Samuel Wilbore

Samuel Wilbore (c. 1595–1656) was one of the founding settlers of Portsmouth in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

Soon after settling in Portsmouth, Wilbore repudiated the petition in support of Wheelwright and was thus permitted to return to the Massachusetts colony.

Wilbore married Ann Smith in January 1620 in Sible Hedingham, and all five of their children were baptized there between 1622 and 1631,[2] but their son Arthur died in infancy in England.

He and many other followers were disarmed on 20 November 1637 when they were ordered to deliver up all guns, pistols, swords, powder, and shot because the "opinions and revelations of Mr. Wheelwright and Mrs. Hutchinson have seduced and led into dangerous errors many of the people here in New England.

"[3] Scores of the followers of Wheelwright and Hutchinson were ordered out of the Massachusetts colony, but a group of them signed the Portsmouth Compact on 7 March 1638 before leaving Boston, agreeing to form a non-sectarian government that was Christian in character.

[3] Their daughter Abigail married Caleb Arnold, the son of colonial governor Benedict Arnold; their daughter Hannah married Latham Clarke, the son of colonial President Jeremy Clarke and his wife Frances Latham.

[8] Notable descendants of Samuel Wilbore include Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry,[9] American hero of the Great Lakes during the War of 1812; his younger brother Commodore Matthew C. Perry,[9] who compelled the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854; and Stephen Arnold Douglas[10] who debated Abraham Lincoln in 1858 before a senate race and later lost to him in the 1860 presidential election.