 ; died No
vember 26, 1806 ; married Joseph Tillinghast.
Children of Stephen, fourth child of Daniel and
Mary. His tombstone gives his age 84. The Mer-

108 HISTORICAL TRACT.
cury of April 22, 1794, contains a notice of him.
He marriedj December 23, 1740, Ann, eldest daugh
ter of Peter Bours. She was born April 2, 1724, and
died December 17, 1754.
Children: a. Frances, baptized 1747; married,
first, in 1767, Edward, son of Gov. Gideon Wanton ;
second, John Piper. 6. Ann. c. Mary, baptized in
1742 ; married, in 1764, George Scott. Mary had
one daughter, Ann, who married, first, William Rob
inson ; second, Dr. John P. Mann. She died in 1841.
d. Bathsheba, died young.
The children of Edward Wanton and Frances, his
wife, were : First, Stephen A. ; second, Sarah ;
third, Frances, married William C. Robinson. Their
children were: a. Edward W., born in 1797,
died ^in 1818. b. Stephen A., born in 1799; mar
ried Sarah, daughter of Jeremiah N. Potter, 1822 ;
was Grand Master of Masons, and died April 7,
1877 in South Kingstown. No children, c. Frances
W., died young, d. George C, died in 1820.
e. William C. Robinson, born in 1803 ; married
Abby B., daughter of Josiah C. Shaw. He died in
1871.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 109
Mary, daughter of Daniel, 2nd, died 1792. She
married Benjamin Mason, 1754. Children : Benja
min, Daniel, Susan and Mary. Benjamin, last
named, married Margaret Champlin. Their son,
George Champlin Mason, was father of George C.
Mason, Esq., now living in Newport.
In Hinman's Records of Wethersfield, Conn., and
also in the New England Genealogical Register,
volume XV., are mentioned several of this name.
From the similarity of Christian names, they were
probably relatives of the Rhode Island family.
:o

THE BERNON FAMILY.

The person who, from his standing in his
native country and his wealth was probably the
most conspicuous among the French settlers in
Massachusetts and Rhode Island, was Gabriel Bernon.
He was born April 6, 1644, of an ancient family at
Rochelle, of which city it is traditionary in one
branch of the family here, he was hereditary registrar.
In anticipation of the troubles he fled to London, i
He landed in Boston in 1688. He was one of the
principal persons concerned in the French settlement
at Oxford, Massachusetts, for which we must refer
to the very full account in Massachusetts Historical
Collections.! Quite full accounts of him and much
of his correspondence are published in the work
last referred to, and also in Updike's History of the
4
1. Massachusetts Historical Collections, vol. 22, p. 69.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. Ill
Narragansett Church, and in Mrs. Lee's Huguenots
in France and America.
In the very full genealogy of the Bernon family,
published in France, the posterity of Gabriel Bernon
are not given. But his correspondence with his
brother Samuel ; with Benjamin Faneuil, (of Fan-
euil Hall memory, ) who married his sister Marie ;
and with another brother-in-law, Pierre Sanceau, all
of whom are mentioned in the printed genealogy,
and which correspondence is now in the possession
of his descendants, all prove the connection. The
genealogy extends back to 1545. The Faneuils after
coming to this country returned and lived in France.
Bernon and Fanueil and Louis Allaire were con
cerned together in various mercantile operations.
He remained in Boston about ten years and removed
to Newport about 1697. He was one of the first
petitioners for the establishment of an Episcopal
church in Newport, September 1699,' and from this
and other similar movements originated the English
society for the propagation of the Gospel in foreign
parts in 1702. Bernon's first wife, Esther Le Roy,
¦i.
1. Arnold's History of R. I., vol. 1, p. 559 : vol. 2, pp. 76, 116.

