William Blaxton

William Blaxton (also spelled William Blackstone; 1595 – 26 May 1675) was an early English settler in New England and the first European settler of Boston and Rhode Island.

Early life and education

William Blaxton was born in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England. He was admitted to Emmanuel College, Cambridge as a sizar in 1614 and received an MA in 1621. He was ordained as a priest of the Church of England in May 1619 by Thomas Dove, Bishop of Peterborough.

Biography

Blaxton joined the failed Ferdinando Gorges expedition to America in 1623. He eventually arrived in Weymouth, Massachusetts later in 1623 on the ship ''Katherine,'' as a chaplain in the subsequent expedition of Robert Gorges. By 1625 all of his fellow travelers had returned to England and Blaxton moved five miles north to a 1 mi² rocky bulge at the end of a swampy isthmus, surrounded on all sides by mudflats. Blaxton became the first colonist to settle in what would become Boston, living on the Western end of the Shawmut Peninsula by himself for more than five years.

In 1629, Isaac Johnson landed with the Puritans in nearby Charlestown but the rockier highlands lacked easily tappable wells. Blaxton and Johnson were university contemporaries from Emmanuel College, Cambridge.

In 1630 Blaxton wrote a historic letter to Johnson and his group that advertised Boston's excellent natural spring, and invited them to settle on his land, which they did on 7 September 1630. One of Johnson's last official acts as the leader of the Charlestown community before dying on 30 September 1630 was to name the new settlement across the river "Boston," after his hometown in Lincolnshire, from which he, his wife (namesake of the '' Arbella'') and John Cotton had emigrated to New England.

Blaxton negotiated a grant of for himself in the final paperwork, around 10% of the peninsula's total area. However by 1633 the new town's 4,000 citizens made retention of such a large parcel untenable and Blaxton sold all but six acres back to the Puritans in 1634 for £30 ($5,455 in adjusted USD). Governor Winthrop purchased the land through a one-time tax on Boston residents amounting to 6 shillings (around $50 adjusted) a head. This land became a town commons open to public grazing and now forms the bulk of Boston Common, the major park in present-day downtown Boston.

The Anglican Blaxton did not get along with the Puritan leaders of the Boston church and in 1635 he moved about south of Boston to what the Indians called the Pawtucket River and is today known as the Blackstone River in Cumberland, Rhode Island. He was the region's first European settler, one year before Roger Williams established Providence Plantations.

The area that Blaxton settled was part of the Plymouth Colony until 1691, when it came under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts Bay Colony until 1741; it finally became part of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He tended cattle, planted gardens, and cultivated an apple orchard, and he cultivated the first variety of American apples, the Yellow Sweeting. He called his home "Study Hill" and was said to have the largest library in the colonies at the time, but his library and house were burned during King Philip's War around 1675.

Blaxton's friends among the Indians included Narragansetts, Miantonomi, Canonchet, Wampanoag, sachems, Massasoit, and Metacomet

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