USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Narragansett > South county studies of some eighteenth century persons, places & conditions in that portion of Rhode Island called Narragansett > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20
[ 131 ]
THE WILLETT FAMILY IN RHODE ISLAND
T HE ancient burial-place of the Willetts is at the head of a small cove which makes in from Narra- gansett Bay, nearly two miles above Barrington, Rhode Island. It is described, in an old note-book, as "a little hille in Swanzey, being on thiere owne lande." Here also were buried, according to the writer, "John Brown, Es- quire, Father-in-law to Captain Thomas Willett,"- and "My Grandmother Brown, who Departed this life 1673, in ye good olde Age of about Ninety-Six years." The almost illegible inscription on one of the leaning and moss-grown stones shows that it marks the last resting-place-not, as the Providence Journal once stated, of Colonel Marinus Willett,-but of Thomas Willett, his ancestor and predecessor in office.
Perhaps the earliest notice of the first mayor of New York is to be found in Prince's "Chronological History of New England," and the readers of that curious old annalist will remember the terms in which Willett is described as a young man of energy and ability. Little is known of his ancestry, although it is believed that it might easily be traced. The following notice of his father, the Reverend Andrew Willett, is taken from an "Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge":
"Andrew Willett, D.D., a learned and laborious divine [is this the modern version of pious and paine- ful?] of the English Church in the reign of Eliza- beth. He engaged himself most sedulously, in addition to his professional labors, in digesting the Fathers, Councils, Ecclesiastical Histories, the Civil and Canon
[ 132 ]
The Willett Family
Law, and other matters. His Synopsis Papisme is his most celebrated work. His character as a minister was pleasant and gentle; rather drawing by persuasion than driving by fear. He was killed by a fall from his horse, in his fifty-ninth year, Dec. 4th, 1621."
Thomas Willett, who was one of the last of the Ley- den Company, came to New England in 1629. He was then in his twentieth year. Many Rhode Islanders are familiar with the story of his public life, as it is briefly told in the late Wilkins Updike's valuable "History of the Narragansett Church." The notice seems to be partly condensed from Dr. Stiles's "Regicide Judges":
"He was conversant in the fur and Indian trade of the whole coast of Kennebec to Hudson's river, became veryopulent, and settled on a plantation in Swanzey, now Barrington, where remains his grave, six miles below Providence. Being an intelligent and respectable person, he went as a counsellor on board of beloved Colonel Nicholls's fleet, at the reduction of Manhadoes, 1664, and was by him appointed Mayor of the new-conquered city. He owned houses in New York and Albany. The Dutch resuming the government, he afterwards re- turned to his settlement, and died in Barrington." On the stones of his grave there is this inscription:
(Head Stone) 1674
(Foot Stone)
HERE LYETH THE BODY OF THE WORTHY THOMAS WILLETT, ESQ., WHO DIED AUGUST 4TH, IN THE 64TH YEAR OF HIS AGE ANNO
WHO WAS THE FIRST
MAYOR OF NEW YORK, AND TWICE DID SUSTAIN
THAT PLACE
133 7
South County Studies
He had married, in 1636, Mary, daughter of John Brown, Esq., of Plymouth, and she is buried with him.
The following "epitaph on my worshipful father-in- law" was written by John Saffin, of Boston, who mar- ried, in 1658, Martha, the second of Thomas Willett's thirteen children:
" Here lies Grave Willett, whose good name Did Mount upon the wings of Fame; Who into Place did not intrude, (A Star of the first Magnitude, ) But's prudence, pietie and zeale For God, in Church and Commonweall, His reall worth, and Generous Spirit, Which constantly he did Inherit, His hospitality and love, And courteous carriage, like a Dove, Did so Excell, that all might See He had attain'd to the First Three. Now he's hence gone to his long home, And taken from the Ill to come- Liv'd here Desir'd; lamented Dy'd ; Is with his Saviour, Glorified."
The will of "Capt. Thomas Willett" is a very long document, drawn up with minute particularity. It contains legacies to the "overseers" of the instrument, and to the churches of the neighboring towns. Some old servants are also remembered. He then devises his extensive estates in New Plymouth, Swanzey, and Rehoboth to his sons, James, Hezekiah, Andrew, and Samuel, and his Narragansett lands to his grand- children ; but Thomas, son of John and Martha Saffin, is to inherit a double portion. As early as July 4, 1659, certain lands in ancient Namcook, afterwards part of
[ 134 7
The Willett Family
the "King's Province," but generally known as Bos- ton Neck, and situated near the present Narragansett Ferry, had been purchased of three sachems by Wil- lett and others. This small part of the Willett prop- erty, reserved by its owner as a suitable portion for his grandchildren, is still held by his descendants, while all the other estates have long since been divided and alienated. A singular provision of the will was, that if any one of his sons (the daughters were all married but one) should marry without the consent of a majority of the five executors, he would by that act forfeit all claims to his inheritance.
