General Notes

THOMAS OLNEY, son of Thomas and Mary (Small [Ashton]) Olney, and a  prominent Baptist clergyman at Providence, R. I., was born at St. Albans,  Hertford County,England, in 1632, and came to this country with his  father, in the ship, "Planter," from London, in 1635. From Salem, Mass.,  in 1638, he came to Providence, where, July 3, 1660, he married Elizabeth  Moseley. In 1655, five years before, at the age of twenty-three, he was  implicated in a religious tumult, or more strictly, under the pretense of  holding a training, he, with others, engaged in anarmed resistance to  authority. No serious results followed.   In 1668, at the age of thirty-six, he was ordained pastor of the First  Baptist Church. In a controversy a few years later, with George Fox, the  Quaker, the Rev. Thomas Olney is said to have answered Fox in an article,  entitled "Ambition Anatomized," with"unseemly severity." He held many  public offices.   For thirty-seven years he was town clerk; for thirty years, a member of  the town council; for fourteen years, a deputy, and for six years,  assistant. He was also "proprietor's surveyor."In 1698 he was appointed  on a committee "to meet the Connecticut gentlemen totreat before Lord  Bellemont about the western bounds of the colony."   In 1699 he was chosen "agent for the colony to go to England for  maintaining of liberties granted in our charter." This appointment he  declined. He died at Providence, June 11, 1722. The inventory of his  estate included "fifty-five bound books and twenty-three small unbound  books." His wife died about the same time and place. His [Page 87, Page  88] homestead was near the present location of the American Screw Co.'s  works, at the foot of Stampers Hill, and he also owned large tracts of  land in North Providence and Lincoln.  http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GE