Ancestors

Randall Holden

Born about 1612. Where in England he came from is disputed: the older account gives Salisbury in Wiltshire, the standard Holden genealogy argues for Salesbury in Lancashire. On 4 March 1637 he was one of the witnesses to the deed of Aquidneck from the sachems Canonicus and Miantonomi to William Coddington and his company, for forty fathoms of white beads, with ten coats and twenty hoes to be given by Miantonomi to the inhabitants then on the island, who were to remove before winter. On 7 March 1638 he was one of the men who signed the compact at Portsmouth, binding themselves and their estates to Christ as king and to "all those perfect and most absolute laws of his, given us in his holy word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby." He was elected corporal that year and granted five acres.

Then he fell out with the island. In March 1641 he was disfranchised with three others and his name struck off the roll of freemen of Newport, and the next year it was ordered that if he and four others came upon the island armed they should be disarmed and give surety for good behaviour. In January 1643 he and ten others bought Shawomet of Miantonomi for 144 fathoms of wampum, which is Warwick. Massachusetts summoned them to Boston to answer two Indian sachems, Pomham and Socononoco, over "some unjust and injurious dealing toward them by yourselves." The Warwick men refused to come, saying they were free subjects of the King of England and beyond the limits of Massachusetts, to whom they would acknowledge no subjection. Soldiers came and besieged them in a fortified house.

On 3 November 1643 he stood before the Boston court charged with heresy and sedition and was sentenced to be confined during the pleasure of the court, with the addition that if the prisoners broke gaol, or preached their heresies, or spoke against church or state, then on conviction they should die. He was sent to the prison at Salem. In March 1644 he was released and banished from both Massachusetts and Warwick, and went that same year to England with Samuel Gorton and John Greene to obtain redress. On 13 September 1646 he and John Greene landed at Boston carrying a safe conduct through Massachusetts territory from the Commissioners of Plantations, having got the vindication of the Warwick settlers' rights they went for. He was assistant of the colony in 1645 and again through the 1650s, 1660s and 1670s, sat on the Warwick town council from 1647, was frequently moderator of the town meeting and served as town treasurer. He died in the summer of 1692.

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Cite: Heirology, "Randall Holden (1612-1692)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/randall-holden-1612-1692-d6cf9b.