James, the eldest son, like the rest, probably con- sented to accept a wife from the grave and discreet committee who were charged to look after the family interests in that respect, for he married Eliza, daugh- ter of Lieutenant Peter Hunt, of Rehoboth, and con- tinued to live on the paternal estate. Hezekiah married his cousin, Anna Brown, daughter of John Brown, 2d, also of Rehoboth, and was killed in King Philip's War, 1676. Samuel was sheriff of Queen's County, Long Island. His son Edward died in 1794, at the great age of ninety-three. One of his thirteen children was Colo- nel Marinus Willett, a Revolutionary officer, who after- wards became mayor of New York. He is also remem- bered as a correspondent of Aaron Burr, and by his portrait in the City Hall. He died in 1830, aged ninety years. His name is still represented by his descendants in New York City.
Of the Willett sisters, Sarah was married to an Eliot, and Mary to Samuel Hooker, of Farmington, Connect- icut. Dr. Stiles says that another married one of the
135
South County Studies
family of the Reverend John Wilson, of Boston-the "Holy Wilson" of Cotton Mather's eulogies. Hester or Esther Willett (the name appears under the latter form in her father's will) was the wife of the Reverend Josiah Flint, of Dorchester, now a part of Boston. He preached before the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, of Boston, in 1677. Their daughter, Doro- thy, married Edmund Quincy, the ancestor of Josiah Quincy, the Revolutionary patriot, and of his son, who was president of Harvard College. This lady's daugh- ter was the "Damsel Dorothy, Dorothy Q.," whom we all remember in one of the most spirited and graceful of Dr. Holmes's recent poems. She married Edward Jackson. Their son Jonathan was father of the cele- brated Dr. James Jackson, and their daughter Mary married Judge Oliver Wendell of Boston, whosedaugh- ter Sarah was wife of the Reverend Abiel Holmes, D.D., author of "American Annals," and mother both of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and of Mary Jackson Holmes, who married the late Usher Parsons, M.D., of Provi- dence.
Martha Willett, who is said to have been remark- able both for beauty and amiability, became the wife of "John Saffin, eldest sonne of Simon Saffin, mer- chant, of Exeter, England, and Grace his wife." He was Speaker of the Assembly of Massachusetts in 1686, lived in Boston and Bristol, and has left a curious manu- script book (dated 1665), half diary, half a collection of "Sundry Readings Epitomized," the whole interspersed with verse, chiefly elegiac, of which the specimens already given will perhaps suffice, although some of his effusions attained the dignity of print, and all were
136 ]
The Willett Family
much admired by judicious friends, few ofwhom could have been omitted from his poetical addresses. He was indeed a most persistent rhymer, and even wrote lines to his mother-in-law, after her death. A versified letter to Governor Joseph Dudley was prompted by "the newes that his Excellency was on the - of January, 1704, going over Charles River upon the Ice, with his Wife and Daughters, in a Sley drawn by four Horses, when the Ice suddenly brake, and all the Horses fall- ing into the River, the two hindermost were Drowned, and his Excellency and his, hardly escaped, but were Wonderfully preserved, Laus Deo!"
In glancing over these pages we find not only elegies and epitaphs inflicted upon the memories of scholars, divines, and statesmen, all in such verse as the harsh Puritanical muse of the New England of that day was pleased to inspire, but some productions which at first sight appear to be of a more lively character, until a closer observation proves them all to wear the same sad- colored Puritan livery. Acrostics, valentines, madrigals, all are taking their pleasure sadly, and scarcely differ in style from the "Elegies," or the "Lamentations upon the Dolefull State of our Newe Englande."
More interesting, and not less quaint, are the oc- casional glimpses of his personal history, recorded with a fidelity and simplicity worthy of his contempo- rary Pepys. The following is the first record in his journal :
" Memorium. That in the Beginning of November, 1665 I was joyned to the First Church in Boston: GOD in Mercy make me faithful to His Covenant."
He relates his marriage to Martha Willett by "Mr.
[ 137 ]
South County Studies
Wm. Collier, one of the Magistrates." He was after- wards the survivor, by many years, of her, and of their eight sons, who are interred, with their mother, in a tomb in "the upper Burying Place of the Towne of Boston." The deaths of "my thrice Dearly Beloved Consort," of " my Sweet Son Scimon," and of four other sons, are attributed to that "Deadly Diseaseof the Small Pox." Even so slight notice as the manuscript affords of this child, who died in his twelfth year, is yet enough to show his nature to have been distinguished by that purity and sensibility, always so touching and inter- esting when associated with the memory of early suf- fering and death. Such illustrations of the power of religious teaching could have been of no infrequent occurrence in New England, where, for the first time in modern history, the appeal of spiritual truth was di- rected to spiritual perceptions only, and a whole people lived in the sense of constant communion with the Invis- ible and the Eternal. His conversations with his minis- ter, and with his physician (who seems to have thought his mind, although in an exalted state, quite calm and free from any disturbing influence), perfectly simple and childlike as they are, plainly express the depth and fervor of his religious feeling. "And so," writes his father, "he passed tryumphantly to Heaven. He often said, 'Mother, Brother John, come away, make haste'; adding, that Mr. Thatcher did looke and waite for him, and that there was Room enough for all in Heaven." They soon followed him, and their deaths are recorded by the same hand. It is not difficult to read between the lines in this brief, stern story of the sud- den and fearful calamity which swept away so many
[ 138 ]
The Willett Family
hopes and affections with these young lives - closing, as it does, with the heart-broken utterance, referring to his eldest son: "But Gon tooke him alsoe away by Death with ye same Disease of ye Small Pox, to my amazing grief at ye loss of him, and so many in so short a time." This was John, who, at sixteen, had already entered upon his college course, with the fairest pros- pects of future success, perhaps eminence. A classmate, Grindall Rawson, who was afterwards an eccentric Puritan divine, sends to the mourning father an "Elegie upon the death of his much-esteemed Friend." There is a rude dignity of consolation in the concluding lines, which express a hope that the elegy:
"May say to those who still survive,
Though John and Martha die, yet God 's alive."
Judge Saffin was subsequently married by the "Wor- shipfull Joseph Dudley, Esquire," to Mistress Eliza- beth Lidgett, and after her death in 1687, to Rebecca Lee, daughter of the Reverend Samuel Lee, whose mis- fortunes as a prisoner of war are so well known. Her son-in-law records his death in a foreign land, "to the great and irrepariable loss of the whole family, and a university of learning," and, it is needless to say, devotes some closely written pages to a rhymed me- morial of his virtues. It is followed by an address to "Richard, Earle of Bellamont, Governor of His Majes- ty's Province of the Massachusetts Bay" (and whom, of course, "Heaven hath sent To be a star in this, our Firmament"), upon his assumption of that office. It con- tains an allusion to the writer's recent losses in Rhode Island. These are explained by the curt language of
[ 139 ]
South County Studies
the public record of that colony for 1679: "John Saffin tried for adhering to another jurisdiction, sentenced to forfeit all his estates and pay a fine" - at all of which John Saffin was naturally indignant, and, in these lines, expressing himself in the usual fraternal style adopted by the Colonists of the Bay when referring to those of the Plantations, he brands them as
"False, perfidious, vile Rhode Islanders!"
But we may contemplate this stubborn upholder of his fancied rights against his real interests - who might well say of himself, in his own artless verse,
" I doe endeavor alle I can
To show myself a true-born Englishmanne,"
in a more pleasing aspect, by recalling his filial devo- tion, so apparent in the following words, which cer- tainly are no less touching for their precision and quaintness :
"A copie of a patheticall, pious, Instructive Letter, written by my owne deare and Hon'd Mother, Mrs. Grace Saffin, alias Ellsworth, her owne hand-writing, w'ch, being worne allmost in pieces, I for its singular worth, here Revived it.
Dated London, the first of March, 1654.
DEARE SONNE :
Three Letters I Rec'd. by Mr. Winslow, hereby I perceive you are goeing a Voyage for Virginia; I cannot but admire at God's Love and Mercy, both to me and mine, that He doth look upon us in all Estates and con- ditions wheresoever we are, Either far or near; O my
[ 140 ]
The Willett Family
Soul, bless the Lord, that heard our Prayer, and hath not left us to the will of them that would have Trod- den us Down, and cryed there is no help for us [this was in ye Civil War, between ye King and Parliament. J. S.] But the Lord was in the Mount when men rose up against us. . . And I may say againe, with Jacob, The Lord hath blessed me and mine. . .. Your loveing Mother,
GRACE ELLSWORTH."
