General Notes

Sources: [1] John Osborne Austin, Ed., The Genealogical Dictionary of  Rhode Island, [Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1978], pp. 67,  472; (2) Eben Putnam, The Holden Genealogy, (1923). Marshall and Corp. at Portsmouth, RI, 1638; Assistant, 1647 et seq.,  Capt. 1664; Deputy 1666-86. From: THE HOLDEN GENEALOGY, by Eben Putnam, Volume I, Boston, 1923. Pages 382-389 Randall Holden, who himself wrote his name Howldon, is said to have come  from Salisbury. This statement is traced back to 1800, but its origin is  not known. His associate, John Greene, with whose descendants the  descendants of Randall Holden intermarried, came from Salisbury in  Wiltshire, and this coincidence is probably the origin of the supposition  that the Salisbury whence came Randall Holden was in that county.  However, no trace of Randall Holden is found there. Randall Holden first appears in New England as one of the signers of a  covenant by which the subscribers incorporated themselves into a body  politic, with the intention of planning a settlement beyond the limits of  Massachusetts Bay Colony. This covenant is dated ì7th day of the first  month 1638", and it is supposed was entered into at Boston. Holdenís name  is the last of the original signers. The leaders of the party, which Mr. Howeard M. Chapin says consisted  certainly of William Coddington, William Hutchinson, John Clark, and  Randall Holden (Documentary History of Rhode Island), determined to  purchase Aquidneck, Rhode Island.  Through the mediation of Roger  Williams, a deed was procured from the Indian Sachems Canonicus and  Miantinomo, 24 March, 1637-8. To the signatures of the Indians Randall  Holden was a witness. As Holden was a man without family it is likely that he was one of the  first of the purchasers to settle upon the island. Several families had  gone thither soon after the purchase. The first meeting of the  proprietors was held 13 May, 1638, and the name of Holden appears among  those present. Gorton, driven from Plymouth, probably arrived on the  island in December, 1638. He became at once a factor in the new  settlement and, joining with Mrs. Hutchinson, effected a coup díetat,,  bringing about the substitution of the Hutchinson faction for that of  Coddingtonís which controlled affairs to the time of the April meeting,  1639. Coddington and many of his party seceded and settled at Newport,  leaving the others in possession of Pocasset, or Portsmouth as it soon  became called. Holdenís name appears neither upon the list of those who  subscribed the compact of 30 April, 1639 adherents of Groton and  Hutchinson, nor on the list of those who, adhering to Coddington, retired  to New port. He remained at Pocasset, and because of what followed and his later close connection with Gorton there can be but  little doubt he was one of the men active in ousting Coddington from  office. The first business of the General Court held at Newport, 12 March,  1639-40, was the acceptance of Mr. William Hutchinson and several others,  including Randall Holden, who "desired to be reunited to this body and  readily embraced by us". Many freemen were admitted and officres were  elected, and the reunion of the two settlements effected. At the General  Court of Election held the following year, 16, and 17 March, 1641, the  first business was the disfranchisement of Richard Carder, Randall  Holden, Sampson Shatton, and Robert Potter. It was also ordered that "if  John Weeks, Randall Holden, Richard Carder, Sampson Shotton, or Robert  Porter shall come upon the island armed, they shall be by the constable  disarmed and carried before the magistrate and there find sureties for  their good behavior." Holden was undoubtedly one of the party of Gorton, who also had been  forced to leave Aquidneck, who applied for admission as townsmen of  Providence, prior to 25 May, 1641. This was refused, but they were  permitted to make their residence in that part called Pawtuxet, where  they joined forces with Francis Weston and John Greene, opponents to the  faction then in power. Randall Holden is next mentioned 15 Nov. 1641, as  participating in the rescue of Westonís cattle from attachment for debt.  (Massachusetts Archives 2:20). Massachusetts being appealed to by many of  Providence, to lend assistance in enforcing the law, refused, unless the  inhabitants should submit wholly to its jurisdiction. Gorton and his  party had settled on land belonging to Robert Coles, for which on 10 Jan,  1641-2, Gorton received from Coles a deed. There they began to build but  soon found themselves in trouble with William Arnold, who with others now  subjected himself to the jurisdiction of Massachusetts and, by obtaining  the submission of two minor Sachems, Pumhuam and Socononoco, brought the  Gorton party in conflict with that colony. In November, 1642, the Gorton  party and the others removed to a tract of land south of Pawtuxet,  without the bounds of Providence and beyond the territory which had  passed under Massachusetts jurisdiction by the submission of its inhabitants. Here they bought of Miantinomo,  Shawomet, a territory of great extent, nearly one hundred square miles,  embracing what later was known as Warwick, and extending Westerly to the  Connecticut line. Settling there they sent a letter to the Massachusetts  authorities, signed by twelve settlers, the second to sign being Randall Holden. This letter is dated  20 Nov ., 1642. The deed from Miantinomo was obtained 12 Jan 1642-3, the  first named of the twelve grantees being Randall Holden. The following  September Holden signed a long, rambling letter address to the "honoured  Idol Generall, now set up in the Massachusetts" subscribing it "the joynt act, not of the Court  Generall, but of the peculiar fellowship, now abiding upon Mshawomet. Massachusetts now determined to exert her authority. Commissioners with a  small military force were sent to hear the charges made against Groton  and others. In October, the women and children having been sent away,  after a stout resistance by the men of the party who held the chief  building in the settlement, much powder being burned and many threats  made, with injury to none, the stronger party obtained the surrender of  Gorton and his friends, who were taken rather ignominiously prisoners to  Boston. This was a high handed proceeding, not entirely justified by what  we are now able to learn of the circumstances. Eight of the ten prisoners were sentenced to be confined, each in a  different town, there to be set to work, and forbidden to agitate their  opinions, under threat of death. Randall Holden was sent to Salem. This  was 17, Oct. 1643, less than a fortnight after their surrender at  Shawomet. From a letter of Downing to Winthrop, dated at Salem, 6 Dec.,  1643, it appears Holden did not heed the order of the Court. On