112 HISTORICAL TRACT.
died in Newport, June 14, 1710, aged fifty-six years,
and her gravestone is still to be seen there. For a
short time after the death of his wife he resided in
Providence, and then began to make purchases with
a ^iew to trade in Kingstown, In those days the
great road for travel from Boston to New York fol
lowed the shore, and was sometimes known as the
Pequot path, Wickford, or as then sometimes called,
Updike's Newtown, and Tower Hill, were two of the
principal places of business on it. He purchased of
Lodowick Updike a wharf lot at Wickford, built a
wharf, a warehouse, and a sloop.' While in Kings
town he was active in support of St. Paul's Episcopal
church, of which Rev. James McSparran was
rector; but about 1719 we find him again settled
in Providence, where he remained until his death.
In 1712 he married for his second wife Mary
Harris, daughter of Thomas Harris, 2nd, and grand
niece of William Harris the companion of Roger
Williams. Of the children of Bernon's first marriage, Jane
married, October 11, 1722, Col. WiUiam Codding
ton, of Newport.
1. Updike's History of the Narragansett Church, p. 42.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 113
Esther married. May 30, 1713, Adam Ap
Howell, or Powell.' Their daughter Elizabeth, born
in Newport, April 8, 1714, married Rev. Mr: Sea-
bury, of New London, whose son Samuel by a former
marriage was the first English bishop in America.^
Esther, (daughter of Adam and Esther Powell,) was
born in Newport, May, 1718,^ She married Judge
James Helme, of South Kingstown, and died March
22, 1764, in her forty-sixth year. See Helme fam
ily, post, Mrs. Esther Powell died a widow,
October 20, 1746, aged sixty-nine years, and was
buried in the Congregational burying ground at
Tower HiU.
Marie, another daughter of Gabriel Bernon, mar
ried Gabriel Tourtellot. See Tourtellot family,
post. Sarah, another daughter, married Benjamin
Whipple, November 11, 1722.
Mr. Bernon's eldest son Gabriel and four daugh
ters, children by his first wife, all came with him to
America. This son died, unmarried, in early man-
1. Trinity Church Records, Newport.
2. Updike's History of the Narragansett Church, pp. 139, 143.
3. Newport Records.

114 HISTORICAL TRACT.
hood by a shipwreck at the mouth of Narragansett
Bay. In his will, dated February 16, 1727-8, proved
in Providence, February 10, 1735-6, and there re
corded, he mentions his former wife, Esther, his
children, Mary Tourtellot, Esther Powell, Sarah
Whipple, and Jane Coddington, and four small
children by his present wife, Mary, viz. : Gabriel,
Susanne, Mary, and Eve: also his son-in-law, Ben
jamin Whipple. Of their latter children, Gabriel
died young,
Susanne, born 1716, married Joseph, son of Wil
liam Crawford, August 23, 1734,
Mary Bernon, born April 1, 1719 ; ^died October
1, 1789; married Gideon Crawford, son of William
Crawford. He was born January 29, 1709 ; died
1792. Their daughter Sarah was the first wife of
Capt. Zachariah Allen. Eve Bernon died unmarried.
The location of Bernon's dwelling house in Provi
dence is perfectly well known,' It was on the lot
of the original "Roger Williams Spring," on the west
side of North Main street, and next north of his
great grandson. Gov, Philip Allen's house,
1. Knowles's Life of Roger Williams, p. 431.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND, 115
Almost directly opposite Bernon's house was the
dweUing of Roger WUliams, next to which, though
at a later day, was King's Church, now St, John's.

G. Bernon House Lot.

Roger WUliams Spring.
O

Gov. Phillip Allen's.

W.-l-B.

King's Church.

Now St. John's.

Church Street.

Roger Williams Lot.

Howland Street.

At the age of eighty, Mr. Bernon, embarked for
Europe, and while in London, was presented at
Court. He died in Providence, R. L, February 21, 1736,
aged 92 years, and was buried beneath St. John's
Church, which owed its origin to him,' and in which

1. Arnold, vol. 2, p. 75.

116 HISTORICAL TRACT,
a bronze .tablet is erected to his memory. An
obituary notice of him was published in Boston,
He was a gentleman by birth and estate, and in
leaving his native land the greater part of his
estate was necessarily left behind him ; he was
a courteous, honest, kindly gentleman, befiaving
himself as a zealous professor of the Protestant
leligion and dying in the faith and hope of a Re
deemer, and with the inward assurance of salvation ;
leaving a good name among all his acquaintances,
and by his upright life giving evidence of the power
of Christianity in sustaining him through his great
sufferings in leaving his country and a great estate
that he might worship God according to his con
science. A great concourse of people attended his
funeral, and listened to an agreeable and eloquent
sermon from Psalm 39 : 4, preached by the Rev. Mr.
Brown. The family of Bernon is registered in the ' ' His
torical and Genealogical Dictionary of the families
of ancient Poitou," and it is stated there that the
name has been known and celebrated since the •' ear
liest ages of the French monarchy."