Judge Saffin died in Bristol, in 1710, aged seventy- eight, having, as he says, seen the Commonwealth and the reigns of five English Sovereigns. The home which he built on the Boston Neck estate in 1692 - the ter- rible witchcraft year-was only occupied by him for three years, afterwards passing, together with the land, into the ownership of his brother-in-law, Andrew Willett, who has been previously mentioned as a son of Thomas Willett. He made his home in a wild re- gion. The Indians, it is true, must have been nearly sub- dued by this time, but tradition speaks of the foxes and wolves thatdisturbed the early settlers, much later than this. The original tract, like most of those selected by Boston purchasers, consisted of six hundred and sixty acres, but the newcomer, doubtless glad enough to secure a neighbor in the unsettled country where his house as yet stood alone, sold three hundred acres to Rowland Robinson. The remainder is still in the pos- session of his lineal descendants. He had been for some years a merchant in Boston, where he married Anne Coddington. He brought with him to Boston Neck, an iron-bound, oaken chest, about three feet square and
[ 141 5
South County Studies
containing four metal bottles. It came from Leyden among other effects belonging to Thomas Willett, and had been the property of his father. This rather cu- rious relic of ancient times and customs remained standing in the old house until 1857, when it was for- warded to the Rhode Island Historical Society. Andrew Willett's grave was the first to be made in the family burying-place on the farm. His children were: Fran- cis, Thomas, Mary, Anne, and Martha. The latter married Simon Pease, a well-known merchant of New- port. Thomas died young. Anne married, in 1707, Joseph Carpenter, eldest son of Joseph Carpenter of Glen Cove, Long Island. She lived but a few years. The widower afterwards married her sister Mary. Francis, the eldest, married Mary Taylor (whose niece of the same name was afterwards the wife of John Gardiner, son of William, the first of the Narragansett family), and inherited the whole estate on the death of his father, which is thus recorded in the son's finished and ele- gant handwriting: "My Hon'd Father, Captain An- drew Willett, Departed this Life on ye 6th of April, Anno Domini, 1712, in ye 57th yeare of his age." An interesting account of "Francis Willett, Esquire," is furnished by his friend, Dr. Ezra Stiles:
"This is the gentleman with whom I was intimately acquainted. He was educated a merchant, but did not pursue commerce. He had a good genius and was a man of much reading and information, and, settling on the paternal estate, he lived the life of a private gentleman. He was hospitable and generous, of excel- lent moral, and highly respected and estimable charac- ter. The fine tract of Boston Neck was owned by the C 142 ]
The Willett Family
Sewalls, and other gentlemen of Boston. This, with his father's former residence in Boston, and transacting business for these Boston land-owners, and for Harvard College, brought him into an acquaintance with the first characters of Boston. They visited him through life, and often gave him great public information. Once a year these gentlemen visited their estates, and at his father's house. After his father's death, in 1712, the management and superintendence of these estates, and of the College estates, together with the extensive family acquaintance, fell into the care of Colonel Fran- cis Willett, whose aunts had married into ministers' families - Wilson, in Massachusetts, and Hooker, in Connecticut. The Willett farm was a tract extending from Narragansett Bay northward, perhaps one mile and a half in length on the bay, and about one mile or more east and west from the bay across to an oblong pond called Petaquamscott, and was the original seat of the great Sachem Miantinomi. [A large boulder on the farm is still known as Miantinomi's Rock. ] At the north end of this pond, and on the Willett farm, the celebrated Colonel Whale or Whalley, styled one of King Charles's regicide-judges, resided, and before his death removed to West Greenwich, and died there."
Dr. Stiles collected, among the Willetts and others, several particulars relating to this somewhat extraor- dinary man, all of which may be found in his "Judges." The Doctor's conclusion was that Theophilus Whale, formerly a resident of Narragansett, had been an offi- cer in the Parliamentary wars, and through the Protec- torate. His grave is in Greenwich, on land belonging to a descendant, and can be seen from the highway, there
143
South County Studies
called the "Ten Rod Road." It is a very long one, lying north and south, with stones, but no inscription. "He was a large, tall man, six feet high when a centenarian, and then walked upright; not fat, but thin and lathy; was one hundred and three when he died."
