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| I. THOMAS WAIT (1601-1677), "Thomas Wait, almost immediately after his arrival at Rhode Island, applied for a lot on which to build (the land being held in common), and at the first meeting of the Council thereafter the record of its proceedings reads: "July 1, 1639, Granted to Thomas1 Wait a house lot next Mr. Wick's." Mar. 16, 1641, he was made a Freeman at Newport, R. I., a privilege then only granted to church members, and May 6, 1649, he was witness to the will of Anthony Paine; in 1655 he is again described as a Freeman; Apr. 30, 1661, he bought lands in Acushnet and Cohasset, Mass., and is described as a husbandman. Thomas Wait was also a Freeman at Boston, Oct. 8, 1640. He died in Portsmouth some time before Apr., 1677, intestate, and the Town Council divided his property among his children ; Samuel, Joseph, Jeremiah, Thomas, Mary and Eeuben. His wife's name is not on record that we can find; she must have died previous to the division of his property. These are the only children mentioned in the division, but there is some evidence that Thomas had another son, Benjamin, who is supposed to have been the third child of Thomas, and to have been born about 1644, and who is believed to be the same Benjamin who was one of the petitioners of Hadley, Mass., Apr. 25, 1665; of Hatfield, Hampshire Co., Mass., 1668, and who was slain by Indians at Deerfield, Mass., 1704. These facts seem to be verified by Hampshire Co. deeds, at Springfield, Mass., Vol. C, pp. 72-3, whereby Thomas Wait, of Seacourt, R I., and Benjamin Wait, of Hatfield, Mass., Feb. 3, 1700, bought property in Brookfield, Mass., of John Ayers, etc. Brookfield is about half way between Hatfield and Portsmouth, R. I., near Worcester, Mass. Seacourt, R I., is not given on the modern maps. In Vol. C, p. 439, a deed is recorded whereby John3, Jeremiah3 and Joseph3, sons of Benjamin, of Hat- field, Mass., and John Belding, Joseph Smith and Ebenezer Wells, who married daughters of Benjamin, deceased, sold, May 24, 1717, the land in Brookfield, formerly the estate of John Ayers, deceased, and they warranted the same against Thomas Wait, our uncle, brother of the aforesaid Benjamin Wait, deceased. Henry E. Waite, who has made the records of the Wait family the subject of much study and investigation, says: " There is no doubt in my mind about Benjamin being the son of the first Thomas Wait, of Rhode Island. He was in Hatfield in 1665. (Petition Mass. Archives, State House, Boston, pp. 106, 107.)" Thomas invariably wrote his name Wait, and his descendants also, with very few exceptions, down almost to the present, while his cousin, Eichard, born in 1608, and who settled in Watertown, Mass., in 1637, wrote his name Waite, and also did all the descendants of Thomas, the regicide, who settled in Connecticut. The use of the letter e at the end of the words was very common at one time, after the early spelling of many words, as thinke, speake, finde, etc. |
267. Hannah Webster. |
Children were: