Dr John Greene, Baptist Original

November 26, 2013 — 4 Comments

grave

Dr John

My 9th great-grandfather bought Shawomet, Warwick, RI for 144 fathoms of wampum:

Dr. John Greene was the fourth and youngest son of Sir Richard Greene, of Bowridge Hall. He was born in 9 Feb 1597 at Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. He came to Warwick, Rhode Island, sailing on the ship “James” 5 April 1635, arriving in Boston, Massachusetts, 3 June 1635. He moved his family to Providence, Rhode Island in 1637 all four of his sons being born in England. John born 15 Aug 1620, Peter born 10 Mar 1622, James born 21 Jun 1626, Thomas born 4 Jun 1628. His wife and sons all lived out their lives and are buried in Warwick, Rhode Island. He was one of the original 12 members of the Baptist Church. In January 1643, he and 10 others bought from Miantonimoh, Chief of the Narrowgansets (Native American Tribe), for 144 fathoms of Wampun, the tract of land called Shawomet (Warwick, Rhode Island). — A fathom (six feet of strung beads) of white wampum was worth ten shillings and double that for purple beads. A coat andBuskins “set thick with these Beads in pleasant wild works and a broad Belt of the same (Josselyn 1988: 101)” belonging to King Philip (Wampanoag) was valued at Twenty pounds. Even in the 1600s there was noted distinctiveness of Native-made wampum and the inability of others to counterfeit it, although attempts at imitations included beads of stone and other materials. — In 1644 Dr. John Greene went to England with Samuel Gorton and Randall Holden, returning in 1646, their mission successful. John Greene was Commissioner from 1654-57, Deputy Governer 1654. He married his first wife, Joan Tattersall, at Salisbury, England in St. Thomas Church, 4 Nov. 1619. Dr. John Greene died 11 Mar 1658. He is buried next to his wife Joan.

1. John Greene, the founder of the family in this country, came from. Salisbury, in England, ‘but at what precise dateis unknown. He was the son of Peter. Greene, and was born February 9. 1596-7. By profession he was a surgeon. He first settled in Massachusetts; but subsequently removed to Providence, where his name appears as fifth in Roger Williams’ first deed. His wife. five sons and one daughter accompanied him. He afterwards returned to Boston, where he soon became involved in some difficulty with the magistrates, as. was the case with nearly all the original settlers of Rhode Island. Having been examined before the court he was fined £20, and banished from the state. Upon his submission,” his fine was remitted, but he returned to Providence, where “he retracted his submission by letter and charged the magistrates with usurping the power of Christ in his church, and with persecution toward Williams.” From this circumstance we infer that the trouble was of a religious nature.
   John Greene seems to have preferred a residence in a state where there were no witches to be hung, and where the utmost liberty was allowed in religious matters, and here he took up his permanent abode and became one of the leading men- in the colony. In 1644, on the submission of the Narragansett Indians, he went to England with Gorton and Holden, as agents to look after the interests of both the Indians and his own towns-men. In 1647 he was appointed one of the committee of ten to organize the Colonial Government under the Parliamentary charter. He was appointed several times a General Assistant. He lived and died at Occupasnetuxet, now known as Spring Green, or the Gov. Francis estate. John Greene had three wives ; the first, Joane Tatersalle, whom he married Nov. 4,1619; the second, Alse Daniels, of Providence; and the third, Phillip of London. He died between Dec. 28, 1658, and Jan. 7, 1659. He had six children, who were baptized as per register of 5t. Thomas Church, Salisbury, Eng., as follows: John, Aug. 15, 1620; Peter, March 10, 1621-2; James; June 21, 1626; Thomas, June 4, 1628; Joane, Oct. 3, 1630; Mary. May 19, 1633. Abstract of his will.
2. [S885] Richard Bayles, History of Providence, Rhode Island,, page __ – John Greene of Kingston who about 1639 came to Narragansett and lived there with Richard Smith, the first white settler of that locality.

He married often and well:

JOHN GREENE, Surgeon, the progenitor of the Warwick Greenes, was the son of Richard and Mary (Hooker) Greene, and was born on his father’s estate at Bowridge Hill in the parish of Gillingham, County Dorset, England, about 1590. Though not so recorded, dates before and after him would seem to determine this as the year of his birth. His father, Richard, grandfather Richard, and great-grandfather, Robert, had for nearly one hundred years before him resided at Bowridge Hill, and were undoubtedly a branch of the Northamptonshire family of Greene through a younger son.

The mother of John Greene, surgeon, Mary Hooker, was the daughter of John Hooker (alias Vowell), who was born at Exeter, England, about 1524, his father, Robert Hooker, having been mayor of that city in 1520.

