William Deuel (abt. 1615 - abt. 1680)

Born about 4 Jun 1615 in Spalding, Lincolnshire, England

Husband of Ann (Beckerstead) Deuel — married about 13 Jan 1637 (to 1639) in Spaulding, Lincolnshire, England [uncertain]

Descendants

Died about 29 Aug 1680 at about age 65 in Newport, Aquidneck Island, Rhode Island

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Sherry Duval [send private message] and Shannon Shaw [send private message]

Disputed

Parents: This profile was previously connected as the son of Thomas Davol and Alyce Eldred. No scholarly sources have been found to substantiate the relationships.

Birth and Wife: Some informal sources report that William was born on June 4, 1615 in Spalding, Lincolnshire, England and that he married Elizabeth Anderson there on August 29, 1639.

The William of this profile wasn't the one from Spalding, Lincolnshire. He and his wife Isabel had a still-born child buried there on 23 September 1642, years after New England William immigrated (parish register of St. Mary and St. Nicholas, Spalding, images at findmypast.uk.com). There are marriages in this register for William and wives Ann and Isabel, as given in the profile. There was no "Elizabeth Anderson" or "Elizabeth Isabel Anderson." He was the only man with his name in Spalding in the early to mid 17th century, making it very likely he was the William baptized there in 1615 (son of Thomas, which is why he used to be attached to him), buried there in 1655, followed by widow "Deavill" buried in 1656.

Biography

First found in Duxbury, Massachusetts when he petitioned the court for a parcel of land on August 3, 1640. Then in 1643, he was in Braintree , Massachusetts

William b. c.1619-22 Lincolnshire, England, d. 1680 Dartmouth, MA (per LDS #599777 below) or c.1687 Newport, RI (per LDS #897098 below); m. 8/3/1639-40 Elizabeth ____

chronological record:

birthplace: ref: Lincoln Parish Register, England 8/3/1640 - William petitioned the court at Duxbury, MA, for a parcel of land

6/1643 - William in Braintree, MA

12/26/1645 - William granted the house lot, etc., in Rehoboth, MA "forasmuch as he hath which not come to live among us"

1/7/1646 - he bought from John Hazell the "house which William Devol now dwelleth in and the lot".

1649 - he was appointed constable

10/2/1650 - with his wife, he was "presented by Grand Jury with others, for continuing of meeting upon the Lord's day from house to house contrary to order of this Court enacted 12 June, 1650"

5/17/1653 - admitted as Freeman of Newport, RI

1672 - deeded to his son, Benjamin, land at Monmouth, New Jersey, previously purchased of Mark Lucar of Newport.

10/22/1673 - served as juryman

2/18/1679 - witnessed the deed of his son, Joseph

William was born maybe about 1615. He passed away about 1680. William and wife Elizabeth arrived in America in 1649. He was Quaker and may have come to America as an indentured servant. He became constable in Rehoboth in 1649. In Newport on May 17, 1653, Williiam was made a freeman, thirteen years after his arrival in America. Court records show he deeded a parcel of land located in Monmouth, New Jersey, near Sandy Hook to his son Benjamin of Middleton. The family eventually moved to Newport, Rhode Island where he died.

Family

1. John b Jun 24, 1643; d Jul 15, 1643 ^[1]
2. Joseph b ca 1645; m (1) Mary Brayton (2) Elizabeth Peabody
3. Benjamin b ca 1650; m (1) Phebe Smith (2) Judith Compton
4. Jonathan b 1653-6; m Marah/Mary unknown ^[2]

Plymouth Colony

William Duell first appears in the Plymouth Colony on August 3, 1640 when he applied for a parcel of land.^[3] The land was probably located in Rehoboth where he is recorded as a resident on February 9, 1646.^[4] The home must have been located near the water because in 1647 "certain persons were granted leave to set up a weir upon the cove before William Davol's house..."^[5]

On October 2, 1650 William, his wife and others of Rehoboth were presented to the Plymouth Colony Court "for the continewing of a meeting uppon the Lords day from house to house, con- trary to the order of this Court enacted June the 12"*, 1650."^[6] Probably to escape punishment in the Plymouth Colony, the family relocated to Newport.^[7]

Newport Colony

By 1655 William "Devill" was recorded as a freeman in the Newport Colony.^[8]

He was called to serve as a jury member on several occasions, including a debt case heard at Newport on March 11, 1661/2.^[9]

William Deuell "Old Devil" and his religion

Colonial Deuels - Part 3

Cotton Mather, in his "The Ecclesiastical History of New England" called Rhode Island a "cesspool" of religious practice: "there has never been such a variety of religions together on so small a spot of ground as in Rhode Island: Antinomians, Familists, Anabaptists, Anti-sabbatarians, Arminians, Socinians, Quakers, Ranters --- everything in the world but Roman Catholics and true Christians."