The scholar and antiquarian who sought so dili- gently for some shadowy memories of this strange be- ing is now himself a shadow, haunting the traditions of the place. Mrs. Stowe's novel shows him in the most unfavorable light; but, whatever his speculative opin- ions may have been, his learning was certainly exten- sive and varied, and it is not too much to say of him, that his faithful search among the memorials of our Colonial time was one of the greatest services that could be rendered to New England and to the whole country. It is said that in one of his visits to Boston Neck, toward the close of the eighteenth century (Colonel Willett, his early friend, had passed away, but he continued his intimacy with the family), the conversation happening to turn upon the powerful current of the Mississippi, and its imperfect navigation by flatboats, the Doctor expressed to the lady of the house his belief that the great river of the northwestern territory would yet be traversed by ships propelled only by steam-"the same familiar force, madam, which you may observe at any time lifting the cover of your tea-kettle." Remembering that Mr. Parton, in a recent paper, mentions Dr. Stiles among Jefferson's regular correspondents, it would seem that one of his letters might have furnished the foun- dation for this opinion. The idea of the use of steam as a motive power in navigation, although destined to be rejected some years later by the First Consul and his
[ 144 ]
The Willett Family
advisers, must have already assumed greater propor- tions in the calm thought of the quiet scholar than among many less "visionary " persons.
A few more particulars of Colonel Willett's life may be added here. He was several times a Representative in the Colonial Assembly, and for a long time kept, in his own house, the records of a large tract of coun- try, now divided into three townships. He was one of the principal contributors toward the purchase of the Glebe estate, intended as an endowment for the rec- tors of old St. Paul's. This church represented the par- ish of which he was vestryman for many years. The church, the oldest, except Trinity in Newport, ever used for the Episcopal form of worship in Rhode Island, has since been removed to Wickford, Rhode Island, where it is still occasionally occupied for commemorative ser- vices. He had a truly English love of trees, and, besides his orchards, planted hundreds of sycamores and hick- ories in groves, or set them, like hedges, by his bound- ary walls. A row of Lombardy poplars before the house was destroyed by the great gale of 1815, but a really magnificent plantation of oaks survived to a much later date. Some of them had attained a century's growth. His successor, who shared his taste in this particular, was the first to plant the horse-chestnut tree in the Nar- ragansett country. One of these trees, which has seen more than a hundred years, is still alive.
Francis Willett was, until quite lately, remembered by a grandniece, who described him as tall and digni- fied, but very old, and supporting himself by a cane. Far too old to change with the changing times, he died a loyal subject of King George, early in 1776, aged
[ 145 ]
South County Studies
eighty-three years. As he left no children, the Willett name died with him, but his vacant place in the home- stead was filled by his nephew,1 whom he had educated as a son.
Some plate marked with the initials of " Francis and Mary Willett," some china, and the tall English clock which appears in the inventory of his grandfather's estate have escaped the Revolutionary confusion, and are still in use among his remote kinsfolk. A few books, too, the scattered fragments of his rather large library, display on the fly-leaf his name, "Fra: Willett," as he occasionally signed it, or sometimes the inscription de- notes that the book comes from Parson Fayerweather, who is liberal in compliments to his "worthy, esteemed, respected friend and parishioner."
The simple virtues of an honest country gentleman are not commonly supposed to outlast the ink of his obituary by very many years; yet one sometimes meets with a pleasing exception to the general rule which leads each generation to efface, with ruthless haste, the memory of its predecessor from the worn palimpsest of Time, to trace thereon its own immortal record. In a recent conversation between two middle-aged gen- tlemen, in which Francis Willett's name was casually introduced, the listener, who had heard him spoken of by one as "Uncle" and by the other as "Esquire" Willett, would have believed that they must at least have known him in their childhood, whereas the tall blue slate-stone, whose cherubic effigy is graciously veiled from sight by the clinging mosses, has been his
1 This nephew was Francis Carpenter, great-grandfather of Esther Bernon Carpenter, who spent her earliest years in this house.
[ 146 ]
The Willett Family
only representative to them. A memory, a sentiment, seems to linger in the still air of secluded places, un- disturbed by the changeful and stormy currents which prevail elsewhere. May it not be said that a bless- ing dwells with this tranquil presence? In our restless times, in our rapid alternations from anxiety to frivol- ity, the grateful memory of the past comes to us with a cool freshness, and we may certainly be the better for thinking over the simple, natural lives of people who might perhaps be unworldly and unambitious, but who were thoroughly high-minded, intelligent, honorable, and sincere.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.