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 117
Numerous articles of value preserved among his
descendants, go to show the wealth and social stand
ing of Mr. Bernon.
For some of the numerous descendants of Bernon,
see the families of Crawford, Allen, Tourtellot,
Helme and Carpenter, post.
As the name of Carr(5 is found in the Bernon
genealogy it is very probable that Rev, Ezekiel
Carr6 was a relative of Gabriel Bernon,

THE TOURTELLOT FAMILY,

We find on the Frenchtown plat the name of Abraum
Tourtellot, He must, therefore, have been in this
country in November, 1686,' He was engaged in
mercantile pursuits, in partnership with his brother
Benjamin, who died on a voyage from London to
Boston, September 25, 1687, and Abraum was
administrator of his brother's estate, the inventory of
which would show a considerable trade. He lived at
Roxbury, and by his wife, Mary, had two children,
Gabriel, born September 24, 1694, and Esther, born
June 12, 1696,
The tradition in the Rhode Island family is that
they are descended from Gabriel Tourtellot, who
was born at Bordeaux, and who married Marie,
daughter of Gabriel Bernon, with whom he came
1. Savage's Genealogical Dictionary, vol. 4, p 315.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND, 119
over from Rochelle, Bernon's will, dated February
16, 1727-8, proved in Providence, February 10,
1735-6, mentions Mary Tourtellot among his chil
dren. They, Gabriel and Mary, had three children, two
. sons and a daughter. He lived at Newport, and sailed
from there, as master of a vessel, and was with his
eldest son, (christian name unknown) , lost at sea.
The daughter married  Harding, Abram,
the other son, settled in Gloucester, and was a large
land owner there. His mother lived with him in
Gloucester and died there. He married Lydia Bal
lard. Their children were :
First, Mary, born March 20, 1721 ; married  ¦. —
Mitchell. Second and third, Lydia and Esther, twins,
born January 24, 1723 ; Lydia married Thomas
Knowlton, Esther married Samuel Dunn, Fourth,
Abram, born February 27, 1725; married 
Harris, and settled in Thomson, Connecticut. Fifth,
Jonathan, born September 15, 1728 ; married 
Williams, and settled in Scituate, R. I. Sixth, Benja
min, born November 30, 1730 ; married 
Ballard, and settled in Vermont. Seventh, Sarah,
married John Inman.

120 HISTORICAL TRACT.
Abram, son of Gabriel, married, second, January
29, 1743, Hannah Corps, a widow, whose maiden
name was Case. They had five children :
1. Stephen, died young, of small pox.
2. WiUiam, married Phebe Whitman, of Provi
dence, and settled in Gloucester. Had eleven chil
dren : a. Mary. b. Hannah, c. William, married
Lydia Eddy ; children : Cyrus, Amasa R., now liv
ing, Abradia, John and Lydia. d. Barbary. e.
Nancy. /. Sarah, g and h. Hope and Mercy, i.
Whitman, j. Amey. k. Abram,
3. Jesse, marriefi  Angell; settled in
Mendon, Massachusetts ; ten children,
4, Daniel, married Urana Keech, and lived and
died in Gloucester, By his first wife, he had three
children : a. Jesse, who was Judge of the Court of
Common Pleas, He married  Steere, They
had twelve children ; among them was my old friend
and schoolmate, Jesse S, Tourtellot. b. Jeremiah,
c, Dorcas, who married Captain  Aborn, of
Pawtuxet. Their son Robert lives in New York,
5, Anna, married first,  Jones; no chil
dren ; second, Ebenezer White, who had six chil-

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN EHODE ISLAND. 121
dren : a. Nancy, b. Esther, c. Nabby. d. Sally.
e, Frances and f. Mary, who was the second wife of
her cousin Jesse, and he was her second husband,
Abram, the son of Gabriel, married for his third
wife,  Williams. No children,
11

CRAWFORD AND ALLEN FAMILIES.

