John Easton
John Easton | |
---|---|
15th John Greene | |
Succeeded by | John Sanford |
In office 1664–1670 | |
Governor | Benedict Arnold William Brenton Benedict Arnold |
Preceded by | John Sanford |
Succeeded by | John Sanford |
In office 1672–1674 | |
Governor | Nicholas Easton |
Preceded by | Joseph Torrey |
Succeeded by | Peter Easton |
Personal details | |
Born | baptized 19 December 1624 Romsey, Hampshire, England |
Died | 12 December 1705 Newport, Rhode Island |
Resting place | Coddington Cemetery, Newport |
Spouse | Mehitable Gaunt |
Occupation | Deputy Governor, Governor |
John Easton (1624–1705) was a political leader in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, devoting decades to public service before eventually becoming governor of the colony. Born in Hampshire, England, he sailed to New England with his widowed father and older brother, settling in Ipswich and Newbury in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. As a supporter of the dissident ministers John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson during the Antinomian Controversy, his father was exiled, and settled in Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island (later called Rhode Island) with many other Hutchinson supporters. Here there was discord among the leaders of the settlement, and his father followed William Coddington to the south end of the island where they established the town of Newport. The younger Easton remained in Newport the remainder of his life, where he became involved in civil affairs before the age of 30.
Ultimately serving more than four decades in the public service of the
The son of the
Early life
The son of Nicholas Easton, a President and Governor of the Rhode Island colony, John Easton was baptized at the parish church of St. Ethelfriede in Romsey, Hampshire, England on 19 December 1624.[1] His mother, Mary Kent, died in 1630 in England shortly after the birth and death of her fourth child.[2] At the age of nine, in late March 1634, Easton boarded the ship Mary and John at Southampton with his father and his older brother Peter, his only surviving sibling.[3]
Once in New England, the small Easton family settled first in Ipswich, and then later in Newbury, both in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.[4] While in Newbury, Easton's father became an adherent of the dissident ministers John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson. On 20 November 1637, the elder Easton was one of three Newbury men disarmed for his support of these ministers, and the following March he had license to depart the colony.[5] He then went to Winnecunnet, later Hampton, New Hampshire, but was ousted from there as well, and by the end of 1638 he was at Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island in the Narragansett Bay with other followers of Anne Hutchinson.[6]
Rhode Island
Easton, now a teenager, went with his father when he became a founder of
In 1674 Easton was elected deputy governor of the colony, serving under William Coddington. He served for two one-year terms in this office, being replaced in 1676 during King Philip's War with the militarily experienced John Cranston. In 1675 he wrote an account of the Indian war entitled, "A True Relation of what I know & of Reports & my Understanding concerning the Beginning & Progress of the War now between the English and the Indians."[7] The following year he was a member of a Court Martial at Newport for the trial of certain Indians charged with complicity in King Philip's designs.[7]
The period of time from 1676 to 1681 was one of the few periods when Easton did not serve in a public capacity.
Governorship
At the May 1690 elections, all members of the General Assembly were present, and the
The first grand period of Rhode Island history, the formation period, had now ended. An era of domestic strife and outward conflict for existence, of change and interruption, of doubt and gloom, anxiety and distress, had almost passed. The problem of self government was solved, and a new era of independent action commenced, which was to continue unbroken for an entire century, until her separate sovereignty should be merged in the American Union, by the adoption of the federal constitution; and her
royal charter, the noble work of her republican founders, was never again to be interrupted, not even by the storm of revolution, until the lapse of more than a century and a half had made its provisions obsolete.[9]
War with France
The governor, deputy governor and assistants were exempted from paying any colony tax because of the expenses they incurred in attending to their official duties and the fact that they received no salaries.
