Having been examined by the Assembly and having given his side of the story, the Council ordered that Flounders be “committed to close prison till next Generall Court of Tryalls…
VII. The Matter of the Constables
But, the Council in Newport still had other items on its agenda that session. Specifically, the Connecticut-appointed Constables for Wickford, Samuel Eldridge and John Cole. The Council demanded of Eldridge to explain why he had interfered with Rhode Island’s Conservators of the Peace, Wilson and Bull. The Conservators had reported not only that Eldridge prevented them from “inquiring into the cause of the death of Walter House,” but also that they were told that if they succeeded in capturing the suspected murderer, Eldridge “would take him from them, and send him to Connecticut.” The Council had also been informed that Eldridge “warned” the Conservators that they must “serve on a jury in obedience to the Colony of Connecticut.” [2]
Eldridge did not deny any of these allegations. Instead, he admitted that “hee did soe act.” He said that he acted “in obedience to the Colony of Connecticut” and that the Conservators of the Peace had “nothing to do there” in Wickford. Instead of shipping Eldridge back to Connecticut without further ado, the Council ordered that he be held on “baile in the sum of twenty pounds to answer for his said acts at the next Generall Court of Tryalls in October next.”[3] If he did not post bail, he would have to “remain in durance [imprisoned] till that time.”
Bail was posted for Samuel Eldridge and he returned to Wickford, the front line of the dispute between Connecticut and Rhode Island. No doubt he was not chastened by his experience in Newport.
His fellow arrestee, John Cole, was not so fortunate. When examined by the Rhode Island authorities in Newport, Cole at first denied that he had “yett taken an engagement to any office vnder Connecticut.” But he also made his sympathies clear, stating that he “did not know how soone hee might.” Cole “alsoe did owne that hee did forewarn” the Rhode Island conservators from acting in his Majesty’s name with respect to the murder investigation. Having heard this, the Council ordered that Cole be “committed to the Serjeant till next Court meet, or alsoe to putt in bayle in twenty pounds to answear for his said contempt.”[4]
Unfortunately for him, Cole was not able to post bail. Therefore, he would remain in jail at least until the October court session. He did not take this well. Rhode Island Constable Henry Palmer, who had arrested Cole, later reported that Cole told him that his wife was very sick and that if she died, “hee would spend his whole estate but hee would bee revenged vpon him, the said Henry, for fetching him from Narragansitt” to Newport. Cole also threatened that as soon as he got home, he would “make a voyage to Connecticutt to take his engagement to the office which was proffered him.”[5]
News of the arrests of Eldredge and Cole by Rhode Island authorities quickly traveled to Connecticut. On July 21, 1670, the General Court of Connecticut assembled and learned details of Eldridge’s seizure by the Rhode Island authorities. It appointed Samuel Cheesebrough “Constable protempore” of the Narragansett country, specifically including Wickford. John Allyn, secretary of the General Court also “empowerd” and ordered Cheesebrough to take “sufficient ayd and apprehend the persons” of Rhode Island’s constables Samuel Wilson and Thomas Mumford. This was to be a “tit-for-tat” response. Once seized, the Rhode Islanders were to be brought either to Stonington or to Wickford to answer for their “contempt” of the Connecticut colony. Allyn added that it was Connecticut’s intention to let Rhode Island know that its “authority will not be baffled.” Nevertheless, he wisely cautioned the constable Cheeesebrough “to avoyd all hazard of shedding blood.”[6]
VIII. Uncommon Common Sense
As Connecticut and Rhode Island escalated their jurisdictional brinksmanship – and as the possibility of peaceful debate darkened under clouds of potential violent conflict – one man questioned whether the “King’s Province” was a prize really worth pursuing. He was a Connecticut man, John Mason, from Norwich.[7] Mason had a long history of service to his colony. In the summer of 1670, Mason acted as an intermediary between Roger Williams and the Connecticut government regarding the boundary dispute between Rhode Island and Connecticut. On August 3, 1670, he wrote to Captain John Allyn and the other commissioners appointed to deal with the Rhode Island jurisdictional “business.” He prefaced his letter with a reference to discussions he had with “Mr. [Roger] Williams” and others “of his sect.” While Mason acknowledged that he personally was “apt” to believe that the “proper right of the Narragansett country belongs to Connecticut,” he offered some practical insights. These were along the lines of the age-old caution to “be careful what you wish for – you just might get it.”