 :: Where did William Deuell fit into all this? At first, he was in all likelihood a Puritan/Separatist (i.e what Cotton Mather would have called a "true Christian") like his Duxbury and Braintree neighbors, although, to judge from the apparent refusal of the Plymouth theocracy to respond positively to William's request for land in Duxbury, he may not have been in good standing. Certainly Walter Deuell, whoever he was, was not in good standing.

 :: An observer in 1641 noted that Rhode Island was still in a disorganized state as far as religion is concerned: "the Newport church where one Master Clark [i.e. John Clarke] was elder is dissolved; at the other end of the island a town, Portsmouth, but no church --- a meeting of some men who teach one another and call it prophecy; at Providence Master Williams and his company of divers opinions, most are Anabaptist."

Since Newport was only founded in 1639 the church there couldn't have lasted long. The Portsmouth people, still including Anne Hutchison at that point, were Antinomians. John Clarke, whose sister Mary (Clarke) Peckham is an ancestor of mine, founded a Baptist church in Newport in 1644 and was the main emissary of that doctrine to the dissenters at Rehoboth. Roger Williams writes in 1649: "at Seekonk [i.e. Rehoboth village] a great many have concurred with John Clarke and our Providence men about the point of a new baptism and the manner by dipping, and Mr. John Clarke hath been there lately (and Mr. Lucar) and hath dipped them. I believe this practice comes nearer the first practice of our great founder than the practices of religion do, and yet I have not satisfaction, neither in the authority in which it is done nor in the manner."

These last comments of Williams are very interesting. It is usually stated that Roger Williams founded the first Baptist church in America in Providence in 1639. Commencement ceremonies of Brown University, founded in 1763 as a college for Baptist ministers, are still held at the Providence FBC. But if Williams, the undoubted spiritual leader of that congregation, was disputing basic Baptist doctrine as of 1649, then the church he founded could not truly be baptist in nature.

And so the rightful title should go to the "second" oldest Baptist church --- the one founded by John Clarke in 1644, and into which it appears William Deuell was baptized.

 : Why did the Puritans consider the Baptists as dangerous? Adult baptism undercut a basic rite of the Puritans, infant baptism. Moreover, for people to come up with their own practices was in essence a denial of the authority of Puritan ministers, who thought of themselves as God's direct emissaries, in effect the ayatollahs of Plymouth and Mass Bay. This departure from practice also signified something deeper: moving away from rule by "the law" or "the word" as interpreted by Puritan ministers, and towards rule by what the baptists would call "the spirit," Quakers would call "the inner light," and what we would probably call "conscience." And to top it all off this was happening right on the border of that den of iniquity, Rhode Island. Most of the settlers of Rehoboth were from Weymouth or Braintree (like William) in Mass Bay, and they thought that Plymouth Colony was soft on transgressors. Most people in Rehoboth wanted Mass Bay to annex the town, and partly to appease such a move the Plymouth government took a hard line on the Rehoboth baptists, though stopping short of the tongue-drilling sort of discipline that was preferred in Boston.

William was not formally registered with any church, at least from any record I have seen, but his experience in Rehoboth clearly indicates that he was a Baptist. But an interesting mention comes from the letter book of Samuel Hubbard, who was a member of the First Baptist Church of Newport. His letter of 16 December 1671 to his children states in part as follows:

"This is to inform you upon the sermon Ruth [his wife] heard Obe Holmes [Holmes, ringleader of the Rehoboth Baptists, was John Clarke's successor at the Newport FBC] preach. . . And then breaking of bread we all withdrew, they being troubled, warned in all of the church (or relinquants) [?] that stood off, as Brother Joseph Clarke, T.Clarke, J.Man [another Rehoboth Baptist], old Devil, S.Turnly. . .B. Hiscox, I, my wife, B.Baster all to come in 5 days. So it was alleged because some keeping the 7th day or sabbath, either they [are] in an error or we, etc." "Old Devil" refers to William Deuell, according to the compiler of these letters, and clearly this is correct. The letter, which outlines the subsequent profession of faith of the dissenters and their withdrawal from the church --- they insisted on celebrating the sabbath on the 7th day or Saturday, contrary to the existing practice --- marks the birth of the first Seventh Day Baptist church in North America. So "old Devil" got around, religiously, although records are spotty he probably belonged to the first Baptist church in America (or the one that deserves the title) as well as the first Seventh Day Baptist church in America. Another early member of this SDB church was Gov. Benedict Arnold, whose great-grandson of the same name was to gain infamy. Gov. Arnold owned --- and in my view, probably built --- the famous stone tower in Newport that the more romantic-minded historians have claimed was built by Vikings. Where did they get the idea to celebrate the sabbath on a Saturday, reverting to the practice of the Old Testament? The idea was current in England, but interestingly there are records that, unique in New England, Newport had an additional market day, Thursday, in addition to Saturday --- and that it was started in 1667, before the SBP church was founded. Why would they do that? In 1658 a group of Portuguese Sephardic Jews settled in Newport and formed the first congregation in America. Touro Synagogue still has a trap door near the alter, symbolizing the hiding places used in their homeland to escape the Inquisition. Early maps of Newport show a "Jew Street." This street is now Bellevue Avenue, home to the Breakers, Marble House, and many other Newport mansions. But the interesting thing is that in one account of Newport SDBs it states how they started observing the sabbath at sundown on Friday --- a remarkable parallel to the shabbat practice of their Jewish neighbors (no Christian sect that I know of starts celebrating a Sunday sabbath on Saturday night, unless you count the very modern practice of a Saturday 5:00 Catholic mass). So it could be an interesting instance of religious cross-pollination.

He was the bailiff of Rehoboth and resided in Manton Cove.::

Deuel is a biblical name, a member of the tribe of Gad, Moses led out of Egypt (Numbers 1:14 - Of Gad; Eliasaph the son of Deuel.)

In the first settlers of New England, William Deuell is listed as having a son John, born 1643 in Braintree. He was documented in Manton Cove, East Providence, in 1645. Many left in disagreement with the Massachusetts colony and followed Wiliams to Rhode Island.

After this time, the family is continued in Rhode Island and Dartmouth area, and the children changed their names, a son married Mary Soule and he used the name Devol.

Research Notes

There was a Walter Deuell in Plymouth at the same time; any association between them is unknown.

• working copy from Suzanne S. Kulp, 24 Timothy Dr., Orchard Park, NY 14127 (Orchard Park Historian) Apr. 2002

Sources

1. ↑ "Records of Boston." New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Volume 2. Boston, MA: Apr 1849. Page 157.
2. ↑ Garman, Louis H. "Additions and Corrections to Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island." The American Genealogist, Volume 65. New Haven, CT: 1990. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2009 - .) Subscription Link $. Page 148.
3. ↑ Shurtleff, Nathaniel B. Records of the Colony of New Plymouth of New England, Court Orders Vol. I&II 1633-1651. Boston, MA: Legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1855. Page 159.
4. ↑ Bowen, Richard LeBaron. Early Rehoboth, Volume 1. Rehoboth, MA: Self-Published, 1945. Page 110.
5. ↑ Austin, John Osborne. The Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island Comprising Three Generations of Settlers Who Came before 1690. Albany, NY: 1887. Page 284.
6. ↑ RCNP II, 1855. Page 162.
7. ↑ Ickes, Gertrude Genevieve Guel. A Narrative and Genealogical History of the Devol-Duel, Whitney, Stark, Lamb and Many Other Families Allied Through Marriage. Chicago, IL: Self-Published. Page 18.
8. ↑ Bartlett, John R. Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, in New England, Vol 1. Providence, RI: Self-Published, 1856. Page 301.
9. ↑ Rhode Island Court Records...of the Colony of Providence Plantation 1647-1662, Vol 1. Providence, RI: Rhode Island Historical Society, 1920. Page 78.

See also:

• "330 Years in America, 1635-1965: a narrative and genealogical history of the Devol-Duel, Whitney, Stark, Lamb and many other families allied through marriage" by Gertrude Genevieve Duel Icks https://archive.org/details/330yearsinameric00icks

Note:

This information follows the research of others and confirmations by census and family tree info. ALL the info I have is on this database, however, I appreciate any corrections or additions.

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/fhlcatalog/supermainframeset.asp?display=titledetails&titleno=255850

• Wilbour, Benjamin Franklin; Little Compton Families, Volume I and Volume II. Baltimore, Maryland: Clearfield Company, Inc. by Genealogical Publishing Co. Inc., 2003. search familysearch.org for books or Google “(Reference the faith of the original apostles, the Hebrew Roots of the Christian faith. They observed a Saturday Sabbath; the 7th day, as commanded by scripture.J. Salsbery)”