Gideon Crawford emigrated from Lanark in Scot
land, and settled in Providence about 1670. He
married Freelove, daughter of Arthur Fenner, 1687 ;
he died 1702 ; his grandson, Joseph, born 1712, mar
ried, 1734, Susanne, daughter of Gabriel Bernon.
Their children were : First, Sarah ; second, Joseph ;
third, Freelove, married John Jenckes ; fourth,
Susanne, married Samuel Nightingale ; fifth, Mary,
married Dr. Amos Throop ; sixth, Candace, second
wife of Capt. Zachariah Allen ; seventh, Esther ;
eighth, Lydia ; ninth, Anne, born in 1759 ; married
Capt. Zachariah Allen, (third wife). She died in
1808. He died in 1801.
The children of Capt. Zachariah Allen and his
third wife, were :
1. Zachariah, died young.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 123
2. Lydia, born in 1782, married, in 1804,
Sullivan Dorr, of Boston, She died in 1859, He
died in 1853,
3, Ann, died unmarried in 1859.
4. PhUip, B. U. 1803, married, in 1814, Phebe,
daughter of Benjamin Aborn. He was Governor of
the State, and Senator in Congress. He died in
1865. Mrs. Allen died in 1864.
5. Candace, died in 1860, unmarried.
6. Zachariah, born September 15, 1795. B. U.,
1813. Married, May 1, 1817, Eliza Harriet Arnold,
daughter of Welcome Arnold. She died August
30, 1873, aged 76. Mr. Allen received the degree
of LL. D. from Brown University in 1851.
7. Crawford, B. U., 1815, married, June 5,
1838, Sarah Senter, daughter of Rev. Nathan B.
Crocker, D. D. He died April 22, 1872, aged 74.

HELME AND CARPENTER FAMILIES.

Rowse Helme, died 1712 ; his will is on record in
Kingstown ; his son, Rowse, married Sarah Niles,
and died 1751 , His children were : First, James, see
post; second. Sands, died 1738; third, Rowse;
fourth, Nathaniel ; fifth, Benedict ; sixth, Simeon ;
seventh, Benedict ; eighth, Silas ; ninth, Sarah ;
tenth,  ; eleventh, Oliver ; twelfth, Samuel.
James Helme, born 1710; married Esther Powell ,
grand-daughter of Gabriel Bernon, in 1738. Mr.
Helme was elected Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court, in 1767, and was a Judge of that Court for
many years, and held other important offices. Their
children were : First, Esther, born 1740, married
Capt. Francis Carpenter, 1767 ; their son was
Willett Carpenter, lately deceased ; second, Powell,
died 1780, single; third, Rowse J., who was an

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 125
attorney at law, an account of him is given in
Updike's Memoirs of the Rhode Island Bar; fourth,
Sarah ; fifth, Elizabeth ; sixth, James, see post ;
seventh, Adam, died unmarried; eighth, Samuel,
born 1755, for many years Clerk of the Court in
Washington county. His son, Powell, married
Elizabeth Kenyon, was for many years clerk of the
Supreme Court in Washington county, and Town
Clerk of South Kingstown, and died October 20, 1861 ;
ninth, Sarah ; tenth, Gabriel, died single ; eleventh,
Nathaniel. James Helme, son of Judge James, was born
1749-50, married Sarah Clarke, 1777; he died
1824, in South Kingstown. Their children were :
First, James, who had children : a. James, now Uv-
ing at Woonsocket, married Elmira Allen, of Frank
lin, Massachusetts.
b. Sarah, married George Rickard, of Providence.
They had seven children, of whom four are now liv
ing: 1. Sarah; 2. James H., married Abby S.
Weld, of Woonsocket; 3. George Silas, married
Penina- Jackson, of Woonsocket; 4. Elizabeth
Estelle.

126 HISTORICAL TRACT.
c. Mercy P., married James B. Ay res, of Yates
county. New York. They had two children: 1.
Martha Wanton, married, 1st, Sanford W- Kress, of
Yates county ; 2nd, Jacob Tremper.
d. Jonathan Perry, married Mary, daughter of
William James, of Providence. Hud three children,
only one now living, Anna P. , married Leonardo.
Smith, of Franklin, Connecticut, and is now living in
Philadelphia. e. Adam Helme, married Ann Cory, living in
South Kingstown. Children : Mary E. ; Hittie Ann ;
Adam Powell.
The other children of James, son of Judge James,
were : Second, John, who married Susan, daughter
of Elisha R. Gardner, and left two daughters : Mary,
who married John WUbur, of Fall River ; Ann,
who married Thomas Nason, of Woonsocket. After
Mr. Helme's death, his widow married Rev. Israel
Washburn, a Methodist clergyman. He died at
Middleboro' Massachusetts, in 1864.
Third, Bernon, for many years clerk of the Court
of Common Pleas in Providence County, died 1826 ;
married Elizabeth Olney, 1811. Had two children :

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 127
James Powell, who died 1825, aged eight years ;
and Mary, who died single.
Fourth, Nathaniel, B. U. 1819 ; died, 1822, unmar
ried. Was an excellent clasical scholar, and for sev
eral years Instructor in the classical school at Little
Rest, now Kingston.
Willett Carpenter, before named, married Eliza
beth, daughter of Joseph Case and sister of the late
Dr. Benjamin W. Case, of Newport, He inherited the
large estate on Boston Neck, which had belonged to
the Willetts and owned it at the time of his death.
His children were : Powell H., and Rev. James H,
Carpenter, of Wakefield, a clergyman of the Episco
pal Church. On the Willett farm was the residence of
Theophilus Whale or Whaley, supposed to be one of
the regicide judges,'
1. For full account of the Willett family see Stiles' History of the Judges ;
Thomson's History of Long Island, aud Updike's History of the Narragansett
Church.

