| Notes |
- A memorial tablet to him at St. Paul's Church in Wickford, Rhode Island is inscribed as follows:
Memorial Tablet to
Richard Smith
He lived near Wickford at Cocumscussuc, commonly called Smith's Castle, and where Roger Williams often preached to the Indians and William Blackstone held the first regular services in the Colony of Rhode Island
Also in memory of his daughter Katharine
Wife of Gysbert op Dyck or Updyke
Of Wesel in Westphalia and of Narragansett
She died about 1664
From The op Dyck Genealogy, citation details below:
Richard Smith, whose daughter Catherine became the wife of Gysbert Opdyck in 1643, was a man of wealth, character, activity and energy, and was prominent in Massachusetts, New Amsterdam and Rhode Island. He was born 1596 in Gloucestershire, England, and came to New England for the sake of religious freedom, bringing with him his daughter Catherine and other children. He "was a most acceptable inhabitant and prime leading man in Taunton in Plymouth Colony." About 1639 he bought from Narragansett Sachems 30,000 acres on the west side of Narragansett Bay, erected there a house for trade among the thickest of the Indians, and gave free entertainment to travellers. It was on a very ancient path, often referred to in the old Deeds as the "Pequot Path," which was adopted by the early settlers as the great road of the country, all the travel from Boston and the North and East to Connecticut and New York passing by Smith's trading-house. His was the first purchase and the first house for many years in the Narragansett country. Very little was done however towards the settlement of the country by the whites for many years afterward. Richard Smith did not probably occupy this house with his family for any length of time, although he kept coming and going with his children and servants. It was a trading post, 50 miles from any settlement; and in a neighborhood abounding with dangerous savages.
Not finding in Plymouth Colony the religious freedom which he sought, and the Narragansett country being as yet too lonely and dangerous a residence for his family, Richard Smith came to New Amsterdam, where he was gladly welcomed by the Dutch. With him came from Taunton others, who too sought freedom of conscience; among them was John Smith, probably a brother of Rev. Francis Doughty, a dissenting clergyman who, while preaching at Cohasset, Mass., had been dragged out of the assembly for venturing to assert that "Abraham's children should have been baptised." Director Kieft immediately (1642) granted to them an absolute title to more than 13,000 acres of land at Mespath, now New-town, Long Island. The Patent was made to "Francis Doughty and companions," and gave them full power to build villages and churches, to exercise their own form of Christian religion and church discipline, and to administer their own laws, subject only to their acknowledging, during their possession of the land, the sovereignty of the Dutch West India Company. Doughty had no means of his own and had merely acted as agent for Richard Smith and his associates, who were to prepare for him a farm in the new colony, on the proceeds of which he might live, in return for his services as their preacher. But Doughty assumed high authority and attempted to collect for his own use rents from the settlers; compelling Richard Smith to complain to Director Kieft and his Council, who decided that Doughty should be content with the farm reserved to him and that the associates should have full control of the land granted by the patent. Doughty undertook to appeal to Holland, but Director Kieft would not permit this, and imprisoned and fined him. Kieft's action was sustained afterward by his successor, Director Stuyvesant, who would not allow Doughty to return to Europe until he promised not to complain of what had befallen him in New Netherland. There were eighty settlers at Mespath dunng the first year, and the colony was prospering, when the war broke out in 1643 between the Dutch and Indians. The savages attacked the settlement, destroyed houses and cattle, and killed John Smith and others of the colonists. The settlers fled to Manhattan (New York). The next year a Dutch force marched to Mespath and slew one hundred of the savages. The following year peace was concluded with the Indians, and the English colonists returned to their ruined homes. The subsequent history of the settlement is not well known, on account of the destruction of the early records by a British regiment who were in full possession of the town for several years during the Revolution. We know however that Richard Smith continued to own land at Newtown until 1662. Adjoining the Mespath colony on the east, there had been made, under Patent from Stuyvesaut in 1652, a new settlement called by the Dutch "Middleburgh" but more familiarly known as "Newtown," which soon absorbed Mespath into its jurisdiction and records. We find Richard Smith appealing successfully in 1662 from a decision of the court of Middleburgh to the Director and Council ; and the same year we find him assessed the tenth of the produce of his lands in that neighborhood.
During the greater part of these twenty years, Richard Smith had his family-residence among the Dutch on Manhattan Island. Here his daughter Katharine married Gysbert Opdyck in 1643; and at the baptism of their first son in 1646, Richard Smith acted as sponsor with the Fiscal and others. His daughter Joan married Thomas Newton at Flushing in 1648, a romantic runaway marriage to which her father was soon reconciled, although the imperious Governor Stuyyesant vindicated the majesty of the law by fining the bridegroom and the Sheriff who had solemnized the marriage without the consent of the bride's parents. Thomas Newton himself became Sheriff of Flushing five years later, and the Rhode Island Updikes trace their descent from a daughter of this marriage and her husband, Gysbert's son Lodowick. In 1645 Richard Smith was elected one of the "Eight Men," appointed to devise ways of protection against the Indians, and meeting once a week for that purpose. His son-in-law Gysbert Opdyck was one of this important Committee, and they signed together the great Treaty of Peace, Aug. 30, 1645, between the Dutch and all the River Indians in the presence of the Mohawks. It is probable that this Treaty was secured by the efforts of these "Eight Men," as all the eight attached their signatures; the original document is preserved among the archives in Holland. In 1645 Richard Smith received a Patent for a lot on the East River, a portion of which he sold in 1656, holding the remainder still later. In 1651, being temporarily absent, he sold through his son a house and lot on Manhattan Island; but he still owned the lots on the East River above described, as well as one near the Strand in 1656 or later, and perhaps possessed or hired another house.
During all this time he continued his Narragansett Indian trading-house, making frequent visits there with some of his family, being himself skipper of his good sloop Welcome, and occasionally appearing before the Dutch Council at New Amsterdam for protection of his rights or on questions connected with his trading.
The records of Rhode Island do not mention him, after his first appearance there about 1639, until 1659 when he appears as witness on an Indian Deed, from which we have taken our fac-simile of his signature. The same year he joined Governor Winthrop of Connecticut and Major Atherton of Massachusetts in the purchase of a large tract of land from a Narragansett Sachem, who confirmed in this Deed the previous large sale to Smith. The jurisdiction over the Narragansett country being claimed by Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, in this unsettled
state of affairs Richard Smith with his son and others of Narragansett requested in 1663 the protection of Connecticut. This action resulted in his receiving the next year from the Governor of Rhode Island, by the authority of the General Assembly at Newport, a very respectful and rather plaintive letter urging loyalty to that colony upon the ground of old friendships, and hinting at compulsion if necessary. Richard Smith had no intention of complying and wrote to his friends, Captain Hutchinson and Captain Hudson, to urge Connecticut to prompt action. The Rhode Island Gen. Assembly in October or November 1664 ordered that he and Captain Hudson be arrested; we have no knowledge whether this order was carried out. There soon arrived a letter to the Colonies from King Charles II, commanding that Eichard Smith and his friends in Narragansett be no longer molested "by Certaine unreasonable and turbulent sperits of Providence Collony."
Two years later, Richard Smith died at his Wickford trading-house, dividing his large Narragansett tracts, by his will, among his children Richard and Elizabeth (Vial), and the children of his "deceased daughter Katharine sometime wife to Gilbert Updike," and the children of his "deceased daughter Joan sometime wife to Thomas Newton."
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
1596 - Bef 1666 (~ 71 years)
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