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m. 1587
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m. 5 Oct 1619
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Stukely Westcott (1592 – 12 January 1677) was one of the founding settlers of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and one of the original members of the first Baptist Church in America, established by Roger Williams in 1638. He came to New England from the town of Yeovil in Somerset, England and first settled in Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but difficulties with the authorities prompted him to join Roger Williams in settling near the Narragansett Bay in 1638 at Providence Plantations. He remained there for a few years, but he was recorded as an inhabitant of Warwick in 1648, probably having settled there several years earlier. He was most active in colonial affairs from 1650 to 1660 when he was a commissioner, surveyor of highways, and the keeper of a house of entertainment. His highest offices were as an Assistant in 1653 and much later as a deputy to the General Court in 1671 when he was almost 80 years old. He made his will on January 12, 1677, but died the same day with it unsigned, leaving his affairs in limbo for the following two decades. Do not know who his father was for sure, his ancestry here is guesswork. In memoranda made in April, 1656, by Benedict Arnold and found among his old family papers, stated: " My father (William Arnold) and his family sett sayle from Dartmouth in Old England, the first of May, Friday & arrived in New England (Thursday) June 24, 1635. On board was Stukely Westcott 48 of Yeovil, and his wife with children Robert, Damaris, Samuel 13, Amos 4, Mercy and Jeremiah. That Benedict, then twenty years of age, should have singled out the Westcott's to mention in his memoranda, may be safely explained by his promising friendship with Damaris Westcott, then about fifteen years old, and who later became his wife.
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