THE GANEAUX FAMILY.

Francis Ganeaux came from Guernsey and settled
at New Rochelle, where he died at the age of 103.
The name was soon Englished into Gano. Stephen,
son of Francis, had several children, of whom Dan
iel married Sarah, daughter of Nathaniel Britton, of
Staten Island, and removed to Hopewell, New
Jersey. Their children were : First, Daniel ; sec
ond, Jane; third, Stephen, died young; fourth,
Susanna ; fifth. Rev. John Gano, born at Hopewell,
July 22, 1777, ordained in 1754. He lived for some
time at Frankfort, Kentucky, and died August 10,
1804. He married Sarah, daughter of John Stiles.
ChUdren : a. John, died in 1764. b. Daniel, born
Nov. 11, 1758. c. Peggy, born in 1760. d. Rev.
Stephen, born December 25, 1762 ; settled over the
First Baptist Church, in Providence, in 1792.

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 129
e. Sarah, born February 4, 1764. /. John S.
born in 1766. g. Isaac Eaton, h. Richard Mont
gomery, i. Susanna, h. William.
Sixth, Nathaniel ; seventh, David ; eighth, Sarah.'
Rev. Dr. Stephen Gano was thrice married, first to
Cornelia Vavasour, October 25, 1782. Of their
children, Cornelia V. married Rev. John Holroyd.
Margaret H. married Rev. David Benedict, well
known as the author of the History of the Baptists.
Second, married Mary Talmadge, August 4, 1789.
Of their children, Sally S. married Rev. Peter Lud
low, Maria T. married Rev. Henry Jackson. Cla
rissa A, married, first, Newton Robbins, and second,
James Ludlow,
Third, married Mary Brown, July 18, 1799.
'Their only child, Eliza Brown, married Joseph
Rogers. 1. Benedict's History of the Baptists, vol. 1, pp. 485, 550, and vol. 2, p. 306.
Memoir of Rev. John Gano, New York, 1806.

MARCH ANT FAMILY.

The tradition of this family, as given me by the
late Judge William Marchant, is that three brothers
came over from Bayonne, in the time of the perse
cution, one of whom settled, at Cape Cod, one at
Barnstable and one at Martha's Vineyard, from which
latter place Capt. Huxford Marchant, a sea captain,
removed to Newport. His son, Henry, was edu
cated for the bar and began the practice of the law
in Newport, in which he attained great eminence.
He was for several years a member of the first Con
tinental Congress, and was one of those who signed
the Articles of Confederation when adopted. He
was Attorney General of the State, Like many
others attached to the new government, he had to
leave Newport while it was in the possession of the
British. He purchased a farm in South Kingstown

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 131
and lived there for a time.' He received the decree
of LL. D. from Yale College in 1792, and died in
1796, at which time he held the office of United
States District Judge.
His son, William Marchant, graduated at Yale
1792. He resided for a time in Newport and after
wards in South Kingstown, where he died. He held
the offices of JuJge of the Supreme Court, the Chief
Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, and member
of the State Senate. He died January 21, 1857,
aged eighty-two years. His son Henry -was for a
long time a manufacturer in Pawtucket, and died in
May 1865. William, son of Judge Williani, is now
living on the homestead farm in South Kingstown.
1. See an account of his life in Updike's Memoirs of the Rhode island Bar.

TARGfe FAMILY.

On the plat the name of this family is spelled
Targ6. In the old deeds and wills of the family in
North Kingstown it is generally spelled Tourgee.
After the breaking up of the French settlement the
family remained in North Kingstown, but just over
the Greenwich line in the immediate neighborhood
of the proposed settlement. It seems from the plat
that a father and son were among the settlers. The
tradition as preserved in the family, gives the names
of Peter and three sons : Peter, John and Philip.
Professor Tourgee, of the Boston Conservatory of
Music, gives me the following, obtained from the
records at Wickford, Children of Peter : First,
Thomas, born December, 1722 ; second, Philip,
born October, 1724; third, Elizabeth, born 1728;

FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN RHODE ISLAND. 133
fourth, Peter, born February 1733; fifth, John,
December, 1735.
John died 1812. His son Jeremiah, born Decem
ber, 1778 and died 1867. Hia son, Ebenezer, born
in Waiwick, 1809, died October, 1878, was father
of Professor Eben Tourg6e, of Boston.
12

THE LUCAS FAMILY.