his  release in the following March, by order dated 7 Jan 1643-4, he was  forbidden to return within the jurisdiction of Massachusetts under  penalty of death. Many years later, in December, 1678, when in England with John Greene,  Holden, in his petition to the King, described his experiences during  this term of imprisonment: "Your petitioners have been inhabitants in the towne of Warwick about 35  years. But before we were settled severall misunderstandings began to  arise between the Colony of the Massachusetts and the petitioners, about  matters in religion. For although that tract of land on which we sett  downe was alowed and declared by themselves to be without their patnet  line, yet on a suddaine, we were seized on by soldiers sent from that  Government, and many of us were tried for our lives by their arbitrary  proceedings, without either jury or accusers, and saved by the majority  of two voates onely; after which imprisoned and confined halfe a year in  the winter season, with iron both on our leggs, and forced to worke for  our subsistence; then banished from thence, and also from our owne  habitations, neer to return againe.....That about the year 1644 your  petitioners came to England to make our compalint to your royall father  of ever blessed memory, and to obtaine satisfaction for our great losse  and damages......But our dear and native country ws involved in such  unnaturall broyels and disturanceds, that our designes were frustrated,  and we returned home." During the period of the confinement of the leaders in Massachusetts the  settlement of Chawomet was abandoned, but the buildings were still  standing on their return, as Gorton mentions they stayed one night there  before passing over to Aquidneck where their families were. Gorton as well as Holden visited England in 1644. Holden returned first,  having a safe conduct through Massachusetts given by order of the Earl of  Warwick. Gorton returned in May, 1648. Holden and Greene returned from England in September, 1646, and repaired  to Shawomet, which was now a part of the colony of Providence  Plantations, for which Roger Williams had obtained a charter under date  of 14 March, 1643-4. Williams had gone to England for that purpose in  Feburary of the preceding year, and returned in September, 1644, with the charter. Soon after the return of the prisoners from Boston in the early spring of  1644, the Massachusetts authorities had caused a strong palisaded house  to be erected at Shawomet. This was done on the petition of Pumham and  Sacanonoco, the Indian Sachems who had brought the charges again Groton  and his company. The site of this fortified place may still be seen on  the east side of the Cove, on the point commanding the entrance, and just north of the present railroad bridge  connecting Warwick Neck with Oakland Beach, and was formerly the property  of John Holden who owned the so-called Foster place. Chapin says that Gorton and Holden went to England in the autumn of 1645,  prior to November 20, 1645, prior to November 20, and obtained from the  Parliamentary Commissioners, 15 May, 1646, an order to Massachuetss to  permit the return of the Warwick settlers and the restoration of their  lands. In Otctober of that year the former Warwick settlers were still  living on Aquidneck, although the preceding year they were represented in  the new charter government, by Samuel Gorton, who was acting as  commissioner in August 1645. The first meeting held at Warwick, after the return of the settlers, was  on 1 May, 1647. On 19 May, Holden, Gorton and others were sent as  commissioners to represent the town in the General Assembly, and at that  session it was voted ìthat Warwick should have the same privilege as  Portsmouth. Randall Holden was a member of the town council in 1647, and frequently  moderator of town meetings. At the town meeting of 5 June, 1648, he was  elected treasurer, and from this time, for many years, he was one of the  most important and active of the citizens of the town. He was sent to  Plymouth in 1648 to inform the Commissioners of the United Colonies regarding an order the  town had received from the state of England. He was chosen assistant in  1646, and for nine times commissioner in the period 1652 and 1663  inclusive, and served as deputy ten years, between 1666 to 1685  inclusive. Hardly a year passed by he was the representative, one way or another, of the town in the Colony  government. In 1665 he was one of those named by the Royal Commissioners as justices  of the peace for the Kingís Province, to werve until the following May  when the Governor, Deputy Governor and Assistants were to assume office  as such. With the rest of the inhabitants of Warwick he was forced to leave his  home when the town was abandoned in March, 1676, succeding which the  Indian enemy destroyed all but one of the buildings. He returned with the  others, and almost immediately was sent to England by the town, soon  after November, 1677 to protect the townís claim to former purchases from  the Indians. John Greene again accompanied him. They returned early in  1678. Holden was certainly in England from July, 1678 to January 1678-9.  In 1681 he was chosen moderator. In 1683 he was one of a committee to draft a letter to the King, and in  1687-1688 was justice of the Court of Common Pleas. It was after his return from England in 1646 that Randall Holden married.  He took to wife Frances Dugan, the step-daughter of Jeremiah Clarke, one  of the most important men of the Newport community. In giving testimony, 24 June 1669, regarding the original grant of  Dyterís Island, Holden gave his age as 57 years or thereabouts. This  would make him born about 1612, and 80 years old at the time of his  death, 23 August 1692. Randall Holden settled in what is now known as Old Warwick. His house  built after his return to the devastated town, in 1677, was in the  present Main Street, and a sketch drawn from memory by Mrs. John W.  Greene, is reproduced in Fullerís 'History of Warwick'. Not only did Randall Holden have his proportion of lands in Old Warwick  on the Neck, part of which long remained in the family, but he  participated int he various divisions of common lands among the  proprietors. Thus he, and later his representatives, obtained land at  Cowesit, in Coventry, and in other sections of the town. He himself  obtained one of the five Wecochaconet farms of four hundred acres, his  being the most northerly, and bounding on the Pawtuxet River, including a  large part of what later become known as Natick. He also became possessed by purchase of lands in the Kingís Province, and  acted as agent for others in procuring grands of lands from the Indians. His qualifications, both as leader of men and possessor of landed and  other estate, were equal to any in the community in which he lived.

