The surname Herendeen is identical with Herenden, Harandine, Harnden, Harrenden, Harraden, Haraden and Harrington, and there are various other variations in spelling. A Richard Harnden settled in Reading, Massachusetts. He was born in 1640. Edward Harnden settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts, about 1650, and afterward removed to Gloucester; was over fifty years old in 1677. There was a Benjamin Harndale or Harnden in Lynn in 1649.
Benjamin Herendeen or Hearnden, the immigrant ancestor of all the early Rhode Island families of this surname, was born probably in England and settled at Providence, Rhode Island. He married Elizabeth White. who died about 1701, daughter of William and Elizabeth White. After Herendeen’s death in 1687, she married (second) in 1688, Richard Pray. Herendeen bought of William and Elizabeth White, of Boston, for twenty pounds, a house and lot of twenty-five acres in Providence, October 16, 1662, and in the same year he sold rights to certain lands to Zachariah Rhodes. He drew lot 86. February 1q, 1665, and in 1684 he had sixty acres laid out to him. He and his wife deeded land to their son Benjamin. April 20, 1685; and to their son Joseph sixty-seven acres, March 3, 1686. His will was presented April 4, 1688, but it has been lost. The widow, then wife of Richard Pray, deeded to son Isaac the homestead given her for life by her late husband, October 20, 1688. But on December 13, 1701, the dwelling house formerly her father’s, she deeded again, Isaac having conveyed it to her again.
Children: 1. Sarah, married, May 15, 1675, David Whipple. 2. Alice, married, December 25, 1669, Daniel Brown. 3. Mary, married, October 14, 1675, Andrew Edmonds. 4. Benjamin. died April 18, 1694. 5. Joseph, died April 19, 1694. 6. William, died August 27, 1729. 7. John, lived at Providence and Scituate. 8. Thomas, died in 1722, leaving children. 9. Isaac, died 1727, lived at Providence and at Norwich, Connecticut.