William Freeborn (settler)

In Portsmouth, Freeborn was active in a number of minor civic roles, such as constable, member of the petit jury, and overseer of the poor, and also held the position of Deputy to the General Court for a year.

[2] They made the voyage aboard the ship Francis, and upon their arrival first settled at Roxbury, where Freeborn was admitted to the church that year, and where he became a freeman in early September.

[3] By 1637, Freeborn was in Boston, when a major theological rift arose in the colony, called the Antinomian Controversy, and he became attracted to the preachings of the dissident ministers John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson.

"[4] Scores of the followers of Wheelwright and Hutchinson were ordered out of the Massachusetts colony, but before leaving, a group of them, including Freeborn, signed what is sometimes called the Portsmouth Compact, establishing a non-sectarian civil government upon the universal consent of the inhabitants, with a Christian focus.

[5] Planning initially to settle in New Netherland, the group was persuaded by Roger Williams to purchase some land of the Indians on the Narragansett Bay.