William Arnold

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For other persons named William Arnold, see William Arnold (disambiguation).

William Arnold (June 24, 1587 – 1675) was an early settler in Rhode Island.

The son of Thomas "Nicholas" Arnold of Malcombe Horsey & Cheselbourne, Dorset, England and his wife Alice Gull(e)y. He lived for a time on his family’s estate at Cheselbourne before moving to Limington near Ilchester in Somerset, where most of his own children were born. The family’s records of baptism were brought to America and thus preserved. William sailed with his family from Dartmouth, England to the Colonies on May 1st, 1635. He came first to Hingham in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where he was said to have been of extreme wealth. He was associated with (theologian) Roger Williams as one of the fifty-four proprietors in the first settlement of Rhode Island and founding of the city of Providence. His Brother Thomas Arnold left Cheselbourne, England on board the ship "Plain Joan" settling first in Waterton, Massachusetts, later joining his brother in Providence, Rhode Island in 1661.

William Arnold's great-great-great-grandfather Roger Arnold was born in Llanthony, Monmouthshire, Wales and his children would spread out into Dorset, Somerset, and Wiltshire, England. Roger Arnold assumed the name Arnold when it became fashionable for the Welsh to assume surnames rather than continuing on the ancient tradition of taking the father's given name as their patronymic. He was the son of Arnhallt ap Arnhallt-Vychan, esquire, making him a descendant of Ynyr, King of Gwent (see Kingdom of Gwent) Arnhallt or Arnholt was anglicized to Arnold in much the same way as Tudor had been by King Henry VIII's Great Grandfather Owen Tudor or Owain ap Tewdr ap Meredudd. Roger married Joan the daughter of Sir Thomas Gam(m)age, Lord of Coity a descendant of the Frankish Emperor Charlemagne through his ancestors Richard, 6th Baron de Talbot of Goodrich, and William de Beauchamp of Elmley, Earl of Warwick. Through this union Roger's offspring would prosper. William Arnold's Grandfather Richard Arnold of Bagbere, Dorsetshire would own a tremendous amount of estates at Alton Pancras, Buckland, Newton, Cheselbourne, Melcombe Horsey as well as that of Bagbere. The Arnold family in Wales, England and the United States bore identical arms. William's pedigree has been recorded by the College of Arms and his personal coat of arms were quartered with that of Ynyr, King of Gwent.

His son was Benedict Arnold, a Governor of Rhode Island, and his great-great-grandson was Benedict Arnold, considered by many to be the greatest General produced in the American Revolution, but unfortunately best remembered for changing sides to the British. President of the United States and former Union Army Maj. Gen. James A. Garfield was a descendant of William Arnold through his mother Eliza Ballou.

[edit] Sources

  • The History of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations by Thomas Williams Bicknall
  • The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales by Bernard and Sir John Burke (1967)
  • Crozier's General Armory: A Registry of American Families entitled to Coat Armor edited by William Armstrong Crozier (1957)
  • New England Families, Genealogical and Memorial by William Richard Cutter (1915)
  • Colonial Americans of Royal and Noble Descent by Patricia Ann Scherzinger
  • Pedigrees of some of the Emperor Charlemagne's Descendents by J. Orton Buck and Timothy Beard.
  • Wallace K. Penrose, www.penrose.org "Some Fabulous Pedigrees"