Speedy, Elizabeth b. 1917

Widow Walker b. 1600

/ Kirstin Miller

Widow Walker 10th great grandmother on RootsMagic tree.

Known only as Widow Walker, her first name is unknown, her last name could have been Brown. Folks are still searching records for clues. She was born in England around 1600, married, then a widow by 1635. Around 1635 her two older children Sarah and James arrived in America with their uncle John- the widow’s brother. Widow Walker and her youngest son Philip were in America by 1640. Widow Walker has land records in 1643, 1644 and 1646 then she disappears with no more records. By 1658, son Philip is on land records. So her estimated death is in 1658 at about age 58. There are theories on her Brown family ancestors and her husband’s Walker family ancestors, but not much is proven, except the land she owned in colonial america.

From the book, Vital Records of Rehoboth page 911: “At a Town Meeting, the 31st day of the 4th month 1644, lots were drawn for a division of the woodland, between the plain and the town. Shares were drawn to the number of 58 as follows” image shows what follows: Widow Walker is the only female on the list of 58 which included The Schoolmaster, The Governor and The Pastor. Thomas Bliss 8th great grandpa of Elizabeth Speedy is also on the list.

Land Widow Walker and Zachariah Rhodes 1644 screenshot
Image from, The history of Rehoboth, Bristol County, Massachusetts.

Sources, all at HathiTrust (a not-for-profit team of research libraries preserving 19+ million digitized items).

 

John Whipple b. 1617

/ Kirstin Miller

John Whipple 10th great grandfather on RootsMagic tree.

John Whipple was born in Essex, England in 1617. John age 14 or 15 arrived in Dorchester, now part of Boston, late summer of 1632. A servant of Israel Stoughton, John would have agreed to work 4-5 years in exchange for travel to America. His arrangement with Stoughton didn’t start out so well. October of 1632 John and another servant, Alex, were brought to court and ordered to pay Stoughton a certain sum each, for the powder and shot they’d wasted. In 1640 John was a Freeman, he’d worked off his debt. In 1641 he married Sarah, her last name is not known.

By 1658 he lived in Providence and stayed through King Philipps War, one of 27. These 27 who ’ staid’ were rewarded with a servant, an American Indian, captured in the war. Depending on their age the captured servants worked a certain time then had their freedom again. The Puritans believed this was an OK arrangement compared to other colonies that killed Indians captured in King Philips War. Through the years John was a carpenter, farmer, tavern keeper and chosen for lots of town services: selectman, treasurer, surveyor, etc. He was also on several committees, even in colonial America there were committees and meetings.

John Whipple's will 1682

John Whipple’s will 1682

John wrote his will May 8, 1682 with all his children named and son Joseph as executor. “Be it known to all persons to whom this may come, that I, John Whipple of the town of Providence, in the colony of Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations, in New England (Sen.) being in good measure of health, and in perfect memory, upon consideration of mortality, not knowing the day of my death, and having many children, and to prevent difference that otherwise may hereafter arise among them concerning my worldly estate, do see cause to make my will and do hereby dispose of all my estate in this world and do make my last Will and Testament.”

John died May 16 and is buried in Providence at North Burial Ground. He and Sarah have matching headstones, dated from 1740, not the 1680s.

 

Records of the Governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay, Volume 1 page 100 John Whipple and another in court.

The early records of the town of Providence, Volume 8 page 12 27 who ‘staid’ And Volume 15, page 161 details 

Rhode Island historic cemetery database
http://rihistoriccemeteries.org/newgravedetails.aspx?ID=215026

The early records of the town of Providence Volume 6 page 124-135 John Whipple’s will, inventory, probate.

Thomas Barnes b. 1602

/ Kirstin Miller

Thomas Barnes my 11th great grandfather on RootsMagic tree

Thomas was born about 1602 in England and was living in Hingham, Massachusetts by 1637 when he and his (probable) brother Peter were on a handwritten list: First Settlers of Hingham. Thomas married Anna around 1643. her last name is unknown around 1643. They had seven kids. Thomas was a weaver and farmer. He was a freeman in 1645.

Barnes, Thomas headstone
Thomas Barnes d. 1672

Thomas died in November 29, 1672. His death is verified in his probate, his will written on April 29, 1671. From the will, “I doe give and bequeath unto my wife Anna Barnes my whole estate both of houses and lands goods and chattles for her comfortable maintenance dureing the time of her widdowhood”. His inventory included books, blankets, a trundle bed, a cedar chest, yards of cloth, cotton and woolen yarn, 5 painted earthen ware dishes, an hourglass, weaving and farming supplies, livestock, bushels of produce, and lots of land.

