Col. Sylvester Richmond

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Abt 1673
• Alternate death: 20 Nov 1754, Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts

Notes:

From Chase-Wigglesworth Genealogy (citation details below):

Silvester Richmond served as sheriff of Bristol County, Justice of the Peace in 1711 and 1729, and was one of the original members of the First Congregational Church in Little Compton. He was commissioned a Lieutenant on 25 July 1710 and a Colonel in April 1742. In 1752 he removed from Little Compton to Dartmouth.

He owned a large number of slaves but liberated them and settled them in some woodlands in Dartmouth (Dartmouth Woods). Richmond Family states there is a ridge of land in that town which was settled almost wholly by negroes who were descendants of Col. Richmond's emancipated slaves.

Sylvester married Elizabeth Rogers about 1693. Elizabeth (daughter of John Rogers and Elizabeth Pabodie) was born on 16 Apr 1673 in Duxbury, Plymouth, Massachusetts; died on 23 Oct 1724 in Little Compton, Newport, Rhode Island. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

He was an assistant to the governor from 1753 to 1755. He was a judge, and according to Little Compton Families (citation details below), he was instrumental in securing the Rhode Island border that ensured Little Compton was inside Rhode Island.

William married Anna Gray on 8 Jul 1724 in Little Compton, Newport, Rhode Island. Anna (daughter of Dr. Thomas Gray and Anna Little) was born on 29 Jan 1702 in Little Compton, Newport, Rhode Island; died on 9 Oct 1762 in Bristol, Bristol, Rhode Island. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"He settled with his family in Little Compton in 1743, and his first three children were baptized there. He had a slave who was a hatter, who would go to Providence and work there at his trade. The slave helped to support his owner in his old age." [Little Compton Families, citation details below.]

The entry for him in Little Compton Families, which calls him "Ephraim William Richmond", calls him a son rather than a grandson of Sylvester Williams and Elizabeth Rogers. But the entry for Judge William Richmond and his wife Anna Gray, including the passages quoted from William Richmond's will, makes it clear that Ephraim was their son, not Sylvester's.

Unreconciled is the fact that Little Compton Families says that Ephraim Richmond was born 5 May 1723 and that his father William Richmond and his mother Anna Gray married on 8 Jul 1724.

Ephraim married Elizabeth Cook on 19 Jan 1744. Elizabeth (daughter of John Cook and Alice Southworth) died in Apr 1797 in Tiverton, Newport, Rhode Island. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Feb 1746, Little Compton, Newport, Rhode Island

Notes:

In about 1796, widowed, she came with the Rev. John Smith and a group including all six of her sons to Bristol in Ontario County, New York.

Lillis married Rev. David Simmons on 2 Nov 1768 in Dighton, Bristol, Massachusetts. David (son of Constant Simmons and Lydia Phillips) was born on 28 Jun 1748 in Dighton, Bristol, Massachusetts; died on 7 Jun 1786 in Drowned in the Taunton River, Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]