Rev. Roger Williams, Founder of Rhode Island

Roger Williams was the founder of the colony of Rhode Island. Roger Williams was Governor of the Colony 1654 through 1658.

Biography

(Courtesy of womenhistory.blogspot)

"Roger Williams was born December 21, 1603 near London, England. He was a student of theology and languages, and was educated at Cambridge University. After suffering a painful rejection by the woman he had chosen to marry, the young clergyman became ill of fever and was nursed back to health by Mary Barnard, who is believed to have been the daughter of the Reverend Richard Barnard of Nottinghamshire.

Mary Barnard married Roger Williams on December 15, 1629 in Essex, England. The couple set sail on board the Lyon in December 1630, arriving in Boston February 5, 1631.

Two months later, Roger was called as minister to Salem, having refused to join with the congregation at Boston—where he told the startled Puritan elders that he would not serve a congregation that recognized the Church of England.

Roger Williams had become a Separatist. This enraged the Boston magistrates and pressure by them on the Salem authorities caused him to leave there in late summer and go to Plymouth. Here he was made welcome by the Separatist Pilgrims, and was admitted as a member of their church.

During the following years, Mary gave birth to six children. Roger held positions at various churches, but his religious beliefs were always considered radical. His belief that religion should not be imposed on citizens, and that Church and State should be separate entities was fine with the Pilgrims, but his views about the Native Americans and their land rights were not.

The Williams family returned to Salem in 1633. When Roger expressed the opinion that Massachusetts Bay Colony's charter was a breach of the rights of the native population, the Massachusetts magistrates found him guilty of spreading 'new and dangerous opinions.'

Roger Williams was given a decree of banishment October 9, 1635, because of his hostility toward the Church of England. He was ordered by the General Court to be banished from Massachusetts and was threatened with deportation back to England if he did not renounce his convictions. But he continued to express his controversial opinions.

Officials were sent to Salem to apprehend him, but he was gone. Warned by John Winthrop, he had hastily said goodbye to his wife and baby daughters and sought sanctuary with his friends in the Narragansett Tribe. There he purchased a large tract of land from the Native Americans on the Pantuxet River, and founded the settlement of Providence.

In Providence all peoples and religions were welcome. It soon became a safe haven for groups ranging from Quakers to Baptists to Jews. Williams guaranteed the separation of church and state and made sure that all land purchases were handled properly, and that the native tribes were treated humanely. The first law in America making slavery illegal was passed in Rhode Island on May 18, 1652.

In 1643, when the rights of his colony were coming under threat from its larger neighbors, Williams returned to England and secured a charter for the colony of Providence Plantation of Narragansett Bay, which also included Portsmouth, Newport and Warwick. During subsequent trips to England, the colony was renamed Rhode Island.

My Dearest Love

He wrote to his wife while abroad. "My dearest love and companion in this vale of tears, I send thee, though in winter, a handful of flowers made up in a little posy, for thy dear self and our dear children to look and smell on, when I, as grass of the field, shall be gone and withered."

At home in Providence after an absence of nearly 3 years, Roger Williams became President of the colony, which office he held from 1654 to 1658. He also served as Commissioner, Deputy, and on the Town Council for many years.

The royal charter of 1663 guaranteed complete religious liberty, established a self-governing colony with total autonomy, and strengthened Rhode Island's territorial claims. It was the most liberal charter to be issued by the mother country during the entire colonial era, and it served as Rhode Island's basic law until 1843.

Despite his efforts to avert it, war with the Native Americans broke out in 1676. Known as King Philip's War, it was a tragedy for white men and red. Providence, which for years had been spared, was threatened with destruction. Roger Williams went out to meet the invaders, but his arguments failed. He was told that because he was an honest man not a hair of his head would be harmed, but that the city should be burned.

Providence was burned on March 26, 1676. Mary Barnard Williams died that same year.

Roger Williams lived to see Providence rebuilt. He continued to preach, and the Colony grew through its acceptance of settlers of all religious persuasions. He died sometime between January 16 and March 16, 1683. His funeral was attended with such honors as the town could provide, and a salute of guns was fired over his grave.

He was buried in the orchard in the rear of his homestead lot. Many years later, his remains were disinterred and placed in the tomb of a descendant in the North Burial Ground. In 1936, they were sealed within a bronze container and set into the base of the monument erected to his memory on Prospect Terrace.

His statue gazes out over the city where his principles of freedom of thought and worship, separation of Church and State, and equality for all men, regardless of race or creed were first put into practice. He left no great estate of worldly goods, but this was his immortal legacy to the freedom of loving peoples of all the world."

Family

Roger Williams was born in London, and many historians cite 1603 as the probable year of his birth.[6] His birth records were destroyed when St. Sepulchre church burned during the Great Fire of London,[7] and his entry in American National Biography notes that Williams gave contradictory information about his age throughout his life.[8] His father was James Williams (1562–1620), a merchant tailor in Smithfield, and his mother was Alice Pemberton (1564–1635).

Williams took holy orders in the Church of England in connection with his studies, but he became a Puritan at Cambridge and thus ruined his chance for preferment in the Anglican church. After graduating from Cambridge, he became the chaplain to Sir William Masham. In April 1629, Williams proposed marriage to Jane Whalley, the niece of Lady Joan (Cromwell) Barrington, but she declined.[12] Later that year, he married Mary Bernard (1609–76), the daughter of Rev. Richard Bernard, a notable Puritan preacher and author; they were married at the Church of High Laver in Epping Forest, a few miles east of London.[13] They had six children, all born in America: Mary, Freeborn, Providence, Mercy, Daniel, and Joseph.

Williams knew that Puritan leaders planned to immigrate to the New World. He did not join the first wave of settlers, but later decided that he could not remain in England under the administration of Archbishop William Laud. Williams regarded the Church of England as corrupt and false, and he had arrived at the Separatist position by 1630; on December 1, he and his wife boarded the Boston-bound Lyon in Bristol.[14]

Marriage 1 Mary BARNARD b: ABT 1609. Married: 15 DEC 1629 in Essex, England.

The children of Roger Williams and Mary Barnard were:

• i. Mary2 Williams, b. Aug 1633; m. John Sayles.
• ii. Freeborn Williams, b. 4 Oct 1635; m. Thomas Hart; m. Walter Clarke.
• iii. Providence Williams was born Sep 1638; he died Mar 1686 at age 47.
• iv. Mercy Williams, b. 15 Jul 1640 at Providence, RI; m. Resolved Waterman; m. Samuel Winsor.
• v. Daniel Williams, b. Feb 1641 at Providence, RI; m. Rebecca Rhodes.
• vi. Joseph Williams, b. 12 Dec 1643 at Providence, RI; m. Lydia Olney.

Legacy

Williams' defense of the Native Americans, his accusations that Puritans had reproduced the "evils" of the Anglican Church, and his insistence that England pay the Native Americans for their land all put him at the center of many political debates during his life. He was considered an important historical figure of religious liberty at the time of American independence, and he was a key influence on the thinking of the Founding Fathers.

Tributes

Tributes to Williams include:

• The 1936 commemorative Rhode Island Tercentenary half dollar
• Roger Williams National Memorial, a park in downtown Providence established in 1965
• Roger Williams Park, Providence, Rhode Island, and the Roger Williams Park Zoo
• Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island
• Roger Williams Dining Hall at the University of Rhode Island
• Roger Williams Inn, the main dining hall at the American Baptists' Green Lake Conference Center founded in 1943 in Green Lake, Wisconsin
• Roger Williams Medical Center, a hospital in Providence
• Rhode Island's representative statue in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol, added in 1872
• A depiction of him on the International Monument to the Reformation in Geneva, along with other prominent reformers
• Roger Williams Middle School, a public school in Providence
• Pembroke College in Brown University was named for Williams' alma mater.

Memorial in Roger Williams Square

Slate Rock is a prominent boulder on the west shore of the Seekonk River (near the current Gano Park) that was once one of Providence's most important historic landmarks.[67][68][69] It was believed to be the spot where the Narragansetts greeted Williams with the famous phrase "What cheer, netop?" The historic rock was accidentally blown up by city workers in 1877.[67][68] They were attempting to expose a buried portion of the stone, but used too much dynamite and it was "blasted to pieces."[67] A memorial in Roger Williams Square commemorates the location.[67][69][68]

Roger Williams Landing Place monument in Slate Rock Park aka Roger Williams Square, Providence Rhode Island.

Source: < Wikimedia Commons > CC BY-SA 4.0

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References

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