Richard Scott (settler)

Richard Scott (1605–1679) was an early settler of Providence in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Coming from Berkhamstead in Hertfordshire, he immigrated with his wife and infant to Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony where he joined the Boston church in August 1634. By 1637 he was in Providence, signing an agreement that year, and he and his wife both became Baptists for a while. By the mid-1650s, the Quaker religion had taken hold in Rhode Island, and Scott was said to be the first Quaker in Providence. His future son-in-law, Christopher Holder had his right ear cut off for his Quaker activism in Massachusetts, and Scott's wife, who went there to support him, was jailed and given ten lashes with a whip. Providence founder Roger Williams did not care for the Quaker religion, and got into a pamphlet war with Quaker founder George Fox. A letter written by Scott was printed in Fox's pamphlet, and was critical of Williams for his "pride and folly," and noted his inconsistency in professing liberty of conscience by not being tolerant of those who disagreed with him.

Scott was married in England to Katharine Marbury, the daughter of the Reverend Francis Marbury, and sister of the Puritan dissident Anne Hutchinson.

Life

Scott's Providence land plot overlaid on contemporary map

Baptized on 9 September 1605 in Glemsford, Suffolk, England, Richard Scott was the son of Edward Scott of Glemsford who was a clothier by trade.^[1] While records of the childhood of Scott are lacking, as a young man he appears in Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, where he was married on 7 June 1632 to Katherine Marbury, the daughter of Francis Marbury, and a younger sister of the famed Anne Hutchinson.^[2] The oldest child of the Scotts was baptized in Berkhamstead in March 1634, but within months of this date the couple and their infant boarded a ship for New England.^[3] The ship on which the family traveled has not been discovered, but it was not the Griffin, as suggested by Austin, because on 28 August 1634 Richard Scott was admitted to the Boston church in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, while the Griffin did not land until several weeks later.^[3]

About August 1637 Scott was in Providence, where he and twelve others signed an agreement subjecting themselves to the collective agreements made for the public good.^[4] This document was generally signed by Providence inhabitants who arrived too late to be included in an earlier division of lands, or else those who were minors during the earlier division. Scott was not closely associated with the Antinomian Controversy surrounding his sister-in-law, Anne Hutchinson, in 1637 and 1638, as were most of Hutchinson's other relatives, but he was present at her church trial in Boston on 15 March 1637/8, and did speak briefly in her defense.^[3] While not involved with Hutchinson, the Scotts nevertheless experimented with non-Puritan religions, and Scott's wife became a Baptist. Massachusetts governor and journalist, John Winthrop, reacted to this when he wrote in 1639, "at Providence things grew still worse: for a sister of Mrs. Hutchinson, the wife of one Scott, being infected with Anabaptistry...was re-baptized by one Holyman..."^[4] He went on to criticize the Baptists for denying infant baptism, and having no magistrates.^[3]

Difficulties as Quakers

In July 1640 Scott was one of 39 Providence inhabitants who signed a compact for a form of government.^[4] Over the next decade he accumulated a significant amount of land, because in 1650 he paid over three pounds in tax, one of the highest amounts in the colony (Benedict Arnold paid the highest tax, which was five pounds). Scott appears on a 1655 list of freemen from Providence, and it is about this time that he and his wife became converts to the Quaker religion, and Scott was claimed to have been the first Quaker convert in Providence.^[5] In September 1658, their future son-in-law, Christopher Holder, had his right ear cut off in Boston for his Quaker activism.^[4] Katherine Scott was present, and protested by saying, "That it was evident they were going to act the works of darkness, or else they would have brought them forth publicly and have declared their offences [sic] that all may hear and fear." For saying this she was committed to prison and was given "ten cruel stripes with a three fold corded knotted whip."^[4] She later was quoted as saying, "If God calls us woe be to us if we come not, and I question not but he whom we love, will make us not to count our lives dear unto ourselves for the sake of his name."^[4] To this, Governor John Endecott replied, "And we shall be as ready to take away your lives as ye shall be to lay them down."^[4] The following year, in June 1659, the Scott's daughter, Patience, aged about 11 years, went to Boston to witness against persecutions of Quakers, and was sent to prison.^[4] A short time later, another of their daughters, Mary, went to visit Christopher Holder in prison, and was herself apprehended and put in prison and then kept there for a month.^[5]

It appears that by 1660 Katherine Scott had drifted away from the Quaker religion following a trip she had made to England. In September of that year Roger Williams wrote a letter to John Winthrop of Massachusetts in which he said, "Sir, my neighbor Mrs. Scott is come from England, and what the whip at Boston could not do, converse with friends in England, and their arguments, have in a great measure drawn her from the Quakers, and wholly from their meetings."^[5]

In the 1670s, a pamphlet war took place between Roger Williams and Quaker founder George Fox. Williams did not care for the Quaker religion, and in 1676 published the pamphlet George Fox digged out of his Burrow, in response to which Fox published the pamphlet A New England Fire Brand Quenched in 1678.^[6] Included in Fox's work was a letter from Scott which derided Williams for his pride and folly, and charged him with "inconsistency in professing liberty of conscience, and yet persecuting those who did not join in his views."^[6]

Richard Scott was dead by 1 July 1679 when his land was taxed.^[6] His wife died in Newport on 2 May 1687, said to be aged 70 per the Rhode Island Vital Record, but this cannot be correct because her father had died by February 1611, so she could not have been born after 1611; therefore she was at least 75 years old when she died.^[2][4]

Family

Richard and Katharine Scott had seven known children, of whom Mary married the Quaker Christopher Holder and Hannah married colonial Rhode Island governor Walter Clarke, a son of earlier colonial president Jeremy Clarke and his wife Frances Latham.^[6] Their grandson John Scott, Jr. married Elizabeth Wanton, who was a sister of the two colonial governors William Wanton and John Wanton.^[7] Also, their grandson Sylvanus Scott, son of John, married Joanna Jenckes, the sister of colonial governor Joseph Jenckes.^[8] A great great granddaughter of Richard and Katharine, Sarah Scott, married Stephen Hopkins who was a governor and chief justice of the Rhode Island colony, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.^[9]

Ancestry of Richard Scott and Katharine Marbury

The ancestry of Richard Scott was summarized by G. Andrews Moriarty in 1944, referencing earlier works.^[10] The ancestry of his wife, Katharine Marbury, was well documented by John Denison Champlin, Jr. in 1914.^[11] On her father's side of the family Katherine descends from Charlemagne and Alfred the Great, and on her mother's side she descends from Edward I of England, thus connecting her with Edward's great grandparents, Henry II of England and his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and with Henry's great grandfather, William the Conqueror.^[11][12]

See also

• Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

References

Bibliography

• Anderson, Robert Charles (2009). The Great Migration, Immigrants to New England 1634–1635. Vol. VI R-S. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society. ISBN 978-0-88082-225-1. 

• Austin, John Osborne (1887). Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island. Albany, New York: J. Munsell's Sons. ISBN 978-0-8063-0006-1. 

• Champlin, John Denison (1914). "The Ancestry of Anne Hutchinson". New York Genealogical and Biographical Record (New York: New York Genealogical and Biographical Society) XLV: 17–26. 

• Moriarty, G. Andrews (April 1944). "Additions and Corrections to Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island". The American Genealogist 20: 229–30. 

• Richardson, Douglas (2004). Plantagenet Ancestry. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company. pp. 492–3. ISBN 0-8063-1750-7. 

• Sanderson, John; Conrad, Robert Taylor (1846). Biography of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence. Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwait & Company. 

External links

• A web biography of Richard Scott