WM. GORTON ... birth date not recorded, married, 1736, Lydia Collins, born at Westerly, R. I., 1714, daughter of John and Susanna (Daggert) Collins, granddaughter of John and Abigail (Johnson) Collins, great-granddaughter of Henry and Ann Collins. John Collins was a Friend preacher lived in Westerly, in the sections set off in 1738 as Charlestown and in 1757 as Hopkinton. His wife, Susanna, was from Marblehead, near Lynn, Mass. John Collins wife, Abigail, was daughter of Richard Johnson, who came from England in 1630. Henry Collins came from England in 1635 in the ship Abigail with his wife, Ann, and four daughters and three servants and settled in Lynn, Mass.
William Gorton was probably born at Mashapaug or Westerly. (Mashapaug was included in the incorporation, 1754, of the town of Cranston.) He was living at Mashapaug when his first child was born, the record in Benjamin's Family Bible reading "Benjamin Gorton, born on the Mashapaug farm, July 25, 1737." Daniel Rogers, who lived William Gorton's children in New London, Conn. left a genealogical manuscript, now in the possession of J. Lawrence Chew, of New London, in which among the records of this family it records "William Gorton came from Rhode Island, Massapeg." His children were probably all born in Rhode Island, for the earliest record we find of him in Connecticut is January 24, 1758, as lessee of a farm of Matthew Stewart. This farm was by Stony Brook, about five miles from New London village, nine miles from Black Point, in New London town, the section set off in 1801 to Waterford.
In December 1761, he was a Delegate to the Friends' Convention at or near Poughkeepsie, NY, and was drowned on the Hudson by the capsizing of the boat in which he was returning home. His will, dated New London, November 4, 1761, proved before Judge Gurd Salstonal, December 24, 1761, witnessed by his wife's brothers, John and Hezekiah Collins and the Town Clerk, John Owen, mentions all of his children but not Lydia, who was probably then deceased. (Will is recorded at New London and Indexed, in error, under letter I.) His wife's death notice appears in the Connecticut Gazette as follows "Died Mrs. Lydia Gorton, November 20, 1809, aged 95."
