Person:Randall Holden (2)

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Randall Holden (1692) was an early inhabitant of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, one of the original founders of Portsmouth, and one of the co-founders of the town of Warwick. He came to New England from Salisbury, Wiltshire, England and is first recorded as one of the signers of the Portsmouth Compact. Following a few years on Aquidneck Island (called Rhode Island at the time), he joined Samuel Gorton and ten others to establish the town of Warwick in early 1643 on land purchased from the Indian sachems.

The first few years of the Warwick settlement were fraught with difficulty; Massachusetts Bay Colony claimed their land and arrested them for supposed infractions against the sachems. The Warwick settlers were hauled off to face trial in Boston, but the charges had nothing to do with the sachems; instead, they were charged with heresy and sedition based on their religious views. They were sent to various jails in the Boston area, and they were then banished from the Massachusetts colony—and from their own Warwick lands. Holden soon after joined Gorton and John Greene on a trip to England to seek redress for the wrongs committed against them. Holden and Greene returned to New England in 1646 with a new charter for their settlement and protection from the crown.

Holden became heavily involved in the affairs of his town of Warwick and of the entire colony. During the next 40 years, he served in a variety of roles as councilman and treasurer at the town level, and in the colony he was Assistant to the President (or Governor), Commissioner, and Deputy. He was highly respected within the colony and was a leader in 1676 during the dire events of King Philip's War. He continued to serve the colony into his mid 70s, only a few years before his death in 1692 at age 80.

1.   Randall Holden, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.

Founders of Portsmouth, Rhode Island

On March 7, 1638, a group of religious dissenters signed the Portsmouth Compact. They had been disarmed by leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. William Coddington, Anne Hutchinson, and John Clarke conferred with Roger Williams in Providence, who suggested that they buy land from the Native Americans on Aquidneck Island. They formed the settlement of Pocasset, later Portsmouth, on Aquidneck, later called Rhode Island. Portsmouth and Newport later united with Providence and Warwick in 1654 as the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Text of the Compact: The 7th Day of the First Month, 1638. We whose names are underwritten do hereby solemnly in the presence of Jehovah incorporate ourselves into a Bodie Politick and as He shall help, will submit our persons, lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and to all those perfect and most absolute laws of His given in His Holy Word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby. Signers: William Coddington - John Clarke - William Hutchinson, Jr. [husband of Anne Hutchinson]- John Coggeshall - William Aspinwall - Samuel Wilbore - John Porter - John Sanford - Edward Hutchinson, Jr. Esq. - Thomas Savage - William Dyre [husband of Boston martyr Mary Dyer] - William Freeborne - Philip Sherman - John Walker - Richard Carder - William Baulston - Edward Hutchinson, Sr. - Henry Bull - Randall Holden Current Location: Newport County, Rhode Island   Parent Towns: Boston   Daughter Towns: Newport