William Blaxton

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This 1889 drawing is believed to be of Blackstone's house , where he lived in Boston from 1630 to 1635.

Reverend William Blaxton (also written William Blackstone ) (* 1595 in County Durham , England ; † 1675 in Cumberland , Rhode Island ) was one of the first British settlers in New England and the first European settler in both the area of ​​what is now Boston and Rhode Island .

biography

Memorial plaque to William Blackstone on Beacon Street across from Boston Common , his original land holdings.

William Blackstone was born in County Durham , England in 1595 . He attended the University of Cambridge , where he received a bachelor's degree in 1617 and a master's degree in 1621 . He then worked as an Anglican priest , although he disagreed on many points with the views of the Church. This ultimately led to his decision to join Ferdinando Gorges ' expedition to America as chaplain in 1623, which landed at what is now Weymouth, Massachusetts .

The expedition failed, however, and most of his fellow travelers began their return journey to England. Few stayed and moved on, while Blackstone stayed near the landing site. In 1625 he was the first European settler in what is now Boston . He lived there alone in what is now known as Boston Common and Beacon Hill .

In 1629, the Puritans landed in nearby Charlestown . In 1630 Blackstone invited them to settle on his land because they had problems finding drinking water. In gratitude, Governor John Winthrop gave him back 50 acres (0.2 km²) of his own land so that he could continue to live there. By 1633, the Boston population had grown to more than 4,000 residents and needed more land all the time. Blackstone then sold 44 acres of his land.

While the Puritans disagreed with the opinion of the established Church leaders, they were also very intolerant of those who did not share the Puritan views. Blackstone was their intolerance quickly tired and moved in 1635 to another location about 35  mi (56.3  km ) south of Boston. There he settled on a hill from which he had a wide view of the river called the Patucket River by the Indians , which is now known as the Blackstone River . In 1646, Boston passed a law making the remaining 6 acres of Blackstone permanent public property. This formed the basis of today's Boston Common .

As a result of this move, William Blackstone was also the first European settler in what is now Rhode Island , as Roger Williams only founded his colony in what is now Providence (Rhode Island) a year later . The area in which Blackstone settled was part of the Plymouth Colony and later the Massachusetts Bay Colony until the area became part of Rhode Island in 1741.

The house and farm of Blackstone was on the area of ​​the present-day cities of Cumberland (Rhode Island) and Lonsdale , directly on the Blackstone River named after him . He called his residence "Study Hill" and was reputed to have the largest library of his time in the colonies. Both his house and his literature collection, however, were burned during the King Philip's War around 1675. Blackstone was a cattle breeder , laid out gardens and also cultivated an orchard with apple trees, in which he raised the first variety of American apples with the Yellow Sweeting . Today there is a factory of the retailer Ann & Hope .

Although Roger Williams and Blackstone had different views on many theological areas, “they both agreed that everyone was entitled to their own opinion. Williams invited Blaxton to preach regularly to his followers in Providence. Blaxton accepted this and preached in other parts of Rhode Island. He is now considered one of the first clergy of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America . ”He preached under an oak tree near his home that stood until 1938 when it was felled by a hurricane .

In 1659 Blackstone returned briefly to Boston and at the age of 64 married the widow Sarah Fisher Stevenson , 30 years his junior , with whom he had a son named John . William Blackstone died in Cumberland , Rhode Island in 1675 at the age of 80 .

heritage

Namesake

The following places in the United States were named after Blackstone :

Monuments

The following memorials commemorate William Blackstone :

Known descendants

One of his descendants is the entrepreneur Timothy Blackstone .

literature

  • Thomas Coffin Amory: William Blackstone . Boston's first inhabitant (=  pamphlets in American history ). 2nd Edition. Rockwell & Churchill, Boston 1877, OCLC 23682012 ( online in Google Book Search).
  • Benjamin Franklin de Costa: William Blackstone in his relation to Massachusetts and Rhode Island . MH Mallory & Co., New York 1880, OCLC 23182630 ( online in Google book search).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c William Blaxton in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved December 13, 2012.
  2. ^ Louise Lind: William Blackstone: sage of the wilderness . Heritage Books, Bowie, Md. 1993, ISBN 978-1-55613-910-9 .
  3. ↑ a b Who is William Blackstone? Blackstone Valley Tourism Council, archived from the original on October 9, 2008 ; accessed on December 13, 2012 .
  4. ^ Louise Lind: William Blackstone Memorial Park. Quahog.org, October 1992, accessed December 13, 2012 .
personal data
SURNAME Blaxton, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Blackstone, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION first European settler in New England
DATE OF BIRTH 1595
PLACE OF BIRTH County Durham , England
DATE OF DEATH 1675
Place of death Cumberland , Rhode Island