John Smith, The Miller
<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=110 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="097f0f21egerdp.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#66334C" FACE="Arial" ><B>Our Family Past and Present</B></FONT><B> | </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Our Family Past and Present"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id336.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Smith Genealogy Chart"><U>Smith Genealogy Chart</U></A> | <A HREF="id384.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Smith Wives"><U>The Smith Wives</U></A> | <B>John Smith, The Miller </B> | <A HREF="id125.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="John Smith, Jr. 1639"><U>John Smith, Jr. 1639</U></A> | <A HREF="id234.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Benjamin Smith 1672"><U>Benjamin Smith 1672</U></A> | <A HREF="id235.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Hezekiah Smith 1706"><U>Hezekiah Smith 1706</U></A> | <A HREF="id236.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Asa Smith 1748"><U>Asa Smith 1748</U></A> | <A HREF="id237.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Hezekiah Smith 1787"><U>Hezekiah Smith 1787</U></A> | <A HREF="id238.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Eliza Smith About 1825"><U>Eliza Smith About 1825</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="096f2f02egerdp.jpg"> <div> <A HREF="id29.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Early Rhode Island Ancestors"><U><B>Rhode Island Ancestors</B></U></A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=370 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="099f0f03.jpg"> <div> <I>John Smith, The Miller </I></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> John Smith</div> <div> The Miller, of Providence, RI</div> <div> 1595 - About 1649</div> <bR> <div> John Smith, the founder of the Rhode Island family was born in England about 1595. He arrived in New England sometime before 1635. His first residence was in Dorchester, part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which extended almost to the Rhode Island line. John's home was in Ponkapog, in the southern foothills of the Blue Mountains. Captain John Whipple may have been a neighbor, as his name appears once on the records of Dorchester in connection with a small tract of land "about the mill." In later years, Captain Whipple's daughter became the bride of John Smith's son. </div> <bR> <div> John, being a spirited fellow, soon found himself at odds with the New England Puritan church. He was exiled soon after. The General Court of Massachusetts, ordered "that John Smyth shalbe sent within theis 6 weekes out of this jurisdiccion for dyvers dangerous opinions, wch hee holdeth, & hath dyvulged, if in the meane tyme he removes not himselfe out of this plantacion."</div> <div> Roger Williams stated on November 17, 1677: " I consented to John Smith, Miller, at Dorchester [banished also] to go with me." </div> <bR> <div> In the spring or summer of 1636, John joined Roger Williams and four others as they made their way to the shores of the place they would call Providence. These pioneers began to build homes in the new settlement. John served as Town Clerk in 1641, and he also built a mill.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> Henry C. Dorr states:</div> <div> It was fortunate for Williams that one of his earliest companions was a millwright. So soon as they were able, the townsmen availed themselves of his services. In 1646, the 1st day of the 1st month, they made a grant of land to John Smith, in the valley where the falls of the Mooshasssc invited the erection of the Town Mill. The memory of his obsolete machinery, for breaking up grain by an operation similar to that of a pile driver, has been preserved in the name of "Stampers Street".</div> <bR> <div> Long before jail or meeting-house, the Town Mill was the earliest institution in the Plantations. It received much careful oversight from the Town Meeting. The miller was to build and repair it at his own cost, and the town promised to erect or to permit no other. At the Town Meeting, 3rd day, 9th month, 1649, it was agreed that "every second and fifth day of the week shall be for grinding of the corn of the town."The other day's were the miller's own. "The sixteenth part of every bushed (with allowance for waste according to the custom of the country) is to be allowed for grinding." The mill fixed the center of the town at the North end, and long kept it there.The population became densest in its neighborhood. Sixty years later on October 27, 1705, the water power which moved the Town Mill was not yet fully employed. The Proprietors then granted to John Smith, the son of the old miller, and to Richard Arnold, the land next south of the grist mill for a sawmill, which they were to build within three years. During one hundred and eighty years, the Town Mill fulfilled it's office, and was one of the last memorials of primitive times. It was destroyed at last, the Blackstone Canal, through which some over-sanguine citizens, fondly hoped that the old locality would regain something of its primitive importance. They gained nothing but experience. The Town, now that its once favorite mill was silenced and deserted, endeavored to repossess itself of the acres which it had granted to the old miller.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> His descendants maintained their possession with a sturdy perseverance worthy of their ancestor. During ten years the contest claimed the attention of the courts. The Town gained nothing but a better knowledge of the vagueness and inaccuracy of its own early grants and records. The estate, once the most valuable in the Plantations, ended by becoming an inheritance equally unprofitable to those who held or who sought its possession.</div> <div> [From "The Planting and Growth of Providence.." 1882]</div> <bR> <div> Time has obliterated the site of the old grist mill, but it was in the vicinity of Mill and Charles Streets at the Falls of the Moshassuck River, now a fading industrial area.</div> <bR> <div> The Town Meeting of May 24, 1673 recorded the grant of land made in 1647 to John Smith, Sr. of "tenn acors mor or Lese At or about the place wheer the mill now standeth, sixe Acores mor or Lese of meddow Lieng at the upear End of that which is Caled the Great meddow on the southwestard sid of the River Called Moshucsuck six Acors of meddow at the plac comonly Caled wainscote meddow lieing and being part of it on the south side and part of it on the south side and part of it on the North side of the River..."</div> <div> [From the Early Records of the Town of Providence....Vol. 3, Page 239, Providence, 1893]</div> <bR> <div> John Smith's wife was Alice, her surname is unknown. He died before 1649, for in that year, his widow, who died in 1650, and her son John, Jr., administers of the estate of John the Miller, signed articles of agreement with the inhabitants of Providence. They gave the widow and John, Jr. exclusive rights to maintain a mill as long as they provided satisfactory service in grinding corn for the townsmen.</div> <bR> <div> The children of John the Miller and Alice were John Jr. who was born about 1630 and Elizabeth who married Shadrack Manton of Providence.</div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>