General Notes

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THE CARR BOOK, SKETCHES OF THE LIVES OF MANY OF THE DECENDA
NTS OF ROBERT
ANDCALEB CARR, Whose Arrival on this Continent in 1635 Bega
n the
American Storyof Our Family, DAR Library #53430, Publishe
d by Arthur A.
Carr, Ticonderoga,NY, 1947. Page 5.
On May 9, 1635 the ship Elizabeth and Ann slipped her moori
ngs and put
out from London, England under the command of Roger Cooper
, Master. Her
destination oas New England. On board were one hundred an
d two passengers
bearing permission to emmigrate to the new world that lay o
n the western
shore of their ocean.
Among these passengers two should command our attention. Th
ese were a
young man of twenty one and his little brother of eleven. T
heyare listed
in the old records as Robert and Caleb Carr. The notation o
f "Taylor" is
appended to the name of Robert designating his trade. A lat
er writer,Dr.
Turner of Newport, refers to them as from Scotland. As ye
t we do not know
exactly from whence they came.
Sometime in the following June (early midsummer, one accoun
t says) the
ship arrived in Boston harbor and our ancestors were in Ame
rica.
For the next two years we have to guess as to the residenc
e ofthese two
passengers on the Elizabeth and Ann. For the remainder of t
heir lives
Robert and Caleb Carr were close associates of William Codd
ington who
came from Boston, Lincolnshire, England as one of the origi
nal members of
theMass Bay Company in 1620 and was a leading merchant in B
oston, Mass.
during this period. Robert and Caleb landed at Boston and t
wo years later
left Boston. Adding all these facts together are we not per
mitted to
assume that our ancestors were for these first two years o
f their living
on this side the Atlantic in the rapidly growing town of Bo
ston.
Early in 1637 a group of Boston people led by William Coddi
ngton left
Boston because of religious differences. They went to Provi
dence and
conferred with Rober Williams as to settling in those parts
. With the
active aid of Mr. Williams the group purchased from the Ind
ians the large
island of Aquidnick and immediately proceeded to the busine
ssof founding
the town of Pocassit (later called Portsmouth). It is thoug
ht that the
Carrs left Boston with this group. Certainly they were earl
y at the
Pocassit settlement for on Feb. 21, 1638 Robert Carr was li
sted as an
inhabitant. It is my thought that Caleb who was still bu
t a child of
fourteen accompanied Robert.
Many seem to have come to the new settlement at Pocassit th
at summer of
1638 and the following winter for in the spring of the nex
t year William
Coddington and a small group of the leading men removed t
o the south end
of the island to lay out a new settlement leaving at Pocass
it a goodly
company to carry on.
Again the Carrs followed William Coddington and like him re
mained at the
new settlement the rest of their days. The name which the
y gave this new
home has remained unchanged all these years. It is still Ne
wport.
Lying in the mouth of Narragansett Bay off shore from Newpo
rt is the
sizable island of Conanicut (known now as Jamestown). In co
ntrast with
the forested shores of Aquidnick, Conanicut had some cleare
d land where
the Indians had for generations summered and grown their co
rn and
vegetables. This area of hay, pasturage and vegetable lan
d appealed to
the forest bound colonists of Newport.Thus in 1659 we fin
d William
Coddington, Benedict Arnold, William Brenton, Caleb Carr an
d Richard
Smith leading a company of Newport citizens in arranging th
e transfer of
Conanicut and the small adjoining islands of Gould and Dutc
h to
themselves. Chief Quisaquam made the transfer on the part o
f the Indians.
Both Robert and Caleb were among the ninety eight origina
l purchasers of
the island. It is thought that neither of the brothers resi
ded on the
island.This move was left to their children