Capt. James Newton
James Newton was born about 1654, the son of Thomas Newton and his second wife, Joan Smith. His age at death, eighty five in February 1739, is the only guide to his birth. His parents were probably then living on Long Island under Dutch rule. In 1650 his father had broken out of the Fairfield prison while facing a capital charge and taken refuge with the Dutch. In 1653 his father was the schout, or sheriff, of Middelburgh on Long Island, and in 1656 he bought land there.
His mother was the eldest daughter of Richard Smith, who had built the first English house in the Narragansett country of Rhode Island. She died while James was still young, before her father made his will. James grew up with a sister, Abigail, and two brothers, Israel and Thomas. Abigail later married her cousin Lodowick Updike, and Thomas went to London.
By about 1680 James was at Fairfield, his father's old town, and there he married Mary Hubbell, a daughter of Sergt. Richard Hubbell. Their first child, Dorothy, was born on 22 March 1681. On 20 December 1682 the town granted him three acres. His father died before 28 May 1683. On that day James went to court as attorney for his brother Israel, over "the lands and privledges of his father Thomas Newton deceased".
He settled into the life of the town. In 1686 he was constable of Fairfield, the town officer who kept the peace and served its warrants. On 18 March 1689/90 he was made a freeman of the colony, which gave him a vote in its elections. On 30 December 1694 he was admitted to full communion in the Fairfield church, and his wife followed on 8 March 1695/6. A month later, on 6 April 1696, he sold his homelot at Greens Farms.
By 1703 the family had moved to Kingstown, Rhode Island. On 12 July 1703 the town chose him to lay out highways. The Newton brothers held land on Boston Neck there through the estate of their grandfather Richard Smith, by a deed from their cousin Lodowick Updike dated 25 February 1702. Israel, by then of Rochester in the King's Province, later gave the Boston Neck farm to "my Brother, James Newton". The witness Alexander Huling swore to that deed on 2 September 1717.
In 1713 James went west again, to the new town of Colchester in New London County, Connecticut. He signed as one of its proprietors on 28 April 1713. He was a selectman of Colchester from 1713 to 1726, and its deputy to the General Assembly at Hartford and New Haven from 1713 to 1716. In May 1716 the Assembly commissioned him captain of the first company, or trainband, in Colchester. A trainband was the town's militia company, and its captain was the senior military officer of the place. He joined the Colchester church, on a date the records do not give.
His children married into the towns around him. Alice married Robert Ransom of Colchester about 1708. Ann married Jonathan Kellogg in 1710 or 1711. Mary married Jonathan Welles in 1717, and Abigail married Lieut. Azariah Loomis in 1723. Dorothy married a Crawford.
His first wife died at some date after 1699. On 1 January 1734/5 he married the widow Mary Barnard. She had been born a White and had already buried two husbands, Noah Wells and Francis Barnard. They had no children. He died on 9 February 1739, aged eighty five, and was buried in the Colchester Burying Ground under a table tomb. His widow married for the fourth time on 7 June 1742, to Deacon John White.
Children
Sources
If Capt. James Newton is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Capt. James Newton (1654-1739)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/capt-james-newton-1654-1739-0e33c0.