Mason observed that when it came to attempting to interpret the intent of the competing royal charters, there was “much twisting in the matter.” Indeed, the interpretation might be “doubtful and uncertain.” Furthermore, management of the dispute risked the “effusion of blood.” But his most compelling and common-sense argument was based on a cost-benefit analysis. Or, as Mason put it, “the toll may proue to be more than the grist.” If this was not clear enough, he suggested that “the wise man reckons the cost before hee builds his house.” In other words, he counseled that even if Connecticut was correct in its claim of right, the cost of enforcing its jurisdiction over the Narragansett Country would likely exceed the value of the territory it gained. As for the quality of the territory in issue, he described the land as being “barrane in the generall.” The best land was “already gone,” and “taken vp by severall men” in ffarmes and large tracts of land. What was left, he described as nothing but “rocks, swamps and sand heaps.”
Mason also questioned whether the populace of the Narraganset Country was even suitable for governing, should Connecticut prevail in its jurisdictional quest. In his view it was a territory inhabited by “a people that will come under noe government, neither ciuill or eclesiastic.” He warned the commissioners that even if they succeded, there was “noe likelyhood of any tollerable Christianlike society to be settled amongst them.” The risk to Connecticut was that great expenditures of time, money might gain them “a nothinge, nay truly, that which is worse than nothinge.”
Sensing that his colony of Connecticut might choose to pursue a litigious approach to the matter, Mason offered the example of two cases he personally knew of in England. “The one of them cost many thousand pound, and seuerall men's lives. The other had cost many hundred pound, and was not issued nor like to be when I came out of England.”
Perhaps it was Mason’s well-reasoned letter that averted an escalation of the jurisdictional dispute to outright use of arms and bloodshed. Perhaps the authorities in both Rhode Island and Connecticut decided that discretion should be the better part of valor. In any event, a sort of cold-war wariness marked the relationship of the colonies over the next few months. At times it heated up to a simmer. While cautious to avoid violence, Connecticut and its agents and constables were equally loath to concede their jurisdictional claims over Wickford and the rest of the Narragansett Country. Connecticut had long repudiated the 1663 decision of a Board of Arbitrators in London, which set the boundary at the Pawcatuck River. Connecticut’s practical motivation was to secure as much territory as possible for the colony. The Assembly in Hartford already had a well-established expansionist reputation. By 1670, Connecticut had laid claim to Long Island and parts of Massachusetts and had already absorbed the independently founded New Haven, Saybrook and Stonington lands into its governance before 1670.
Of greater concern to Rhode Island, the Connecticut colony proceeded to establish the town of Wickford and appoint officers to oversee activity there. Later, in 1674, on the eve of King Philip’s War, the Rhode Island General Assembly fortified its own claim by formally incorporating the town of King’s Towne in the Narragansett Country (present-day North Kingstown, South Kingstown, Narragansett and Exeter). It subsequently set the town’s boundaries in 1699. But it was not until 1703 that a Board of Commissioners finally upheld the arbitrators Decision of 1663. Thus, for decades the question of whether the boundary line between Connecticut and Rhode Island was the Pawcatuck River or Narragansett Bay remained in dispute. [8]
IX. The Trial Date Approaches
As summer faded into autumn, the October court session in Newport approached. Thomas Flounders remained in jail. In their efforts to prepare for trial, the authorities approached Walter House’s widow, Mary, for assistance. Governor Arnold, Captain John Cranston and William Carpenter “did issue under their hand fowre severall summonses.”[9] The summonses were directed to “certaine persones inhabiting at Narragansitt.” If timely served upon them, the summonses required the witnesses “to appear at the next Generall Court of Trialles … the 19th instant to give testimony on his Majesties behalf concerning the death of Walter House.”
The summonses were given to Mary House as “relick of Walter House, who did engage she would convey them as directed.”[10] No doubt she had a strong interest in securing the witnesses, who could assist in convicting her husband’s killer. As unorthodox as it may seem today – for the court to enlist a victim’s widow as process server – perhaps the prosecutors believed this to be an effective and diplomatic approach. At least it potentially could lessen the possibility of conflict between Rhode Island’s constables, such as Mumford and Gould, and Connecticut’s officials, who were still present in the Wickford area.
