was an American pioneer

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

Benjamin English b. 1678

/ Kirstin Miller

Benjamin English 7th great grandfather on RootsMagic tree

Benjamin was born October 19, 1678, the 4th of 6 children. His parents were Mary Waters and Clement English. Benjamin was 6 years old when his dad died and soon after Benjamin’s mom married John Stephens, a fisherman. The family lived in Salem, near Cat Cove and Winter Island. It’s almost certain Benjamin helped his dad with fishing. In Benjamin’s time Cat Cove was used for fishing and shipbuilding. The map shows, at the right edge, homes of Benjamin’s mom Mary Waters English Stephens, his aunts Abigail Waters Punchard and Hannah Waters Striker and his uncle Ezekiel Waters, all living on lands their father left them.

Cat Cove, Salem MA

Snapshot of Salem Map in 1700

To the left, Philip English had a huge house in the same area, no relation to this English family yet. The drawing of Philip’s house is at the [Nathaniel] ‘Hawthorne in Salem’ website. Historians believe this Philip English house or the John Turner house nearby were the inspiration for Hawthorne’s ‘House of Seven Gables’. Benjamin’s family home would have looked about the same, smaller.

Philip English house at Salem

Drawing of Philip English house in Salem

By 1720 Benjamin was in New Haven, Connecticut where he married Rebecca Brown of New Haven. Rebecca’s sister Hannah was married on the same day to William Punchard. “Marriages in New Haven, William Punchard and Hannah Browne were married April 21 1703. Benjamin English and Rebecca Brown were married the same day, John Alling justice”. Benjamin and Rebecca stayed in New Haven and had 8 children.

Sources

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.

Ludwig Fryburger and Anna Beatty b. 1743

/ Kirstin Miller

Ludwig Fryburger 6th great grandfather on RootsMagic tree

Ludwig Fryburger was born in 1743 in Baden, Germany. He arrived in America on ‘The Hero’ October 27, 1764 and took an oath to the ‘Province and State of Pennsylvania’. Around 1766 Ludwig married Anna Maria Beattty. Ludwig probably fought in the American Revolution, shown by a marker at his headstone, no records found yet to prove this. In 1786 he paid taxes in Northumberland, Pennsylvania on: 50 acres of land, 1 horse, 2 cows, valued at  $13, state tax was 0 pounds 2 shillings 2 pence. In 1790 he is on the country’s first federal census living in Northumberland. PA with wife Anna, 4 sons and 2 daughters. Ludwig and family moved to Goshen, Ohio around 1800. Ludwig died there in 1802 and is buried in Myers Cemetery, Goshen, Ohio. His headstone has him as the first burial in this cemetery. He shares a headstone with his wife Anna. There are several Fryburgers buried in this cemetery.

Sources

  • Names of foreigners who took the oath at HathiTrust. Page 466 List of foreigners imported in the ship Hero Capt. Ralph Forster from Rotterdam last from Cowes. Qualified Oct 27, 1764 [30 – Vol XVII random?], Ludwig Frieburger, page 466 right column 4th name. 
  • Pennsylvania, Tax and Exoneration, 1768-1801 at Ancestry. 1786 Northumberland Penn image 83 of 111 Penns. on Ancestry.
  • Find a Grave memorial 20297018
  • 1790 census at FamilySearch.org. FHL 0568149 Digital Folder 005157141 Image 00298 (43 of 53). Ludwick Freyberger, Northumberland, Pennsylvania, United States; citing p. 80, NARA microfilm publication M637, roll 9

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.

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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

Joseph Jenckes b. 1656

/ Kirstin Miller

Joseph Jenckes 10th great uncle on RootsMagic tree.
Joseph was born in Pawtucket. Rhode Island in 1656. His father and grandfather, both named Joseph, were well known in area. His grandpa built the first American Fire Engine, ever, and designed a first coin, the Pine Tree silver shilling. His dad was a founder of Pawtucket, RI and built the iron works and mill there.
Joseph got busy in his local government early on, held lots of town positions: a surveyor of land, state auditor, deputy governor, speaker of the deputies, assistant governor, then 19th Governor of Rhode Island from 1727 to 1732.

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Proceedings of the General assembly held for the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at Newport the first Wednesday in May 1727. The following officers were declared and elected and duly engaged. Records of the Colony of Rhode Island at Archive.org

One of his first jobs as governor was a meeting with King Charles II to discuss land boundaries of Rhode Island and Connecticut, a big issue in Colonial America. Later on Governor Jenckes wrote letters to King George II. Several respected sources state that he was 7 feet tall, a giant in his time. “Mr. Jenks [senior] was ancestor of a rather remarkable line. Joseph Jenks, Governor of Rhode Island from 1727 to 1732, and who was not only applauded for his executive ability but renowned for his personal appearance, being seven feet and two inches tall”. Volume 2 page 159. History of Lynn, Essex county, Massachusetts by Newhall, 1865

Joseph and his first wife Mary Brown had 9 children. After Mary’s death Joseph married Alice Smith, granddaughter of John Smith the miller of Rhode Island and 10th great grandfather of Elizabeth Speedy Roose. Joseph and Alice didn’t have kids.

Governor Jenckes to George II letter. Volume 4 page 393. Rhode Island. Records of the Colony of Rhode Island, Providence : A. C. Greene and Brothers, state printers, 1856.

Governor Jenckes photo is on several websites, including Find a Grave, but with no source. Same photo is at Wikipedia, different format.

Joseph Jenckes, governor on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Jenckes_(governor)

Joseph appointed Governor. Volume 4 page 387. Rhode Island. Records of the Colony of Rhode Island, Providence : A. C. Greene and Brothers, state printers, 1856.