This family was of French descent, and was con
nected with the Hillhouse and Brenton families, and
in Narragansett with Matthew Robinson.' Augustus
Lucas, the first emigrant, married Marie Lefebvre,
daughter of Daniel Lefebvre, of .Garhere, January
6, 1696, at St. Malo, in Bretagiie. She died Febru
ary 12, 1698, at Newport. He married, second, at
Bristol, Rarsheba Elliot, September 21, 1704.
Their daughter, Baraheba, was born August 27, 1708,
and died, the wife of Matthew Robinson, at Kings
ton, December 21, 1775.
1. Potter's Early History of Narragansett, p. 29f), and Updike's Episcopal
Church in Narragansett, pp. 280, 505, 508, and the notices of Matthew Robinson
and Augustus Johnson in Updike's Memoirs of Rhode Island Bar.

THE JERAULD FAMILY.

In 1742 Dr. Dutee Jerauld, then about thirty years
old came from Medfield, Massachusetts, and settled
in Enst Greenwich, and died in July, 1813, aged 91.
His parents were Huguenot refugees. His father was
a physician. One of his daughters married Samuel
Pearce. Their son, Hon. Dutee J. Pearce, resided
in Newport, and was a very able lawyer. Attorney
General of the State, member of Congress for twelve
years, and acquired considerable influence there.
See Dr. Greene's History of East Greenwich, and
Dr. Parsons' Sketches of Rhode Island Physicians.

THE GINNADO FAMILY.

Lewis Ginnado emigrated from France and mar
ried in Newport. He died in Exeter, Rhode Island,
near Chapman's MUls, May 23, 1795, aged 79. His
wife, Sarah, died in 1801. His daughter, Esther,
married Gideon Freeborn. Daniel, his son, lived
and died near Mumford's Mills. A lot of land there
is still known by his name.
Daniel Ginnado's will was proved in South Kings
town, in February 1816. In it he mentions his
children, Samuel H., Lewis, Daniel, Joseph D.,
Susanna Sherman, Dorcas H. and Peggy.
The will of Daniel Ginnado, 2nd, was dated De
cember 1817, and proved in South Kingstown, Janu
ary 1818. He mentions his wife, Sally G. Ginnado,
son, Samuel Slocum Ginnado, and nephews, Daniel
and Alfred.

CLOSING NOTE.

Besides the families of whom we have given some
account above, there are other families of French
descent : The Levalleys, in Warwick ; Jacques,
Jaquais, Jacowaise ; Le Baron ; Geoffrey ; Tarbox ;
Bardine, sometimes Englished from BourdiU^.' An
drew Nichols emigrated from Ireland, and married
a French wife of the name of Petel, and the late
John T. Nichols, Sr., of Kingston, was their grand
son. Louis Alaire, whose name is on the French-
town plat, was probably a relative of Bernon's. 2
Of the Frenchtown settlers, the following, proba
bly, went South : Collin, Jouet, Moize Lebrun,
Legendre, St. Julien, and Legar6.3
For the documents from the British State Paper
1. Massachusetts Historical Collections, volume 22, page 81.
2. Bernon Family, and also Savage's Genealogical Dictionary.
3. Mrs. Lee's Huguenots in France and America, volume 2.

138 HISTORICAL TRACT.
Office, including the map, we were indebted to the
courtesy of Gen. Schenck, while minister at the
Court of St. James. A reduced copy of this is pre
fixed. The other plat is reduced from the old plat
of East Greenwich, and gives the lots as they were
held by the settlers under the Rhode Island title.
We are indebted to several ladies and gentlemen
for assistance and contributions ; and more especially
to Mr. Sidney S. Rider, for the great pains he has
taken in contributing information and in making the
statements, dates, etc., exact. Still, no doubt, er
rors will be found, as for instance, on page 89 it is
related that a company of P'rench settled at Chatham
Four Corners, in New York : the word French is an
error for Friends, and was not discovered in time to
be corrected ; and again on page 26, the name Legree
should have been Legar6.

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