Whatever the intent of the Newport court officers, the Connecticut men had their own agenda. The records of the Court of Trials relate that a Connecticut agent, one “Capt. William Hudson of Boston, meeting with the said Mary House at Narragansitt… took said summonses from her.”[11]Nevertheless, the mill wheels of justice, though seemingly meeting opposition, continued to grind.
X. A Busy Day In Court
On October 19, 1670, the Court of Trials convened in Newport. The assemblage included Governor Arnold, Deputy Governor Easton, General Sergeant James Rogers and the colony’s Attorney General, John Sanford. The court record also identifies twelve “assistants” and other officials. A twelve-man grand jury was installed. Undoubtedly, several crimes were to be investigated during the session. The record also lists the members of several twelve-man petit juries that would hear and decide the various civil and criminal cases on the court’s docket.[12]
The jurors selected to sit on the murder case against Thomas Flounders included:
William Smiton
Peter Easton
John Pepodye
Thomas Cornall
John Almye
John Gorton
Edward Marshall
Richard Knight
Thomas Ward
Lieutenant John Albro
Ralph Earl
George Layton. [13]
Suffice it to say, for such a small colony – with such a decidedly small population – a proportionately great many people (all or mostly men) must have been on hand for the judicial proceedings.
The first trial of the day was a civil lawsuit. William Almye had filed an action against William Baulston for “unjust detaynure,” otherwise known as an eviction proceeding. The jury found for the defendant.
The next matters of substance on the docket involved three Connecticut men who had been indicted for unlawfully “exercising authority within this Jurisdiction not being Legally Called thereto.” Two of these men were the aforementioned Connecticut constables, Samuel Eldred and John Cole. The third alleged officious interloper was John Frincke of Stonington.
Frincke had been arrested by Rhode Island constable James Badcock on June 7th and released on bail the following day, pending his trial. The jury convicted Frincke. Cole did not dispute the charge against him. Eldred pleaded “not guiltye and upon much debate the Court doth sentence him to be bound to appeare at the next court and in meane time to be of good behavior, &c.” By the end of that day, all three men were released on bond and upon their promise that they would refrain from exercising any authority in the King’s Province on behalf of the Connecticut colony.[14]
After the Connecticut matters were adjudicated, the next item on the docket involved a recalcitrant – and apparently inconsistent – witness, John Porter of Pettaquamscutt, King’s Province. Porter had been summoned in the name of the governor to appear at the General Court of Trials “to give Evidence for the King Concearning the death of walter house &c.” Not having obeyed the summons to appear in person, he instead sent his “testimony written in such words as Renders [his] former and Later declaration to Clash one against the other…” The court’s concern was that if the written declaration were to “pose as Testimony in soe high Concerne [it] will Render the Court in a dangerous Condition and the matter Intracate beyond our power to Cleare it.” Accordingly, the court issued an order requiring Porter “immediately” and “without delay” and “laying aside all excuses” to appear in Newport to give his testimony “personally in open Court.” The court also appointed Edward Richmond “high constable by special order” to go immediately to Porter’s house and bring him to the court. Special provision was made to ensure that High Constable Richmond had “saficient ayd” and a “saficient boat” to accomplish the mission.[15]
Given the logistical hurdles confronting the high constable, it is doubtful that Porter ever timely appeared in court. For, that day also was the date scheduled for the murder trial of Thomas Flounders. However, any delay in bringing John Porter to the courthouse did not interfere with the commencement of Flounder’s trial. The trial itself must have been brief, considering all the other legal business transacted in the court that same day. Certainly, the record of the proceedings is brief, as was the custom of the time. There is no transcript. There is no extant list of exhibits. No testifying witnesses are identified.
We can surmise no further than the scope of mere conjecture what evidence was presented at the trial. But we do know that when Flounders first appeared in court in July, he presented his own version of the events. We know that young Lodowick Updike was an eyewitness. Perhaps he testified at the trial. But did he help or hurt Flounders’ defense? We know that Walter House’s body was exhumed and that the report of the Connecticut-appointed coroner’s jury indicated there were many more serious wounds than one would expect if Flounder’s story had any credibility. Perhaps one or more of the men who examined the corpse came to Newport and testified.
