USA > Rhode Island > Newport County > History of Newport County, Rhode Island. From the year 1638 to the year 1887, including the settlement of its towns, and their subsequent progress > Part 16
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NICHOLAS EASTON sailed from Southampton, England, with his two sons, Peter and John, in March, 1634, and arrived in New England in May following. This body of colonists first went to Ipswich, where they spent the summer and succeeding winter. In 1635 they removed to Newbury, where Easton built the round house for the colony that year. According to Win- throp, Easton was by trade a tanner, but he is said to have been the "architect of the Newbury round house." He was no doubt one of those believers in the new doctrine of the Antinomians and followers of Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson, as he was one of those disarmed in November, 1636, for refusing to disavow the se- ditious opinions, yet probably not aggressive in their expression, as he was allowed to remain in the Massachusetts colony. On the 12th of March he was ordered to leave the jurisdiction, but he was not one of those banished with Coddington by the decree of that court. In the beginning of 1638 the little party again removed to Hampton.
Nicholas Easton's name does not appear among those of the subscribing incorporators at Providence on the 7th of March, 1638, nor yet do the records make mention of his appearance in the colony, but on the distribution of lands on the 20th of May, at Portsmouth, he was granted six acres of land with the rest. He was not admitted a freeman of the town until the 20th of August. He appears first at the meeting of the 23d of the same
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month. His practical character is shown by the grant to him on the "16th of the 9th month. 1638, of sufficient accommoda- tion for four cows and planting ground as they shall think meet, all of which is for the setting up of a water mill, which the said Mr. Esson hath undertaken to build for the necessary use and good of the plantation; and further *
* he shall have full liberty to fall and carry away any such timber as shall be of necessary use for the present building of the mill."
Mr. Easton was one of the nine incorporators of Newport, and the consideration in which he was held is shown by his selection as the first of the three elders, to whom, with the judge, the government of affairs was confided. He was also one of the eleven original proprietors. There is a record that the family moved to the new lands and landed at and lodged upon Coasters' Harbor island, the last night of April. 1639, and the next morning gave the name of Coasters' Harbor to that island, and crossed over to Newport, where they erected the the first English house in Farewell street, near what is now the northwest corner of the Quaker meeting house lot. ' This house, built about six months after Easton's coming, was destroyed by fire in 1641, the flames taking from an Indian fire in the woods near by.
In the early winter of 1639 Mr. Easton was requested with Mr. John Clarke to write to Sir Henry Vane to solicit his in- fluence with the king for a charter for the island settlement. It is interesting as showing the strict holding to the letter of the law of the early settlers, that at the meeting of the quarter court in December, 1639, the first act was to fine Mr. Easton, their chief elder. for attending withont his weapon as ordered by the laws agreed upon. In 1640, on the abolition of the office of elder, he was chosen first of the assistants. Dropped in 1641, he was again chosen in 1642. Arnold, the historian, in his division of parties, classes Coddington as a royalist and " Clarke and Easton republicans and leaders of the dominant party on the island." In 1648 he was moderator of the assembly at which the Coddington trouble began. In 1650 he was chosen moderator for the day and at the same session president of the colony; but on Coddington's return with his commission as governor he, as appears by the act of the general sessions of the committee at Providence, " deserted his office
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and with the townes of Newport and Portsmonth declined " from the old established order, by which it seems that he sub- mitted to Coddington's authority. It was for the sake of peace and order no doubt, for at the May, 1654, session of the general assembly he was named first moderator and again chosen presi- dent of the colony, which was still torn by dissensions. In 1660 he was again commissioner for Newport and moderator of the general court.
Nicholas Easton was one of the assistants appointed in 1653 with Willian Dyre and John Sanford, to look to the state's share in the prizes made in the war with the Dutch, the settle- ment of the accounts for which was a matter of lengthy litiga tion. From the proceedings taken by the court of commis- sioners in 1658 it seems that the sum of money committed to Easton's care in 1652-3, and which appertained to the use of his highness the lord protector of the commonwealth of Eng- land, was considerable. The matter was finally disposed of by a court of commissioners. In 1665 and 1666 he was again deputy, and during the latter term was appointed with Gov- ernor Arnold to consider the delicate subject of the manner of engaging allegiance to the crown as publie servants, anything in the form of an oath being apparently objectionable, although it is difficult with our modern light to detect anything more than a solemn promise, save only that the penalty was that of perjury. In May, 1666, he was again chosen deputy gov- ernor, and continuously re-elected until 1672, when he was raised to the dignity of governor of the colony, holding the office until 1675, when he was succeeded by William Codding- ton. In this year (1675) he died at the age of 83.