John Greene removed early to Sarum (Salisbury), the county town of Wiltshire, and was there married at St. Thomas’s Church,’ November 4, 1619, to Joanne Tattershall (or, as it was written on the church register, “Tatarsole”).  Nothing is definitely known of her English connections. The name is frequently found in early records among post-mortem examinations, parliamentary writs, and charters, and is variously written Tatersall, Tateshall, Tatashall, Tatershal, and Tattershall. The first of the family of whom we have mention came in with William the Conqueror and obtained the lordship of Tattershall in Lincolnshire, where he seated himself and from which he took his surname. His descendants were seated in Berkshire and Norfolkshire, and were held in high repute. It is probable that other branches located in other counties, and it is not improbable to suppose that Joanne the wife of John Greene, who emigrated to America from Salisbury, County Wilts, was a connection of the family of George Tattershall, who was seated at Stapleford, County Wilts, which is about five miles distant from his Salisbury home ; but as yet this relationship has not been proved. The following note, recently received by the compiler in answer to an inquiry about records at Stapleford, may be of interest in this connection

“Stapleford Vicarage, Salisbury,” October 18, 1900.

“Madam: I have received your letter of the 25th September, but regret to say that I cannot help you in your research, as the Stapleford Register begins only with the year 1637.  “J. F. D. HOERNLE, “Vicar of Stapleford.” [Joanne Tattershall ‘s marriage date was 1619, eighteen years earlier.]

The marriage of John Greene and the baptisms of all his seven children, recorded in the Parish Register of St. Thomas’s Church at Salisbury, England, are still extant. He is therein styled “Mr.” and “Gent,” a mark of some distinction at that date.” He resided at Salisbury with his family, following his profession, for about sixteen years. On April 6, 1635, he was registered for embarkation at Hampton, England with his wife and six children (one having probably died in England before this date),” in the ship James, of 200 tons, William Cooper, Master, for New England.”  After a voyage of fifty-eight days he arrived at Boston, Mass., June 3, 1635. He first settled at Salem, Mass., where he was associated with Roger Williams, purchasing or building a house there, but soon after Mr. Williams’s flight from Salem (1636) he sold it and, joining Williams at Providence, secured his home lot, No.15, on the main street. He was one of eleven men baptized by Roger Williams, and one of the twelve original members of the first Baptist church on this continent, organized at Providence, R. I. He was the first professional medical man in Providence Plantations. He is alluded to in Goodwin’s Pilgrim Republic (p. 407) as “one of the two local surgeons” at Providence in 1638, though we are told “the people of Providence relied solely upon him for surgical aid long after his removal to Warwick in 1643.”

His first wife, Joanne Tattershall , the mother of all his children, died soon after his removal to Rhode Island and it is supposed was buried at Conimicut, Old Warwick (?). He married (2) ” Ailsce (Alice) Daniels, a widow” (recorded as proprietor of a home lot in Providence, 1637). They removed to Warwick, 1642-3. At the time of the persecution of the Shawomet pioneers (October, 1643), when “forty mounted and armed men,” sent from Boston to arrest them, fired over their houses, the women and children fled to the woods. Fright and exposure caused the death of the (second) wife of John Greene. (It seems more probable that this was the wife who was buried at Conimicut.) Samuel Gorton wrote of this attack of the Massachusetts troops: ” Afflicting our wives and children, forcing them to betake themselves some into the woods among the Indians, suffering such hardships as occasioned the death of divers of them, as the wife of John Greene, as also the wife of Robert Potter.” Judge Staples, in his Annals of Providence, mentions the fact that the second marriage of John Greene was not recorded, but he found evidence in Probate Records, where mention is made of the son of Alice Daniels as “John Greene’s stepson.”

Evidence of this marriage is also given in the following item:

“In the division of 52 House lots John Greene senior had lot between Thomas James on the North and John Smith on the South, and he inherited the lot of Alice Daniels his second wife between Wm. Harris on the North and John Sweet on the South” {Rhode Island Colonial Records [Printed], vol. i., p. 24).

In files. City Clerk’s office. Providence, is a book containing “A revised List of Lands and Meadows as they were originally lotted for the beginning of the Plantations of Providence in the Narragansett Bay in New England unto the [then] inhabitants of the said Plantations until anno i6—-.”

First in order are the “home lots,” beginning at the Mile-end Cove, south end of town, between Fox Point and Wickenden Streets, lots all bounded by Town (Main) Street on the west and by what is now Hope Street on the east. The name of Alice Daniels is found on this list.

Mr. Greene was married (3) in London, England, about 1644, to Phillippa (always written Phillip), who returned with him to Warwick, R. I., 1646. Her family name is not known. She died at Warwick, March 11, 1687, aged about eighty-seven years, having survived her husband for nearly thirty years.’ In further support that his third wife was from London we quote the words of Samuel Gorton, who, in a letter from Warwick addressed ” to Edward Calverly at his house by the east end of Christ Church in Newgate Market, London,” and dated November 20, 1649, wrote of this last wife of John Greene: ” Your auld neighbour, our loving friend, Mrs. Greene, hath writ a letter of advise to you [which] made me laugh not a little, which I heartily wish may come to your hands. She laies out the benefights of these parts better than I could have advised to have done. She takes well with the country and cheerfully performs her place [part], hath the love of all, non can open their mouth against her, which is a rare thing in these parts.”

Excerpt from the Book Title: The Greenes of Rhode Island, with historical records of English ancestry, 1534-1902 Author: General George Sears Greene (1801-1899) Publisher: Knickerbocker press Published in: New York Date of Publication: 1903 The Excerpt is Pages 54 – 56  The Document was retrieved from http://www.archive.org/details/greenesofrhodeis00gree