Randall was a prominate land owner bought land from indians. In a history of Warwick Rhode Island there is a schetec of his last home. His descendent leniece Arnold watson hase the records of randall Holden and his wife frances dungan and the schetch of his home. His wife Frances Dungans motheer family The Lathams of London england were welthy and will be given in the english records of Leniece arnold watson. [Arnold.FTW]

Randall was a prominate land owner bought land from indians. In a history of Warwick Rhode Island there is a schetec of his last home. His descendent leniece Arnold watson hase the records of randall Holden and his wife frances dungan and the schetch of his home. His wife Frances Dungans motheer family The Lathams of London england were welthy and will be given in the english records of Leniece arnold watson. [Arnold.FTW]

Randall was a prominate land owner bought land from indians. In a history of Warwick Rhode Island there is a schetec of his last home. His descendent leniece Arnold watson hase the records of randall Holden and his wife frances dungan and the schetch of his home. His wife Frances Dungans motheer family The Lathams of London england were welthy and will be given in the english records of Leniece arnold watson.

# Fact 1: 7 JAN 1637/38 covenant for land last of origianl signers
# Fact 2: 1638 marshall for warwick rhode Island
# Fact 3: 1642 named first in deed for 11 persons
# Fact 4: 1668 named cap. for warwick Rhode Island
# Fact 5: 1662 received lot 25 in Warwick Rhode Island
# Fact 6: 1676 councel andand capt
# Fact 7: 1671 sold land to Stephen Arnold
# Fact 8: 1688 justice court of common pleas
# Fact 9: 1677 sent to England with John Greene to protect town claim for warwickRhode Iland
# Fact 10: 1678 haad 400 acres in warwick