Stukely Westcott

Stukely Westcott was born in 1592. He came from the town of Yeovil in Somerset, England, and settled first at Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Soon after, abt. 1638, he joined Roger Williams and became one of the first settlers of the Colony of Rhode Island and served as Commissioner, Surveyor of Highways, and kept a house of entertainment. In 1653 he was Assistant in the General Court and in 1671, at the age of 80, he was Deputy to the General Court. He was one of the original members of the first Baptist Church in America. He married Juliann Marchante and he died on the 12th of March, 1676/77, in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, about the age of 85. Some say he wrote his will on the 12th of March and died the same day before signing it, resulting in decades of delays in settling his estate. Notable descendants of Stukely and Juliann Wescott include Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, Hero of the War of 1812, Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who was sent by Pres. Filmore to the Convention of Kanagawa in Japan in 1854, and Stephen Arnold Douglas, who debated Abraham Lincoln in 1858, and ran against him unsuccessfully in the 1860 presidential election, and the infamous Revolutionary War General, Benedict Arnold, who dissented and attempted to aid the British in retaliation for injustices done to him in New England. Note: The name Stukely implies that he was a descendant of St. Ledger Westcot who about the year 1300 married the daughter of the Stuckleys of Affeton, about ten miles west of Tiverton and 15 miles northwest of Exeter in Devonshire. The seat of the Stuckley family in England was in West Worlington, Devon County. Hartland Abbey and Affeton Castle in West Worlington were passed down to George Stuckley, Baronet, owner in 1918.