While the war was a major burden upon the colonists, one bright spot occurred in July 1690. As the colonies were being continuously harassed by French
Other issues
In October 1691 the regular session of the General Assembly was held in Providence at the home of John Whipple (brother of Col. Joseph Whipple).[15] The smallpox had broken out on the island, and being a particularly virulent strain, it was nearly a year before the Assembly met again in Newport.[15]
On 7 October 1691 the Massachusetts and Plymouth Colonies united under a single charter, with
Another issue during Easton's tenure as governor greatly affected the Massachusetts Colony, but did not spill over into Rhode Island. This was the era of witchcraft, and in Rhode Island this offense appears on the statute book, but no prosecutions were ever made from it.[19] Historian Arnold wrote, "The people of this colony had suffered too much from the superstitions and the priestcraft of the Puritans, readily to adopt their delusions, and there was no State clergy to stimulate the whimsies of their parishioners. More important matters to them than the bedevilment of their neighbors engrossed their whole attention."[19]
Jurisdictional disputes with the Connecticut Colony continued, but a letter from that colony to Governor Easton in May 1692 struck a far more amicable tone than had earlier communications, and Easton replied in kind.[19] A new era of warmer feelings between the two rival colonies was ushered in, and the settlers in both colonies were satisfied with the easing of tensions.[19]
Death
After stepping down from being governor in 1695, Easton retired to a private life in Newport, where he died on 12 December 1705.[20] He was buried in the Coddington Cemetery on Farewell Street in Newport where several other Quaker governors of the colony are also interred.[20] He was the last of the Rhode Island colonial governors who came out of the exile of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, his father having been expelled from that colony as a follower of Anne Hutchinson.[20]
Family and legacy
In 1661, Easton married Mehitable Gaunt (or Gant), the daughter of Peter and Lydia Gaunt from nearby Plymouth Colony.[7] They had five children and at least 17 grandchildren.[7] They had been married less than 13 years when Mehitable died in late 1673, after which Easton married a woman named Alice, but had no children with her.[7]
Historian Thomas W. Bicknell wrote of Easton, "Governor Easton was one of the best qualified and most efficient of Colonial governors. His knowledge of the history of the Colony was complete, his judicial ability was tempered by long experience and careful study, and his great activity and energy, mental and physical, partook of the quality of men at life's meridian. Weakness in policy or vacillation in opinion found no lodgment in Governor Easton's administration."[21]
Ancestry
The ancestry of John Easton's father, Nicholas, was published by Jane Fletcher Fiske in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register in 2000, and she published the ancestry of Easton's mother, Mary Kent, in the same journal in 2008 and 2009.[22][23][24]
Ancestors of John Easton | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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See also
- List of colonial governors of Rhode Island
- List of lieutenant governors of Rhode Island
- Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
References
- ^ Fiske 2000, p. 171.
- ^ Fiske 2009, p. 59.
- ^ Fiske 2000, p. 170.
- ^ Anderson, Sanborn & Sanborn 2001, p. 396.
- ^ Anderson, Sanborn & Sanborn 2001, p. 401.
- ^ Anderson, Sanborn & Sanborn 2001, pp. 401–2.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Austin 1887, p. 294.
- ^ a b Arnold 1859, p. 519.
- ^ Arnold 1859, pp. 519–20.
- ^ Arnold 1859, p. 520.
- ^ Bicknell 1920, p. 1042.
- ^ a b c d e Bicknell 1920, p. 1043.
- ^ a b c Arnold 1859, p. 521.
- ^ a b Arnold 1859, p. 522.
- ^ a b Arnold 1859, p. 523.
- ^ a b Arnold 1859, p. 524.
- ^ Arnold 1859, p. 527.
- ^ a b Arnold 1859, p. 528.
- ^ a b c d Arnold 1859, p. 525.
- ^ a b c Bicknell 1920, p. 1045.
- ^ Bicknell 1920, p. 1044.
- ^ Fiske 2000, pp. 159–171.
- ^ Fiske 2008, pp. 245–255.
- ^ Fiske 2009, pp. 51–65.
Bibliography
- ISBN 0-88082-110-8.
- Arnold, Samuel Greene (1859). History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Vol. 1. New York: D. Appleton & Company. pp. 519–32.
- ISBN 978-0-8063-0006-1.
- Bicknell, Thomas Williams (1920). The History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Vol. 3. New York: The American Historical Society. pp. 1041–5. Retrieved 16 April 2011.
- Fiske, Jane Fletcher (April 2000). "The English Background of Nicholas Easton of Newport, Rhode Island". New England Historical and Genealogical Register. 154. New England Historic Genealogical Society: 159–171. ISSN 0028-4785.
- Fiske, Jane Fletcher (October 2008). "The English Background of Richard Kent, Sr. and Stephen Kent of Newbury, Massachusetts and Mary, Wife of Nicholas Easton of Newport, Rhode Island" (PDF). New England Historical and Genealogical Register. 162. New England Historic Genealogical Society: 245–255. ISSN 0028-4785.
- Fiske, Jane Fletcher (January 2009). "The English Background of Richard Kent, Sr. and Stephen Kent of Newbury, Massachusetts and Mary, Wife of Nicholas Easton of Newport, Rhode Island". New England Historical and Genealogical Register. 163. New England Historic Genealogical Society: 51–65. ISSN 0028-4785.
External links
- Chronological list of Rhode Island leaders Archived 2 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine