1. Mary Dyer of Rhode Island, the Quaker Martyr that was hanged on Boston Common June 1, 1660. By Judge Horatio Rogers. 2. A Summer Visit of Three Rhode Islanders to the Massachusetts Bay in 1651: its innocent purpose and its painful consequences. By Henry Melville King. 3. Samuell Gorton: a forgotten founder of our liberties; first settler of Warwick. By Lewis G. Janes. 4. Thomas Olney, Junior, Town Clerk. By Edward Field. “More ideas which have become National, have emanated from the little Co

It has been the misfortune of Rhode Island to have had its earlier history written and read under the bias of prejudices engendered by the controversies which led to its settlement. Justice has not yet been done to the prescience and statesmanship of the remarkable men who were the builders of the first Commonwealth in the world’s history dedicated to Soul Liberty. Among these men, none were possessed of a personality more striking and picturesque than the subject of this paper, Samuell Gorton.

The town of Warwick, R. I., is not to-day of remarkable interest to the antiquary or seeker after the venerable relics of bygone days. It has “come out into the newness” of our nineteenth century life. Its streams respond to the music of the flying shuttle and the turning wheel with a dash and hurry almost human in their restlessness. Half a score of flourishing manufacturing villages lend their potent aid to make it the sixth town, in population, in the State having a larger number of inhabitan

The story of Samuell Gorton is in a large part the narrative of the beginnings of the Commonwealth of Rhode Island. If I mistake not, it also constitutes an important and hitherto unrecognized chapter in the history of the beginnings of our National life. It is a story but little known to the average American citizen. It has been briefly told by John M. Mackie, in Sparks’ American Biography, and by Gov. Arnold in his noble volumes of Rhode Island History. Certain phases of it have been discussed

Who was Samuell Gorton? What part did he play in our Colonial history? These questions let us briefly answer before we attempt a somewhat careful study of his religious and political opinions, about which there has been so much misunderstanding. Samuell Gorton was born in the parish of Gorton, England, a few miles from the present bustling city of Manchester, about the year 1592. [7] He came of a good family, “not entirely unknown,” says Judge Brayton, “to the heraldry of England.” [8] Here, as

Not yet, however, were the harassed Gortonists to be secure in their possessions. Pomham and Soccononocco were induced by the enemies of Gorton to repudiate their signatures to the deed of Miantonomi. They made their submission to the government of Massachusetts and begged its aid to expel the Gortonists from Shawomet. [29] There are some reasons to believe that this action was not altogether disconnected from a possibly more remunerative offer made them by the Atherton Company, an organization

After his release, in the spring of 1643-44, Gorton returned through Shawomet, where he was forbidden to linger, to Portsmouth, where he and his friends were received with open arms, and where he was shortly elected to a magistracy on the very scene of his former persecutions. Thus far the Atherton Company appeared to have made substantial progress in its efforts to obtain possession of the Shawomet lands, and Massachusetts seemed likely to succeed in throwing a girdle of unfriendly possessions

During the succeeding quarter of a century Samuell Gorton was active and influential in shaping the destinies of the growing State. He occupied the highest places of honor and responsibility at the gift of his fellow-citizens, and was habitually called into service when sound judgment, prompt and courageous action, and literary ability were requisite. He represented Portsmouth in the Assembly at Newport in 1645. He was chosen one of the Commissioners of the town of Warwick to the General Assembl

The enemies of Samuell Gorton charged that he was a practical anarchist—a denier of all governmental authority. As the indictment of the Massachusetts magistrates reads: “Upon much examination & serious consideration of yo r writings, & with yo r answers about them, wee doe charge yo u to bee a blasphemous enemy of the true religion of o r Lord Jesus Christ and his holy ordinances, & also of all civil authority among the people of God, perticulerly in this iurisdiction.”

Samuell Gorton was a man of a profoundly religious nature. His views, have been little studied, and have been greatly misunderstood, both by his contemporaries and the historians of later generations. John Fiske dismisses him with a sentence, in his admirable School History of the United States, as “a man of queer ideas.” The more extended reference of this fair-minded historian, in his “Beginnings of New England,” hardly does justice either to Gorton’s political sagacity, or to the remarkable c

In conclusion, what shall we say were the peculiar and distinctive contributions of Samuell Gorton to the Commonwealth which he helped to found, and the life of our later day? I answer, first, to him more than to any other we are indebted for the recognition and establishment of the principle that English law and the rights of English citizenship are coextensive with English supremacy; and that to secure these rights in the Colonies, together with the privileges of local administration, a charte