Thomas is buried in Hingham, Plymouth County, Massachusetts in Hingham Cemetery founded in 1672, Thomas’ gravestone was the first- this is noted on FindAGrave . com. The gravestone is original but doesn’t mark his burial place. It was placed with others in a circle around the Founders Monument. The cemetery is right behind Old Ship Church, the only remaining 17th-century Puritan meeting house in America.

Sources

Elmer Angell b. 1890

/ Kirstin Miller

Elmer Angell 2nd cousin 3 times removed on RootsMagic tree

Angell, Elmer Honor Roll

Private Elmer Angell

Elmer was born February 17 1890, the first and only child of Leander and Nancy Trobaugh Angell. On the 1900 US census Elmer was 10 years old, and in school. On the 1910 census he was a laborer and worked odd jobs with 0 weeks of not working. In 1917 Elmer was 27 and drafted in to World War 1. Elmer registered in June of 1917, with all men between the ages of 21 and 31. The draft card description: single with no dependents, automobile mechanic by trade, unemployed, medium height and build with blue eyes and brown hair.  In August of 1917 Elmer married Ella Tibbits in Albert Lea, Minnesota.

Elmer was one of the ’73 Registrants to Answer Roll Call in Allison’, to fill the quota from Butler County printed in the February 20 1918 Iowa (Greene) Recorder. The front page shows the 73, gives some facts about the 6,000,000 + men already dead in the war and includes SCHOOL NOTES: The High School are observing Na­tional Song Week by singing ‘America’ and ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ whenever the entire student body are together.

Angell, Elmer drafted

Tibbits, Ella M

Ella Tibbits Angell 

Five days later on Feb. 25 there was a patriotic rally. In May of 1918 Elmer was in Camp Logan Illinois, then in France by May, 1918. Private Angell served with Company D, 129th Infantry, of the 33rd Division. The 33rd Division was part of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France. Elmer was one of 26,277 American soldiers killed in this battle. His funeral was December 18, 1918 with burial (some time later) in Antioch Cemetery in Clarksville, Iowa.

Sources

  • Iowa (Greene) recorder, Digital Archives
    1918 Feb 20 page 1 of 8, column 3 top drafted
  • Photo via An honor roll containing a pictorial record of the gallant About page 19 

  • Minnesota county marriages 1860-1949 database with images at FamilySearch

  • 1910 United States Federal Census at Ancestry

  • Ella Tibbits photo, Public Ancestry.com photo Added by: K. Pike.

 

 

 

Naomi Smith b. 1720

/ Kirstin Miller

Naomi Smith 7th great grandmother on RootsMagic tree.
Naomi was born October 28, 1720 in Providence, Rhode Island. Her parents Israel and Elizabeth Arnold Smith and ancestors lived in 1636 RI.  Naomi married Oliver Angell- his family also of 1636 RI. Naomi was a teacher, ‘She had the satisfaction of knowing that her boys and girls were all unusually intelligent.’ Page 9. Israel Angell Colonel of the 2nd Rhode Island Regiment at HathiTrust. She’s described as a ‘small alert woman with remarkably keen dark eyes’. Naomi and Oliver had seven children and this Angell family lived right through the American Revolution. Naomi’s son Israel was a Colonel, son Hope helped with the draft. Naomi would have been part of the Homespun Movement. Americans tired of taxes on English imports, began protesting these imports, this included cloth. So before and during the war women upped their spinning and weaving to produce clothing, bedding, textiles, yarns  for their communities and the troops. 

Naomi Smith Angell headstone at Hope Angell Lot

Naomi Smith Angell headstone at Hope Angell Lot, RI

Naomi and Oliver both died in 1799, same year as George Washington. Naomi and Oliver are buried in a cemetery known as Rhode Island Hist. Cemetery North Providence #8, the Hope Angell Lot, or the Oliver Angell Lot. The cemetery was originally on an Angell farm and is now in a residential area between two houses. Photo shows the location on Google Maps. GPS coordinates: 41.8733900, -71.4574900 

Angell Cemetery in Rhode Island

Hope Angell Lot,. North Providence, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

 

