John Peckham
John Peckham was admitted an inhabitant of Aquidneck on 20 May 1638. Aquidneck is the island in Narragansett Bay on which Portsmouth and Newport were founded. He was made a freeman on 16 March 1641. Where in England he came from is not known.
He was a Baptist. In 1648 he was one of the ten men in full communion of the first Baptist church at Newport.
His first wife was Mary Clarke. Through her he was a brother-in-law of Dr. John Clarke. She was dead by 30 May 1651, when a record spoke of "land granted to Mary Clarke now deceased, sometime the wife of John Peckham".
His second wife, Eleanor, was baptized at the Newport Baptist church in 1648. Their children included Stephen, James, Clement, Rebecca, Deborah, Phoebe, Elizabeth, Susanna and Sarah. Rebecca married John Spooner of Dartmouth. Stephen moved to Dartmouth about 1686.
He took shares in the land purchases of the colony: on the Petaquamscut, at Westerly and at East Greenwich. He also held land at Little Compton and at Dartmouth.
He died about 1681. His will had only two witnesses, John Clark and Henry Tew, and in 1700 it was listed among wills of that kind. A stone marked "I. P." at Middletown is supposed to mark his grave.
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Cite: Heirology, "John Peckham (d. 1681)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-peckham-1681-1e8c82.