In 1670 England and its North American colonies an accused had no constitutionally guaranteed Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. There was no Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The burden of proof was not so much on the prosecution to prove its case “beyond a reasonable doubt” as upon the defendant to explain away the allegation. Without a transcript we can imagine, but never really know, what it was like for Thomas Flounders to stand in the dock while his trial unfolded before him.
The record of the trial court gives us only this slimmest of summaries:
“Thomas Flounders being Indicted for felonioues murdering walter house Inhabetant in the Kings province on the 11 day of July 1670 by severall strockes or blowers &c and being Called before the Court and his Indictment Read before him and being asked whether guilty or not guiltye plead not guiltye and puts himselfe upon the Triall of god and the Country Juryes verdict guiltye of manslaughter.”[16]
The decision of the jury was unanimous. At first blush it might seem that Thomas Flounders had won a small, but important, victory. Although he was charged with murder, he was found guilty of the lesser offense of manslaughter. In modern times this outcome might have saved his life. But that was not the case in 1670.
In its earliest years, the General Court of Electors of the fledgling colony of Rhode Island met in Portsmouth and promulgated the “Acts and Orders of 1647.” In doing so, they consciously adopted the existing common law of England. The Acts and Orders specifically addressed such crimes as treason, murder and manslaughter (as well as whore-mongering, adultery and fornication). The crime of manslaughter was defined as “the killing of a man feloniously, to wit, with a man’s will but without malice-fore-thought.” For this crime of manslaughter, the law’s prescribed punishment was “death.” [17]
And so, it was ‘unanimously” adjudged that Flounders “be hanged until his body be dead.” The sentence was to be carried “executed” on Wednesday, November 2, 1670 between the hours of “nine in the morning and two in the afternoon.”[18]
A week later, the General Assembly of Rhode Island re-convened in Newport. There was much business on its agenda, including receipt of a letter from the Connecticut government in Hartford, dated October 18, 1670 – the day before Flounders’ trial, conviction and sentencing. Once again, the Connecticut authorities proclaimed their jurisdiction over the Narragansett Country. Once again, they complained about Rhode Island’s officers “entering into our jurisdiction and seizing our officers” who, Connecticut asserted, were simply “officiating [in] their respective places by our order.” The letter concluded with the following complaint:
“We haue only to add (to cleare our hands from blood) that we vnderstand that one Flounders that hath committed murther (as is alleged) within our jurisdiction and is fled, is with you. Our hue and cry is out for him, and we desire you would take effectuall and speedy course that he be safely convaied into our jurisdiction and be deliuered to some officer that may conuey him to be secured to a legall tryall; where he ought to be tried, which we judge to be but a neighborly duty.[19]
Needless to say, by the time Connecticut’s letter arrived, the accused prisoner already was being held securely in a Newport jail. The jury verdict finding Flounder guilty of manslaughter had already been rendered in a Rhode Island court. A Rhode Island judge had imposed the death penalty. The “legall tryall” sought by Connecticut had been fully preempted by her sister colony. Connecticut’s expressed concerns were moot.
XI. Aftermath
On October 26, 1670, the Rhode Island assembly hammered the final legal nail into Flounders’ coffin – and in Connecticut’s plea. There would be no transfer of the prisoner to Connecticut (even if that would have saved his neck). There would be no appeal. There would be no reprieve. The General Assembly’s first item of business that day was to declare:
Whereas in our body of lawes, in that part concearning the administration of justice, there is a passage concearning such that are found guilty of death, to be reprieved vntil the next Court: this Assembly doe declare, for preventing mistakes and disputes about the matter, that the intent of that clause is only to give liberty in such case to the judges in the Court of Trialles for to reprieve if they see cause; but not to injoyne them soe to do, vnless they see reason.[20]
The Court of Trials saw no reason to grant a reprieve. Thus, Thomas Flounders’ fate was sealed. His rendezvous with death remained scheduled for November 2, 1670.
In the meantime, there were some important housekeeping matters that required the General Assembly’s attention. First, the Assembly was cognizant of English statutory law by which the estate of a condemned man would be “forfitted vnto our Soveraigne Lord, the King.” It also believed that the royal grant to the Colony of Rhode Island gave it “the free disposall of all such fines and forfeitures.” Therefore, it ordered that all of Flounders’ estate be seized by the General Treasurer, John Coggeshall. The estate would then be disposed of by the Assembly “for defraying the charges that hath necessarily arisen in and about the apprehending, imprisoning, trying and executing the said Thomas Flunders, alias Flounders.”[21]
This was, in fact, done. On January 30, 1671, the governor and magistrates of the colony met in Newport. The specific purpose of the meeting was to address and allow “the severall debts due from the Collony to particular persons.” Many of these debts related to the boundary dispute between Connecticut and Rhode Island, including the expenses incurred for lodging, boats, horses and other items necessary for the diplomatic missions. Other debts were specific to the Flounders/House murder case. For example, Nathaniel Dickens was ‘allowed” four shillings for his service to the colony in the matter. This was “to be paid out of the Thomas Flounders estate.” A Sergeant Rogers was to be reimbursed from the estate for costs he incurred in the amount of thirty shillings (approximately $415 in 2023 U.S. currency).[22] In all likelihood, he was Flounders jailer. Similarly, John Coggeshall was to be paid ten shillings from the estate. [23]
But, what about the widows? There is no record of any money from Flounders’ estate ever being paid to Mary House.
As to Sarah Flounders, action on her behalf was initiated quickly, even before the execution date. Her father, John Greene, of Potowomut and Edward Greenman of Newport, who was a Deputy to the General Assembly, petitioned the Assembly on her behalf. The Assembly was receptive, “commiserating the solitary and poore estate and condition of Sarah, the late wife of the forenamed … Flounders, give all the remainder of the said estate unto the said poore widow, for the reliefe and comfort of her and her poore infant… and farther doe order, that… she shall have all the bedding and household stuffe, and one cow and one hogge, together with the corne ... and the remainder of the rest afterward.”[24]
The name and age of Sarah’s “poore infant,” once known, has been lost to history. It may well be that the child did not long survive.
Sarah’s sad story did not end with the death of her husband Thomas or the loss of her infant child. Within two years of the trial, Sarah remarried. Her new husband was a Pettaquamscutt farmer named Joshua Tefft. In 1672 Sarah gave birth to their son, Peter Tefft. The child survived, but within two days Sarah died – probably of childbirth fever. She was buried in Warwick. In January, 1676, in the midst of King Philip’s War, her widowed second husband, Joshua, was wounded and captured by the Providence militia while fighting alongside a band of Canonchet’s Narragansett forces. Tefft was tried by court-martial for high treason, convicted and then hanged, drawn and quartered in Wickford.[25]
As for Thomas Flounders, he met his fate, on time and as decreed. He was hanged in Newport on November 2, 1670. His grave is not listed in the database of Rhode Island Historic Cemeteries.[26] He may have been interred in one of Newport’s burial grounds, such as the Common Burial Ground, without a headstone or, at best, an uninscribed stone to mark his grave.
Finally, the ill-fated Thomas Flounders, has his own special, if not infamous, place in Rhode Island history. He is remembered as the very first person to be prosecuted and hanged for a crime committed within what are now the settled boundaries of Rhode Island.[27] Forty-seven others followed, including pirates (32), murderers (9) and assorted other felons. The last execution in Rhode Island was in 1845, when John Gordon, an Irish Catholic, was hanged for the murder of industrialist Amasa Sprague. The trial and execution took place during a time of anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic hysteria. The likely miscarriage of justice resulting in his execution was a motivating factor in Rhode Island’s abolishment of the death penalty in 1852.[28]
With respect to the boundary dispute between Connecticut and Rhode Island, one would think that the 1664 decree issuing from King Charles himself would have ended the matter. But it did not. Fortunately, the dispute between the two colonies, though tense, never erupted into armed conflict or partisan bloodshed.
Arguably, the events surrounding the death of Walter House and the apprehension and trial of Thomas Flounders mark the high water mark of this colonial-era territorial disagreement. Perhaps the observations and counselling of John Mason convinced the leaders of Connecticut that the cost of the “toll” exceeded the value of the “grist.” Eventually, in 1728, the dispute concerning the border between Westerly, Rhode Island and Stonington, Connecticut was settled, with the Pawcatuck River being the agreed upon dividing line, at least that portion nearest the sea. But it was not until 1746 that Connecticut finally accepted the boundary terms as laid out in Rhode Island’s royal charter.[29]
The historical “what if” question presented by the events of 1670 is this: What if Thomas Flounders turned himself in to the Connecticut authorities instead of being brought to those sitting in Newport, Rhode Island? Thomas Flounders most likely would have been tried and hanged in Connecticut following conviction by a Connecticut jury. But that is not the only “what if.”