Benedict Arnold b. 1615

/ Kirstin Miller

Benedict Arnold 11th great uncle on RootsMagic tree

This Benedict Arnold was born in 1615 in Ilchester, England and was 19 when he sailed with his family to Massachusetts Bay. (This is Benedict Arnold No. 1, his 2nd great grandson was Benedict No. 5 of the American then British army). By 1636 the Arnolds were in Providence. In 1640 Benedict married Damaris Westcott, her family probably sailed to America on the same ship with the Arnold family. Benedict was President then Governor of Rhode Island for 11 years and with Roger Williams a trusted interpreter of the American Indian language. While looking for information on Christiana Peake Arnold, Benedict’s mom, I found a book, ‘The burying place of Governor Arnold’ by Alice Brayton about the establishment, destruction and restoration of the Governor’s burial grounds. Images are from this book. It’s in the public domain, an ebook at HathiTrust.

Alice Brayton of Newport, “In the spring of 1946 as I was walking down Pelham Street in Newport, Rhode Island, I saw a dozen people and a red flag in front of a dilapidated late nineteenth century cottage. It was an auction. The house was for sale. “How about the land behind the house Is it included?” “Yes, the house and the land behind the house.” “But the land behind the house, they tell me, is the burying place of Governor Arnold and his family. You can’t auction off a burying ground. It isn’t decent.” (It isn’t even legal in Rhode Island, as I found out later.) However, I bid in the house and the land behind the house. In this casual fashion I acquired Governor Arnold’s graveyard”.

Benedict Arnold wrote in 1675, “I order that my kindred relations may as they die be buried at convenient distance about my grave.” For a time Arnold and his family were buried in this cemetery then it was kind of forgotten. In 1901 a report was presented on the condition of the site, with nothing done and when Alice Brayton came along in the 1940s the site was “desolation and tin cans”.

Arnold, Benedict Newport home

Newport the seat of the Honorable Benedict Arnold

The book has b&w photos from the 1940s and stories of the family. Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries has full color photos. Originally Benedict and Damaris’s headstones had large plaques or stones, those are long gone. Photo of the cemetery today at Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries.

Brayton, Alice. The Burying Place of Governor Arnold, Newport, R.I.: Privately printed, 1960.

Page 19 Rhode Island. Commissioner to inquire into the condition of the Benedict Arnold burial place, and James N. (James Newell) Arnold.Report of J. N. Arnold, Commissioner to Inquire Into the Present Condition of the Governor Benedict Arnold Burial Place, And the Title Thereto. Providence: E. L. Freeman & Sons, 1901

Christiana Peake b. 1584

/ Kirstin Miller

Christiana Peake 11th great grandmother on RootsMagic tree

Christiana Peake was baptized on Feb 15 1584 in Somerset, England. Her dad was Thomas, her mother and siblings are unknown. Christiana lived in Elizabethan England with the pencil invented, the new idea that the Earth rotated around the Sun, Shakespeare’s plays, the Spanish Armada, religious turmoil and major migrations to New England.

By age 25 she married William Arnold also of Somerset. Their church was St Mary Major in Ilchester where husband William was a church warden. They had 4 children that lived to adulthood and when William’s sister Joanne and her husband William Hopkins died, Christiana and William took in the Hopkins kids and they all sailed to America in 1635. The only record of their trip is son Benedict’s note,”Memorandom my father and his family Sett Sayle from Dartmouth in Old England, the first of May, friday. Arrived In New England June 24 Ano 1635″. Christiana arrived in Massachusetts when she was 48. Her family moved to Rhode Island and were on that list: A family census of Moshassuck and Pawtuxet, for September 1, 1636. The Arnolds moved to Pawtuxet, now Cranston where they were probably the area’s biggest land owners. Both Christiana and her husband lived to their 70s, their burial place is unknown. They probably died in Kent Rhode Island going there to live with their son Stephen to escape King Philips War in Pawtuxet. Christiana lived to see her grandchildren and her children’s successes including son Benedict becoming a governor of Rhode Island.

Benedict’s note. The New England historical and genealogical register 1879 Volume 33 page 427 to 432 (England origins of this article are now considered false. The American information is good.)

Arnolds leaving King Philips War, William Hopkins giving his recollection 16 October 1678 in The early records of the town of Providence, volume 15 page 182.

The history of the state of Rhode Island and Providence, Volume 1 page 158 Providence It’s Beginnings. September 1, 1636 census or list of residents.