Nicholas Easton married for his second wife Ann Clayton, to whom he gave by deed the land known as Easton's point, which then comprised 65 acres of land. In the first division of land among the proprietors of Newport, to Nicholas Easton and his sons were assigned all the land on the east side of Fare- well street and between that and Broadway; and the Easton's point farm was given to the father.
JOHN COGGESHALL, fourth on the list of signers of the Agnid- neck compact of 1638, was in reality next in importance to the fathers of the settlement, William Coddington and John Clarke; William Hutchinson, Jr., the third whose name appears on the agreement, playing a small part in public matters. Mr. Cog-
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geshall was also one of the nine founders of the town of New- port.
John Coggeshall was English born, and came to Boston in 1630, with John Winthrop and William Coddington, when these gentlemen, with others, were sent out by the London Company to reorganize their government of the Massachusetts plantation. He was, like them, a man of wealth, and began business in Bos- ton as a merchant. He joined the congregation of the Boston church, and was one of its deacons. He was a member of the first board of selectmen of Boston. In 1634, having in his church membership the necessary qualification precedent, he was admitted a freeman of Boston, and chosen to represent the town in the court of deputies. and again chosen in 1635 and 1636. It was in this latter year, while thus engaged, that the Antinomian controversy was brought judicially before the court.
The Reverend Doctor Wheelwright, the expounder of the new doctrine of the "covenant of grace," and that " the person of the Holy Ghost and a believer were united," preached a sermon on the January, 1636, Fast day, in which he expressed these heresies. Summoned to answer before the court, he was pro- nounced guilty of sedition and contempt. At the meeting of the court in 1637, a petition was presented from the Boston church in behalf of Wheelwright, who had drawn a large part of their membership, including Vane, the late governor, and William Coddington, into active sympathy with himself and his faith. This earnest petition was declared a " seditions libel" by the court. William Aspinwall, deacon of the Boston church, and one of the signers of the petition, was dismissed the court, and a few days later disfranchised and banished. John Coggeshall, also a deacon, but not a signer, defending the petition, was also dismissed and disfranchised, and ordered to keep the peace on pain of banishment. This was enough for a man of Coggeshall's sturdy character, and he was ready to join the little band who, immediately after these proceedings, began their scheme of a settlement outside of the limits of the ty- rannical jurisdiction of Massachusetts. Of him, as of Cod- dington, it is not possible to say whether he accompanied or followed John Clarke into New Hampshire in the winter of 1637-8. It is not improbable, however, as he was one of those persons from whom arms and ammunition were taken away un-
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der the November order of the court. He was also one of the ten and the next named in order after Coddington, who, with their families, were formally banished by decree of the general court in March, 1638.
He signed the original compart at Providence, was present at the first meeting of the Aquidneck settlers at Pocasset, and sub- seribed to the agreement to found the second settlement at New- port. At Portsmouth he was granted the usual allotment of six acres of land, was one of those entrusted with laying out a lot for the meeting house in the neck, of which it may be here said that there are doubts whether the building was for civil or re- ligious purposes-perhaps for both combined-and with the general allotment for the town ; and he was also chosen one of two treasurers for the company, William Hutchinson being the other. When the Portsmouth town chose three elders to assist the judge. as their chief magistrate was then called, in the execution of justice and judgment, Coggeshall was the second named. In the agreement for government of the Newport plantation the judge and elders of Portsmouth are named with- out change of persons. He is the second named (Coddington being the first) in the record of the lands allotted to the eleven proprietors of Newport. That apportioned to him consisted of three hundred acres on the neck, abont one and a half miles from the present state house.
