John Cranston

This article is about the politician John Cranston. For the chemist, see John Arnold Cranston .

John Cranston (* 1625 ; † March 12, 1680 in Newport , Rhode Island ) was an English doctor , politician and officer . He served as Lieutenant Governor and Governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations .

Early years

John Cranston, son of Reverend James Cranston, was born in Scotland or England . His father was pastor of St. Mary Overie Church in the London Borough of Southwark , which was later known as St. Savior's Church and is now Southwark Cathedral . He was also one of the chaplains of Charles I. The details of how Cranston came to New England were passed down through his son, Colonial Governor Samuel Cranston . On December 26, 1724, he wrote a letter to his cousin Elizabeth Cranston in Edinburgh, Scotland:

"My father being a sprightly youth of a roving fancy, my Grandfather Recommended him to the care and tuition of one Capt. Jeremiah Clarke , Merchant and Cittysen of London , with whome he came into this country and Setled on this Island. "

Jeremiah Clarke came to New England in 1637 and settled on Aquidneck Island in 1638 , which was later called Rhode Island. Reverend James Cranston was the son of John Cranston from Bold or Bool in the traditional county of Peeblesshire, Scotland. The Cranston family descended from Andrew de Cranston, who died before 1338.

John Cranston was first mentioned in 1644 in the public records of the colony of Rhode Iceland when he drummers in the militia kompanie of Portsmouth was. Ten years later he lived on the mainland and was Attorney General of Providence and Warwick when these towns were separated from Portsmouth and Newport on the island. In 1654 the four towns were reunited under one government. Cranston then served as Attorney General for the entire colony from that year to 1656. He became a Freeman in 1655 . In the same year he sat on a committee that was responsible for building a prison, as well as another committee that was supposed to prevent the sale of ammunition to the Indians . He was a commissioner of Newport for most of the years between 1655 and 1663. In 1658 he married Mary Clarke, daughter of Jeremiah Clarke, with whom he came to New England.

Doctor, MP and military commander

In his younger years, Cranston showed great skill as a general practitioner, which earned him the recognition of the General Assembly. On March 1, 1664 she wrote the following:

"Whereas the court have taken notice of the great blessing of God on the good endeavors of Captain John Cranston, of Newport, both in physic and chirurgery [surgery], to the great comfort of such as have had occasion to improve his skill and practice . "

Therefore it was decided unanimously in March 1663/4 that it should be admitted:

"To administer physic, and practice chirurgery throughout this whole colony, and is styled by the court and recorded Doctor of Physic and Surgery."

Cranston was a member of the General Assembly from 1664 to 1668 and an assistant from 1668 to 1672 . In 1672 he was elected lieutenant governor of the colony for a one-year term. Throughout this time he continued to pursue a military career. In July 1667 he received an officer's license to become captain and was given command of the Train Band upon the Island, d. H. Aquidneck Island. In the same year he and two others were given the task of mounting the large guns on such wagons with all possible haste, which would enable them to be easily transported from place to place. He was granted severance pay for his travels in 1671, he to New York and Seekonk ( Massachusetts made), probably because of military affairs.

In 1675 the colonies of New England were embroiled in a major war with various local Indian tribes. The King Philip's War , named after the Wampanoag chief, Metacomet , who was also called King Philip by the English , was the most devastating event that happened to the Rhode Island colony before the War of Independence . In April 1676, the General Assembly made provision for the marine defense of Aquidneck Island to last for a week. Cranston was promoted to major , not major general , as some sources indicate. In his new role he commanded all colonial militia companies. He also served as lieutenant governor for the next two years.

Lieutenant Governor and Governor

John Cranston became lieutenant governor under his brother-in-law Walter Clarke in May 1676 . Benedict Arnold , who belonged to the War Party , followed Clarke into office in May 1677. Cranston was re-elected lieutenant governor during that time. A few weeks after Arnold was re-elected colonial governor and Cranston as lieutenant governor in 1678, Arnold died unexpectedly. William Coddington was elected to succeed him, with Cranston remaining as his lieutenant governor. During that time the tax law was changed. The governor then had to issue an imprint to each town before a tax was levied. The colony's population was estimated at 1,000 to 1,200 freemen who were able to carry weapons. At the beginning of November 1678 Coddington died in office. On November 4, 1678, a township was founded on Conanicut Island , which was named Jamestown in honor of the Duke of York , the future King James II.