Ephraim Child b. 1593

/ Kirstin Miller

Ephraim 11th great uncle on RootsMagic tree.
Ephraim was born in 1593 in Nayland, Suffolk, England. At age 13 he was a tailor apprentice. Snap shot shows A Register of the Scholars Admitted Into Merchant Taylor’s School, Volume 1 page 50, list 1605 at HathiTrust.

screenshot.png

On February 8, 1624 at age 31 he married Elizabeth Bond, a widow, hey didn’t have children and lived in Nayland, England until 1630 when they sailed for America with the Winthrop Fleet, on Wikipedia. “The Winthrop Fleet was a well-planned and financed expedition that formed the nucleus of the Massachusetts Bay Colony”. Letters of Ephraim and John Winthrop survive in the volumes of Winthrop Journals.
Pages 165-168 Ephraim’s letters to John Winthrop.

Ephraim and the 700 other passengers of the fleet landed in Salem. Ephraim went to Watertown where he was a freeman in 18 May 1631. He was actively involved in the new colony as a commissioner to end small causes, keeper of the town books, auditor and selectmen. He held selectmen meetings at his home. He owned lots of lands: uplands, marsh, lowland, Remote Meadow, Hither Plain, Great Dividend and more.

His will was dated 20 November 1662, proved 2 April 1663. He left lands, money and possessions to his widow and his Bond and Child nephews. To the Watertowne schoolmaster he left 40 shillings annually. His inventory was dated 12 February 1662. The inventory included all his lands, livestock, farm buildings, tools, wearing apparel, 2 silver cups, 12 silver spoons and a lot more.

Volume 1 page 50. A register of the scholars admitted into Merchant Taylor’s School, from A.D. 1562 to 1874, list 1605 Oct. Ephraim Child s. of Wolston cit. and cordwayner, decd., b. Feb 1596. Merchant Taylors School on Wikipedia- it’s like Hogworts with houses and colors- opened in 1551, and is still a private day school in a different location from when Ephraim was a student.

Volume 1 fifth series page 165. Winthrop, Adam. The Winthrop Papers Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Massachusetts Historical Society, 1871

Thomas Speedy b. 1823

/ Kirstin Miller

Thomas Speedy 2nd great uncle on RootsMagic tree

Thomas was the oldest brother of Manford Speedy. Thomas was born in 1823 in Toronto, Ohio on the Ohio River bordering West Virginia. On May 30 1850 Thomas married Sarah Foulks and they stayed in the same area. Thomas and his brother John Speedy married Foulks sisters. Thomas married Sarah and John married Jane. Thomas and Sarah named a middle son Manford.

In 1863 Thomas was part of the Civil War draft registration. His age, 20-45, made service mandatory. Exceptions were given to: the only son of a widow, the son of infirm parents, or a widower with dependent children. This 1863 draft coincided with Gettysburg and the New York City Draft Riots (part of the Gangs of New York movie plot). Thomas was most likely a Union soldier in the Civil War, haven’t found a record yet.

US Civil War Draft Registrations Records 18631865(4)

On the 1860, 1870 and 1880 US censuses Thomas is a farmer. On the 1870 census and on his death record he’s also a wagon maker.

Ohio county death records 1840-2001. Thomas Speedy is 4th on the list
At FamilySearch.org Ohio County Marriages 1789-2013, Thomas Speedy and Sarah Foulks 1850 marriage
U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865

John Smith b. 1598

/ Kirstin Miller

John Smith 11th great grandfather on RootsMagic Tree

John Smith was born in England, around 1598. In England he married Alice her last name unknown. John was in Dorchester, Massachusetts by 1634 and by 1635 he was ordered to leave because ‘dyvers dangerous opinions’. At about the same time in Salem, Massachusetts Roger Williams had the same contrary views that didn’t align with the people in power. Roger had to return to England and maybe have a trial or meeting with superiors.

screenshot
The story is Roger escaped in the night in a canoe and with 4 others they made their way to a spot, connected peacefully with the native people and founded Providence, Rhode Island. The seal of Providence shows this event. In 1636 John and the others had built their homes and begun organizing. John was a miller and given a land to build a mill. He operated the mill agreeing that every 2nd and 5th day of the week the mill was reserved to grind corn for the town. John was a town clerk in 1641 so his name is on deeds and wills and laws passed. He probably died in 1648 and his will (not yet found) leaves the mill to his son and widow. The town council OKed this as long as Alice and John Jr provided good service, as John Sr. had, they did.

The history of the state of Rhode Island and Providence volume 1 page 144

Seal of the city of Providence Rhode Island at Wikipedia 

Records of the Governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay Volume 1 page 159 John Smith banished 2 Sep 1635