In 1640, on the organization of a general government for Aquidneck the office of elder was done away with or rather changed in title to that of assistant. Mr. Coggeshall was one of those chosen, and was annually re elected till 1644. In that year, on the organization of a military company for Newport, he was the first named of the corporals chosen by the general court to the command. When in May, 1647, the general court met at Portsmouth to set their hands to an engagement to the new charter, received from the Earl of Warwick, governor in chief of the American colonies, John Coggeshall was chosen moderator of the assembly, and by the same body first president of the province of the Providence Plantations, a high post, and increased in honor by the election among the four assistants for the four towns of the colony of Roger Williams for Providence, and William Coddington for Newport. Mr. Coggeshall did not long enjoy his new dignity. He died in office on the 27th of November, 1647, aged about fifty-six. Such is the inscription
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on the tombstone in the Coggeshall burial place on Coggeshall neck.
WILLIAM BRENTON was not one of the signers of the Provi- dence compact for the Aquidneck settlement, but was admitted freeman of their society, together with Nicholas Easton, at Portsmonth, on the 20th of August, 1638, and his name appears as present at the meeting of the 23d of that month. On the establishment of the government of the settlement he was chosen one of the elders to assist the judge.
William Brenton was one of the nine subscribers to the agreement at Pocasset. April 28th, 1639, to " propagate a plant- ation" at Newport, and one of the elders governing the same, and one of those original proprietors to whom the grant of lands was recorded, March 10th, 1640. Notwithstanding this he seems to have remained for a time at Portsmouth, where he was also granted land in 1644, and was in Angust of that yenr appointed to view the deer which Massasoit had per- mission to kill on the island and bring to Portsmonth. The appointing of town meetings was also entrusted to him and another. In 1640, the form of government being changed, Mr. Brenton was chosen deputy governor, and again in 1641 and 1642.
What part Mr. Brenton took in the Coddington troubles is not shown in the records, but he is known to have sided with him in his views of the Shawomet. purchase, and the dangers threatened by Gorton's action in that town, which some have held to have been the real cause of Coddington's dissatisfaction.
In 1655, on the roll of the freemen of the four towns, his name appears as in the Portsmonth list. In 1659, however, he was of Newport, for in that year he was appointed one of the committee of this town to draw up the letters to the commis- sioners of the united colony and the general conrt of Massa- chusetts, in reference to the purchase of lands in the Rhode Island colony, contrary to law, by the Massachusetts people ; and further to correspond with John Clarke, the colony's agent in London, on the subject. In 1660 he was chosen president of the colony, and in the same year sat as commissioner for the town of Providence, and later in the year for Portsmouth. In 1661 he was a moderator of the assembly, and at the same meeting re-elected president, and again this year appears as commissioner for Newport, and again in 1662 as next or vice-
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president, Benedict Arnold being chosen president. He was also engaged in the raising and receiving of moneys for the supply of Mr. Clarke in London, and the correspondence ap- pears (1662) to have been managed by him. He seems to have protested against the acquisition of Westerly by Vanghan, Coggeshall, Cranston and others, but for what reasons there is now no means of ascertaining.
In 1663 he was again elected deputy governor, and with Arnold, governor, addressed Endicott, the governor of Massa- chusetts, with a view to the "speedy extirpating the root or stem of discontent being or growing between these two colo- nies ;" and the next year the same officers complained to the governor of Connecticut of outrages committed by people of their jurisdiction on the west side of Pawcatuck, "alias Narragansett river." The same year he was named with Roger Williams and others to meet agents of the colony of New Plymouth at Rehoboth, or at Newport, and attempt to settle the boundary lines with that colony also. This meeting was held at Rehoboth the following February. Small as the terri- tory of Rhode Island was their neighbors were constantly en- gaged in efforts to diminish it. In 1665 he was again deputy governor, and in 1666 chosen governor of the colony and con- tinned in office until 1669, when he was succeeded by Benedict Arnold. During his term he endeavored to secure from the king's commissioners, Colonel Nichols, Carr and Maverick, a settlement of the long standing dispute about the intrusions in the Warwick settlement. Mr. Brenton now withdrew perma- nently from public life. In 1672 he was again elected governor, but though urged to accept the position and give his engage- ment he, both by word of mouth and letter, absolutely refused, and Nicholas Easton was chosen in his place. Mr. Brenton was then at Taunton on a visit.
JOHN CLARKE .- In his history of the Baptist denomination in America Benedict says : " Where Mr. Clarke was born is not certainly known. In some of his old papers he is styled John Clark of London physician;' but tradition makes him a native of Bedfordshire." Of later years it has been assumed that " he was born in London, England, on the 8th day of October, 1609." Nor is it known where he was educated or where he studied physic. It is certain, however, that he was learned in the ancient languages. In his will he gives to his "dear friend 11
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Richard Bailey his Hebrew and Greek books;" also " my con- cordance with a Lexicon to it belonging, written by myself, being the fruit of several years study."
We find it nowhere stated at what time or by what vessel he arrived in the Massachusetts bay, nor when nor where he was ordained as a preacher if at all; nor yet to what communion or order of the church he belonged. Tradition says that " he was a preacher before he left Boston, but that he became a Baptist after his settlement on Rhode Island by means of Roger Wil- liams." If we rightly understand the meaning of Mr. Callen- der's inference (Historical Discourse, 1638) Clarke was not an ordained clergyman. He and his followers had depended on the coming of Doctor Wheelwright, the banished minister of Braintree, but he disappointed them, choosing to go to Long Island, from Piscataqua, his first refuge after his exile. "Mr. Clarke, who was a man of letters, carried on a publick worship (as did Mr. Brenton at Plymouth) at the first coming till they procured Mr. Lenthal of Plymouth, who was admitted a free- man here August 6, 1640." So far Callender.
William Brewster, at the first coming of the Pilgrims after the expulsion of their minister, Tyford, had, although a layman, led them in their religions duties as " teaching Elder." Brew- ster also was a scholar, a graduate from the University of Cam- bridge, England, and like John Clarke quite competent to his task. And further Callender with his usual caution reports as of tradition: "It is said that in 1644 Mr. John Clarke and some others formed a church on the scheme and principles of the Baptists." Benedict goes farther and says that John Clark, M. D., was the "founder of this church and also its first minister. He took care of them at their settlement and con- tinned their minister till his death."
Although it would be hardly just to say that John Clarke, the pioneer Baptist statesman, as he has been enthusiastically named in our day, was the controlling spirit of the colony, the first steps of which he undoubtedly guided, he certainly divided the superior influence with William Coddington, to whom as trained in law and exercised in civil administration the first settlers looked for counsel, choosing him for their first judge or chief magistrate. The name of John Clarke stands next to that of Coddington among the signatures of the incorporators of Portsmouth and first after the elders in the agreement made
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at Pocasset for the plantation of Newport. The records of the colony are a complete testimony to the nature, the extent and importance of his services. His good judgment and ready pen fitted him for a variety of service invalnable in a young settle- ment. He surveyed the lands, arranged the highways and made disposal of the farms. In 1639 he was requested to in- terest Governor Vane for the obtaining of a patent for the island from the king, and the next year was one of the com- mittee on the same subject. In 1648 he was appointed one of the six commissioners for Newport to the general court. In 1649 he was chosen general assistant for the town and again in 1650; in 1649 also he was chosen general treasurer of the colony.
In 1650, when it seems to have been uncertain whether Roger Williams would go to England on the business of the colony, John Clarke was nominated as one of the two persons to go in his stead. In the year 1651 there was committed under the an- thority of the Massachusetts government one of the greatest of the many outrages that stain the records of that intolerant colony. In May John Clarke, then the pastor of the first Bap- tist church in Newport, and Obadiah Holmes who had lately helped to found a church of the same order at Seekonk (and presented therefor by the grand jury at the general court of Plymouth in the jurisdiction of which Seekonk lay, had taken refuge at Newport), were deputed by the Newport church to visit, in company with John Crandall, an aged member of the Seekonk church, who lived near Lynn and had requested to be called upon. While Clarke was preaching there on Saturday to the inmates of the house and later at the church, the three were arrested as "erroneous persons being strangers," silenced at the church by a magistrate, and the next day, after excommuni- cation, sent to Boston for trial. They were there charged by Governor Endicott with being Anabaptists. Clarke denied that he was "either an anabaptist, a pedobaptist or a catabaptist, and affirmed though he had baptized many he had never rebap- tized any for that infant baptism was a nullity." The others agreeing in this, they were then and there fined, in default of which " to be well whipped."