During a special session of the General Assembly held between November 8th and 15th, Cranston was elected Colonial Governor with James Barker as Lieutenant Governor. The statutes and other documents were given to the General Assembly by Mrs. Coddington and then placed in the care of the new governor. Many of the agenda items during his administration dealt with financial issues. In this regard, several finance and tax laws have either been passed or repealed. One of the first official acts was the adoption of the first tax increase since the last war. A tax of £ 300  has been assessed and broken down by town as follows: £ 136 from Newport, £ 68 from Portsmouth, £ 29 from New Shoreham ( Block Island ), £ 29 from Jamestown, £ 10 Sterling from Providence, £ 8 from Warwick, £ 16 from Kingston (reduced to £ 8), £ 2 from East Greenwich and £ 2 from Westerly . Never in colonial history has there been such disproportionate taxation and the figures clearly showed the extent to which the various towns suffered from the consequences of the war.

In 1679 the Crown confirmed the jurisdiction of Rhode Island over Narragansett Country , within which the youngest settlements, Westerly, Kings Town and East Greenwich, were. A letter of appreciation was sent to King Charles II . This also contained a request to add the area around Mount Hope to the colony. Meanwhile, the disputes with the Colony of Connecticut did not stop , so that in his last official act, Cranston sent a letter to the king, dated January 6, 1679/1680, regarding the disputed lands in Narragansett County, which Connecticut claimed were.

death

Cranston died in office on March 12, 1680. He was succeeded as colonial governor by Peleg Sanford , son of a previous governor of Newport and Portsmouth, John Sanford . He was buried on the Common Burying Ground in Newport. His white marble headstone (dated to the late 17th century) still stands on site and is one of the oldest surviving headstones in the United States.

legacy

Rhode Island historian and Lieutenant Governor Samuel G. Arnold wrote the following about John Cranston:

"Governor John Cranston had borne a distinguished part in the history of the Colony, and filled the highest military and civil positions in its gift. He was the first who ever held the place of major-general, having been selected to command all the militia of the Colony during Philip's War, and he was the father of a future governor, who became more distinguished for his protracted public service. "

Arnold used the term major-general here and means here an officer with general power of attorney, not to be confused with the military rank of a major general .

family

Gary Boyd Roberts indicates Christian Stewart as the grandmother of Cranston on his paternal side and through her a descent from King Robert III. of Scotland. However, he also added that another researcher, Andrew BW MacEwen, has doubts about Cranston's immediate ancestors.

Cranston's wife, Mary, was the daughter of former Rhode Island President Jeremiah Clarke and his wife Frances. She was the sister of Rhode Island Governor Walter Clarke. The Clarkes are the descendants of King Edward I of England. Hence, all of Cranston's descendants are of royal descent through the Clarkes, if not through the Cranstons themselves. Mary and John Cranston had ten children together. The eldest of them, Samuel Cranston, was the longest-serving governor in the history of the colony and state of Rhode Island.

After Cranston's death, his widow married the widower Captain John Stanton, son of Avis and Robert Stanton of Newport, with whom they had another child.

literature

• Arnold, Samuel Greene: History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations , Volume 1, New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1859, pp. 413, 441, 449f
• Austin, John Osborne: Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island , 1887, ISBN 978-0-8063-0006-1 , pp. 44, 60
• Bicknell, Thomas Williams: The History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations , Volume 3, New York: The American Historical Society, 1920, pp. 1028-1034
• DuBosq, Charles Albert; Jones, William: Descendants of Governor John Cranston of Rhode Island, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 79 July 1925, ISBN 0-7884-0293-5 , pp. 247-265
• Jones, William: The Ancestry of Governors John and Samuel Cranston of Rhode Island, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, New England Historic Genealogical Society, January 79, 1925, ISBN 0-7884-0293-5 , pp. 57-66
• Moriarity, G. Andrews: Additions and Corrections to Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island, The American Genealogist, January 19, 1943, p. 133
• Moriarity, G. Andrews: Additions and Corrections to Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island, The American Genealogist, October 25, 1949, pp. 249f
• Roberts, Gary Boyd: The Royal Descents of 600 Immigrants to the American Colonies or the United States ... with a 2008 Addendum, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2008, pp. 114f

Web links

• John Cranston in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Rhode Island Presidents and Governors