HUSSEY-MORGAN (New Bedford families). These families, while not among those early here, are of approximately a hundred years’ standing in this community, and with their allied connections are among the very respectable and wealthy families of the locality, the heads of two of these families here considered being the late George Hussey and Charles Wain […]
Since the early settlement of Newport and Portsmouth, R. I., shortly after 1638, the Grinnells have been identified with Rhode Island and Massachusetts history, the earlier generations living largely in the towns of Newport county, R. I., and for the past hundred and more years branches of this southern Rhode Island family have been representative of the best citizenship in the old Massachusetts town of New Bedford. At New Bedford lived Capt. Cornelius Grinnell, a patriot of the Revolution, and long engaged in the merchant service, who married into the old historic Howland family, and one of whose sons, Joseph Grinnell, for almost a decade represented the New Bedford district in the United States Congress, and was long prominent as a merchant and manufacturer and banker of the town; and there lived the late Lawrence Grinnell, father of the late Frederick Grinnell, who so long was at the head of the Providence Steam and Gas Pipe Company and the General Eire Extinguisher Company, a man of genius in mechanical lines, whose inventions gave him distinction, and one of whose sons, Russell Grinnell, is at this time vice president of the General Fire Extinguisher Company. It is with this New Bedford branch of the Grinnell family this article deals.
Descendants of William Eddy. William Eddye, A. M., vicar of the Church of St. Dunstan in the town of Cranbrook, County of Kent, England, is the English ancestor of the Eddy family here treated. He was a native of Bristol, educated in Trinity College, Cambridge, England, and was vicar of Cranbrook from 1589 to 1616. He married (first) Nov. 20, 1587, Mary Fosten, who died in July, 1611, and he married (second), in 1614, Elizabeth Taylor, a widow. He died Nov. 23, 1616.
Descendants of William Eddy in New Bedford, Massachusetts Read More »
The Rodman family was early settled in Massachusetts. The first of the name of whom there is authentic record was John Rodman, who died on the island of Barbadoes some time between Sept. 16 and Dec. 4, 1686. Thomas Rodman, son of John, born Dec. 26, 1640, came to Newport, R. I, from the island of Barbadoes in 1675, with William Edmundson, a “Friend,” who was on a religious visit to Barbadoes. He (Thomas) was a prominent member of the Society of Friends, and was clerk of the monthly, quarterly and yearly meetings for thirty years. He was also the first clerk of the New England Yearly Meeting, which position he held until 1718, He was an eminent physician and surgeon. His death occurred Jan. 11, 1728.
At New Bedford, this Commonwealth, a point so long famous the world round for its whaling industry, a business carried on to an extent and success that made it the wealthiest place in proportion to its population of any point in New England, and a city that has since been hardly less conspicuous as a cotton manufacturing point, there still reside representatives of the Rotch family; here where, since the middle of the eighteenth century, have lived seven or eight generations of Rotches, than whom as a family perhaps no other has had greater influence in developing New Bedford’s character and prosperity and shaping its history.
Ancestors of William J. Rotch of New Bedford, MA Read More »
ASHLEY (New Bedford family). Among the first settlers of Rochester, Mass., and their families appear the names of Joseph Ashley and his wife Elizabeth and their children. There had settled at Springfield as early as 1639 Robert Ashley; and from the fact that many of the early settlers of Springfield were drawn from Roxbury by