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.

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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

Sarah Cloyes b. 1666

/ Kirstin Miller

Sarah Cloyes 8th great grandmother on RootsMagic tree

Sarah was born to Peter Cloyes and Hannah Littlefield probably in 1666, probably in Wells, Maine. In 1688 Sarah married John Connable in Salem, Massachusetts. Sarah and John Connable were in Boston shortly after their marriage, their children were born in Boston: 6 daughters and a son, Samuel. Sarah died young at about 36. Her burial place is unknown.

Connable, John and Sarah Cloyes 1688 marriage

John and Sarah are No. 23 at bottom of list. Massachusetts town clerk vital and town records 1626 – 2001 database at FamilySearch.org

A Google search for Sarah Cloyes will bring up Sarah’s 2nd mom (Peter Cloyes’s 2nd wife) Sarah Towne Cloyes, she and Peter married in about 1683 both widows with children. Sarah’s 2nd mom, Sarah Towne, was the youngest of the three Towne sisters accused of witchcraft in Salem. Sarah Towne’s 2 older sisters, Mary Towne Eastey 58 and Rebecca Towne Nurse 71, were hung. Sarah escaped jail, maybe with the help of husband Peter Cloyes.

Ann Putnam was 13 in 1692 when she accused 62 women in Salem. 20 of those women were hanged, several others died while in prison. In 1706 Ann was 27 and made a public apology for her part in the trials, and especially for the grief and loss she caused the Towne families. The Towne families accepted the apology. If you read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown or watch Arthur Miller’s The Crucible you’ll recognize the characters Goody Cloyse and Rebecca Nurse.

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Ancestry tree snapshot: Peter his wife Hannah, their child Sarah Cloyes her husband John and Peter’s 2nd wife Sarah Towne.

Massachusetts town clerk vital and town records 1626 – 2001 database at FamilySearch.org. John Caniball and Sarah Cloise, 13 Mar 1688; citing Marriage, Salem, Essex, Massachusetts, United States, town clerk offices, Massachusetts. Reference ID 44 FHL 877468 Digital Folder 007009706 Image 00425 (425 of 610

A Report of the Record Commissioners of the City of Boston 1630-1699. Volume 9 Page 184 Samuel of John and Sarah Coniball born Jan 16 [1689].

Sarah Towne’s story at Framingham History Center

Joanna Arnold b. 1615

/ Kirstin Miller

Arnold, Joanna 10th great grandmother on RootsMagic tree.

Joanna was born February 27 1615 in Ilchester, Somerset England. At age 18 she and her family sailed to America. With the Arnolds were Frances and Thomas Hopkins, cousins of Joanna, kids of her aunt and namesake Joane Arnold who stayed in England. The Arnolds and Hopkins cousins were in Hingham Massachusetts near Plymouth for awhile then left for Providence, Rhode Island.

“A family census of Moshassuck and Pawtuxet, for September 1, 1636, would contain the following names: William Arnold, age 49. Christian Arnold, wife of W. A.. Benedict Arnold, son of W. A., 21. Joanna Arnold, daughter of W. A., 18. Stephen Arnold, son of W. A., 14. Thomas Hopkins, nephew of W. A. Frances Hopkins, niece of W. A.”

Map Providence original home lots

Original home lots (annotated)  in The history of the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations by Bicknell.

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Joanna’s mark or seal on husband’s will.

In Providence on June 29,1647 Joanna married Zachariah Rhodes. Zachariah drowned in 1665 and Joanna married Samuel Reape and they stayed in Providence. Joanna and Zachariah had at least 7 children. 4 sons and three daughters who were living when Joanne made her will on January 28 1667. She gifts each of her children 20 pounds.

Joanna is most likely descended from Charlemagne, the King and conqueror. There is a book and a society “Some colonial dames of royal descent” with a pedigree line for Joanne. The book is considered a legitimate source.

Volume 1 page 29. The early records of the town of Providence

Volume 1 page 158 Providence It’s Beginnings. The history of the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Map page 172b

Page 15 Pedigree 2. Some colonial dames of royal descent. Joanna is 3 on this list, the beginning of the pedigree starts on page 11 with: Charlemagne Emperor of the West, King of the Franks and his third wife Lady Hildegarde and so on …

English Origins of New England Families, Second Series, Vol. I [online database] Early Records of the Arnold Family p 2.
Written by William Arnold about his family, Joanna’s brother Benedict was Governor of Rhode Island.

Roger Williams 1638 land deed

/ Kirstin Miller
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Rhode Island Roots volume 5 page 1 a snapshot of the referenced deed

In 1636 Boston courts decided  Roger Williams had to return to England. He was creating problems in the colony, accused of having diverse thoughts. Roger encouraged freedom of religion, ‘soul liberty’, a separation of church and state. He would ask the courts and churches to explain how stealing lands from the native Americans fit in with the beliefs of the new colony. As the colony prepared to export him, Roger Williams fled in the night. He headed down river to present day Providence, Rhode Island. With help from the Narragansett tribe he founded a colony based on his beliefs. March 24, 1638 the first land deeds were signed by the native people selling the lands and witnessed by Roger Williams and Benedict Arnold (Gov’r not American Revolution soldier).

Years later Roger’s son Daniel said, “Can you find such another now alive or in this age? He gave away his lands.” It is pretty amazing for those times and anytime: Roger owned all that land, legally and he thought, ethically purchased, but he didn’t keep the lands he shared them. He wanted the new Providence Plantation to succeed so he started deeding land to his friends and followers and they all started working on building a place built on Roger’s ideas.

Rhode Island Roots. Warwick, RI: Rhode Island Genealogical Society, 1975–. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2018.)