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Note: Elaborate History & Genealogy of the Ballous Rhode Island & The Providence Plantations
History Of The Ballous in Providence, RIHaving presented, in the foregoing Introduction, all the information authentic, traditional and conjectural at our command, concerning Maturin Ballou, previous to 1645, we next find him a co-proprietor of the Providence Plantations in the Colony of Rhode Island. Thenceforth our dependence had to be on the Records of that Colony and its constituent subdivisions for most of the data whence to deduce the history of our patriarch, his family, and early descendants. Possibly these records would have afforded us some very desirable facts now much needed, had not a considerable portion of them been lost by the sad casualties of King Philip's war. His Indian forces attacked the settlement at Providence, Mar. 30, 1676, and burnt about thirty houses. One of these belonged to John Smith, the then Town Clerk, and stood adjacent to the mill pond. The Town Records were snatched from the flames and thrown into the pond to save them. They were rescued from the water, and carried for safety to Newport. They were brought back in 1677, examined by a special committee, and reported to have lost sixty-five leaves from Book I., and twenty from Book II., besides other correlative documents. It is highly probable that those destroyed eighty-five leaves and papers contained important memoranda concerning the first settlers, their antecedents, family connections, &c. How this may have been we know not, and must be thankfully content with what was left.
We are certified that the great apostle of civil and religious liberty, Roger Williams, with five congenial associates, founded the since flourishing city of Providence, in 1636. They were soon joined by considerable numbers of kindred adventurers, and gradually opened the Providence Plantations, after honorable acquisition of territory from the Indians. With Williams at their head, they presently established a strictly democratic civil compact, which left every individual perfectly free in matters of religion, and made the majority of voting citizens supreme in civil affairs, excepting of course the sovereignty of England. Williams went to the mother country in 1643 and obtained a royal charter for his Colony, according to which it was governed until superseded in after years by one of more comprehensive scope.
The earliest recorded document of the Colony which mentions Maturin Ballou is an Agreement, bearing the names of twenty-eight persons as subscribers. This Agreement is dated "The 19 of 11 mo, 1645," which, as the months were then numbered, must, we suppose, be understood as January, 19, 1646, Old Style. The following is a copy: --
"We whose names are hereunto subscribed, having obtained a free grant of Twenty-five acres of land apiece, with the right of commoning according to the said proportion of land, from the few inhabitants of this town of Providence, do thankfully accept of the same, and do hereby promise to yield active and passive obedience to the authority of the King and Parliament [The State of England.] , as established in this Colony according to our Charter, and to all such wholesome laws and orders that are or shall be made by the major consent of the Town of Providence, as also not to claim any right to the purchase of the said plantations, nor any privilege of vote in town affairs until we shall be received as freemen of the said town of Providence."
From a small old Record Book with brass clasps on loose leaves in the City Clerk's Office, Providence, R. I. See also in said office a Book entitled "Deeds Transcribed," p. 87(*).
(*) It seems proper at this outset of our references to ancient Records, to say, for the information of researchers, that the Town Records of Providence, now extant, are all to be found in the City Clerk's Office; and that the Proprietors' Records are now in the care of the sons of the Hon. Judge Staples, Providence. Their father, the Judge, was long Proprietors' Clerk of Providence, and that this act of the Colonial Assembly enlarged their franchise, or at least confirmed it as Colonial citizens.
Among the twenty-eight signatures stands the name of Mathurin Bellou, and immediately preceding it that of Robert Pyke. The original document and signatures are not extant, but the orthography of the names may be presumed to have been followed by the recorder. Maturin Ballou and Robert Pike appear to have joined the Colony at the same time, and afterwards were intimately connected till death. It will be seen, from the terms of the Agreement, that they could not enter into possession of their lands, and privileges of citizenship, till received as freemen of the Town. It is understood that they were very soon received as such. Be this as it may have been, the Colonial Records, Vol. I., p. 387, say: "At a Meeting at Warwick, May 18th, 1658, Robert Pyke and Maturin Ballue were admitted freemen." We may infer that they had, before this, been made in some sort freemen
Their special intimacy became cemented by marriage, as will be seen below, and their lands were probably laid out in close adjacency, especially their home-lots. These appear to have been located on or near the little Moshassuck river, not far from the mill of John Smith, which was burned, as above mentioned, by Philip's Indians in 1676. It is supposed to have stood near the sife of the present dam. This was in the northerly section of the town as originally settled. In that neighborhood Robert Pike and Maturin Ballou had their homesteads. Various parcels of out-lands are recorded to have been subsequently assigned to them in the near or more distant vicinity, as will hereinafter appear. Nothing has come down to us historically respecting their character and standing. They attained to no official dignity in the Colony, but may be confidently presumed to have been worthy persons in all their civil, social and domestic relations. We learn from the records that Pike had a wife Catherine, a daughter Hannah, a brother Conant and a sister Justina. No others are mentioned. What became ofConant Pike is not indicated. The sister, Justina, was married to Nathaniel Patten of Dorchester, Mass., where both lived and died. She survived, and died his widow in 1675, leaving a legacy of goods and money to her Providence relatives of some £20. Her brother Robert had deceased, but Mrs. Catherine, her daughter Hannah, and several of her children, the Ballous, inherited the bequest. We may now proceed to tabulate the family record of Maturin Ballou. In doing so we can give only proximate dates, but have carefully fixed these in view of all the circumstantial known facts.
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