What if the “hue and cry” arising from Walter House’s brutal death had resulted in Thomas being apprehended and taken into custody by the Connecticut constables while they were attempting to exercise their authority in Wickford? What if Governor Arnold and his deputies and General Assembly had acquiesced to the demands of the Connecticut government and turned Flounders over to that other colony’s jurisdiction? What if Connecticut set up its court in Wickford and installed its judges and magistrates there? What if the counsel of calmer and wiser men like John Mason had been in vain? What if Rhode Island chose forbearance instead of resistance? Would any of these have resulted in sufficient precedent by which Connecticut could declare itself the de facto jurisdictional master of the Narragansett Country?
What if? – By asking these questions and by formulating potential answers to them, we can perhaps see how easily history could have turned. The Connecticut flag might fly today over the village of Wickford and over all of what was once known as the King’s Province in the Narragansett Country. Rhode Island’s own Washington County, comprising roughly one-third of the state’s land mass, might be known today as Washington County, Connecticut. The loss of so much land, so much population and so much jurisdiction may have proven fatal to the long-term survival of the smallest colony – indeed there might never have been a “State” of Rhode Island. And so, the events surrounding and arising from the 1670 murder in Wickford can be seen as having significant and complex long-term consequences.
For us today, trying to discern how seemingly small events of the past can actually trigger larger historic developments, another question remains. How do our own actions on what may seem to start out as an ordinary day potentially have significant impact on the larger world? How does what we do today affect our tomorrows? Perhaps these are questions to ask ourselves the next time we walk into a local shop on a sunny summer’s day.
[1] Ibid.
[2] Ibid
[3] Ibid at pp. 342-344.
[4] Ibid. at p. 343.
[5] Ibid. The colonial records also document that Henry Palmer’s report was corroborated, at least in part, by one William Moore.
[6] Ibid at pp. 347-348.
[7] John Mason was a leading citizen of the Connecticut Colony. Born in England, he emigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony and thence to Connecticut. He served as a military officer during the Pequot War, was a former Deputy Governor of the colony and was founder of the town of Norwich. He passed away in 1672. See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mason_(c._1600%E2%80%931672)#:~:text=John%20Mason%20(October%201600%20%E2%80%93%20January,known%20as%20the%20Mystic%20Massacre.
[8] “Rhode Island Boundaries 1636-1936,” John Hutchins Cady, Rhode Island Tercentenary Commission, Rhode Island State Planning Board, 1936 at pp 10-13.
[9] Records of the Court of Trialls. at p. 351.
[10] Ibid. According to Black’s, supra, at p. 1404, a relick, or more properly, “relict” is defined as a “surviving spouse, esp., a widow.”
[11] Records of the Colony of Rhode Island at p. 351.
[12] Ibid at pp. 94-109.
[13] Ibid at p. 97. Five other juries were empaneled for the October 19th session. Several men, but by no means all, served on more than one jury that day.
[14] Ibid at pp. 96-97.
[15] Records of the Court of Trials at p. 100.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Acts and Orders of 1647, General Court of Electors, held at Portsmouth 19, 20 and 21 May, 1647 at p. 4. Emphasis supplied.
[18] Record of the Court of Trialls, at p. 98.
[19] Records of the Colony, pp.355-57.
[20] Ibid, at pp. 356-57.
[21] Ibid. at pp 363-64.
[22] See, Calculator, supra.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Joshua Tefft was interrogated before Roger Williams in Providence shortly after his capture. His story was recorded by Williams in a letter to Massachusetts Bay Colony’s Governor Leverett, dated January 14, 1676. See “The Complete Writings of Roger Williams” Vol. 6, (Wipf &Stock, Eugene, Oregon, 2007) at pp. 379-84. Tefft’s activity during the Great Swamp massacre and his trial and execution were documented by Captain James Oliver of Massachusetts in a letter. See, George Madison Bodge, “Soldiers in King Philip’s War,” (Boston, 1906) at pp. 174-75.
[26] See, www.rihistoriccemeteries.org.
[27] http://smallstatebighistory.com/list-of-executions-in-rhode-island-1670-to-1845/
[28] Ibid.
[29] https://seewesterly.com/the-pawcatuck-river-and-the-colonial-border-conflict/#_ftn1