Stukely Westcott

Stukely Westcott (1592 – 12 January 1677)[1] was one of the founding settlers of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and one of the original members of the first Baptist Church in America, established by Roger Williams in 1638.

[1][2] He was most active in colonial affairs from 1650 to 1660 when he was a commissioner, surveyor of highways, and the keeper of a house of entertainment.

[1][3] The place of origin of the Westcott family appears to center around the town of Affton in county Devon, England.

[5][6] The baptisms of two of Stukely Westcott's children were also recorded in Yeovil, daughter Damaris in 1620/21 and son Samuel in 1622/23.

[8] Westcott first settled in the town of Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony where he was received as an inhabitant and made a freeman in 1636.

[8] Tensions quickly arose with the local authorities, however, and he was given license to depart Salem in March 1638, along with several others, with the provision that he would be summoned if not gone by a court date in May.

[9] He lived in Warwick for most of the remainder of his life until the events of King Philip's War compelled him to move across the Narragansett Bay.

[12][5] He died in 1686. Notable descendants of Westcott through his daughter Damaris (wife of Governor Benedict Arnold) include great-great-grandson Benedict Arnold,[13] the general during the American Revolutionary War who initially was a great leader, but who is now remembered for his treason and betrayal of his homeland and fellow American soldiers.

Another descendant was Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry,[14] American hero of the Great Lakes during the War of 1812.

His younger brother Commodore Matthew C. Perry[14] was sent by President Millard Fillmore to compel the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854.

Stephen Arnold Douglas[15] debated Abraham Lincoln in 1858 before a senate race and later lost to him in the 1860 presidential election.