Pardon Tillinghast

While still in England, Pardon Tillinghast may have served as a soldier under Oliver Cromwell and participated in the battle of Marston Moor.

[4] Tillinghast had little estate when he came to New England, and in 1650 he was taxed three shillings and four pence, a fairly low amount compared to other inhabitants.

In 1680 he was granted 20 square feet "for building a storehouse with privilege of a wharf, over against his dwelling house.

[8] Subsequently, trade opened between Providence and other partners, from nearby colonies to as far as the West Indies and Europe.

[9] At Some point in his life, Tillinghast became an avid Baptist, and in October 1674 he and Stephen Harding were arrested in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and charged with visiting the Puritan town of Mendon in order to "Seduce People to their corrupt opinions.

In 1700 at his own expense, he built the first meeting house for his congregation, described as a "rude affair" in the shape of a hay cap with a fireplace in the middle with the smoke escaping from a hole in the roof.

The Tillingast Family Association expert in the early generations, Wayne Tillinghast, has spent years researching original documents in Rhode Island and has not found any proof that Sarah survived beyond 1671.

[19] One of Joseph's descendants by a second marriage was writer Richard Henry Dana Jr. Tillinghast's granddaughter Mary, daughter of son John, married Richard Ward who served briefly as the Deputy Governor of the Rhode Island colony, then served a one-year term as governor.

[20] Their son, Samuel Ward served several terms as governor of the colony and became one of Rhode Island's two delegates to the Continental Congress.

[21] Other notable descendants of Pardon Tillinghast include Nicholas Brown Jr., for whom Brown University is named, and Stephen Arnold Douglas who engaged Abraham Lincoln in a series of famed debates in 1858 prior to a Senate race, then later lost to him in the 1860 presidential election.