Refusing to pay the fine they were sent to prison. Clarke in a letter challenged the court to a discussion of the doctrine for which he was condemned. The magistrates named a day but before it arrived Clarke was discharged, some person unknown
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to him having paid his fine of twenty pounds. He renewed the challenge hoping to meet the Puritan Cotton, to discuss with him the principles of Baptist faith, voluntary baptism, and in- dividual responsibility ; the theologie points on which Massa- chusetts and Rhode Island were at variance. The debate never took place. Holmes not paying his fine of twenty pounds, was brutally flogged. Crandall was let free on the jailer's surety. An old man who had come from Seekonk to visit Holmes in prison was arrested for shaking hands with him after the whip- ping and sentenced to be fined or whipped. It seems that dis- cretion tempered the valor of Endicott and his crew, and that while they hesitated to do violence to Clarke they laid the full measure of their hate and spite on the back of Holmes, who was within the Plymonth jurisdiction.
On his return to Newport after this outrage Mr. Clarke re- ceived a fresh instance of the perfect confidence of the colony in his skill and judgment. Governor Coddington had just re- turned from England where he had obtained a commission as governor of Rhode Island and Conanient for life ; a virtual dis- memberment of the colony. Alarmed at this proceeding, a large number of the important citizens of Portsmonth and Newport selected Doctor Clarke to proceed to England as their agent and secure a repeal of the governor's commission. He sailed from Boston with Roger Williams but the objects of their missions were different and wholly independent of each other. Once in England the colony found Clarke enough to do, and with what satisfaction to them appears by the votes of the general court of commissioners held at Newport November 24th, 1663. This was on the occasion of the reading of Jolin Clarke, the colony's agent's letter to the president, assistants and freemen of the colony, which accompanied the box containing the king's letters of patent under the broad seal. It was thereupon voted that Mr. Clarke be saved harmless in his estate, all his disbursement for his voyage going and when he should return and his ex- penses abroad, be repaid and discharged by the colony, and further, " that in consideration of Mr. John Clarke's aforesayd his great paynes labours and travail with much faithfulness ex- ercised for twelve years in behalf of this colony the thanks of the colony be sent unto him by the governor" and deputy governor, and for a gratuity nnto him the sum of one hundred pounds sterling.
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In this long period he had been constantly engaged. He pro- cured and sent powder and ball to the colony. He was charged in 1658 with letters to his highness, Oliver Cromwell. Two years later he was commissioned "agent and attorney " by the general court. In 1662 he himself addressed two petitions to " High and Mighty King" Charles the Second setting forth in dutiful and honorable light the profound loyalty of his subjects of Rhode Island and their desire for a more "absolute, ample and free charter," of which they were sadly in need to shelter them from the encroachments of their greedy neighbors of the Massachusetts and Connecticut colonies. The result of his di- plomacy, for such it was to get the better of the agents of these neighbors, was the charter of 1663 ; the gratitude of Rhode Is- land to the king and to their agent has been already shown.
Clarke returned to Newport in the summer of 1664 and handed in his accounts, which were ordered to be paid. In Oc- tober he was again elected deputy for Newport and continuous- ly until 1668, being constantly employed in the most delicate matters of administration ; settlement of difficulties among the towns, treaties with the neighboring colonies, revision of the laws, arrangements for harbors and in a hundred ways demand- ing tact and discernment. Ile was chosen deputy governor in 1671 and 1672 and again in 1673, but positively refused to serve. In 1670 he had been again appointed agent to England to pro- test against the intrusions of Connecticut and other colonies into the colony of Rhode Island and their infringement of her chartered rights, and in 1671 two hundred pounds in silver was voted for his supplies. Similar resolutions were taken in 1672 but delay proved the best policy, and the colony seeming to be in a hopeful way to compose the differences with Connecticut " in a loveing and peaceful manner," the votes were rescinded.
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