Randall Holden
Randall Holden (1692) was an early inhabitant of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, one of the original founders of Portsmouth, and one of the co-founders of the town of Warwick. He came to New England from Salisbury, Wiltshire, England and is first recorded as one of the signers of the Portsmouth Compact. Following a few years on Aquidneck Island (called Rhode Island at the time), he joined Samuel Gorton and ten others to establish the town of Warwick in early 1643 on land purchased from the Indian sachems. The first few years of the Warwick settlement were fraught with difficulty; Massachusetts Bay Colony claimed their land and arrested them for supposed infractions against the sachems. The Warwick settlers were hauled off to face trial in Boston, but the charges had nothing to do with the sachems; instead, they were charged with heresy and sedition based on their religious views. They were sent to various jails in the Boston area, and they were then banished from the Massachusetts colony—and from their own Warwick lands. Holden soon after joined Gorton and John Greene on a trip to England to seek redress for the wrongs committed against them. Holden and Greene returned to New England in 1646 with a new charter for their settlement and protection from the crown. Holden became heavily involved in the affairs of his town of Warwick and of the entire colony. During the next 40 years, he served in a variety of roles as councilman and treasurer at the town level, and in the colony he was Assistant to the President (or Governor), Commissioner, and Deputy. He was highly respected within the colony and was a leader in 1676 during the dire events of King Philip's War. He continued to serve the colony into his mid 70s, only a few years before his death in 1692 at age 80. New England Randall Holden was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England around 1612, and he sailed to New England as a young man. He married Frances Dungan, the daughter of William and Frances (Latham) Dungan. The couple had 11 children, one of whom was Randall Holden Jr. who was very active in colonial affairs, serving for many years as Deputy, Assistant, Major, and Speaker of the House of Deputies. Holden's name first appears on the deed of Portsmouth, Rhode Island as witness, along with Roger Williams, in the sale of Aquidneck Island. William Coddington purchased the island from Narragansett sachems Canonicus and Miantonomo. His signature also appears on the Portsmouth Compact which established a non-sectarian civil government in the settlement of Pocasset (which became Portsmouth in 1639). Holden became Marshall of Portsmouth in 1638 and was given a grant of five acres. He later helped to establish Newport, but he was disenfranchised from the government there with three others in March 1641, and their names were cancelled from the Roll of Freeman of Newport. He and others reunited with the island settlements of Portsmouth and Newport some