Edmund Rice Homesite Marker: The house was located in the current town of Wayland (formerly East Sudbury)
North Cemetery Wayland Middlesex County Massachusetts, USA
North Cemetery Wayland Middlesex County Massachusetts, USA
North Cemetery Wayland Middlesex County Massachusetts, USA
North Cemetery, Wayland, Massachusetts
North Cemetery, Wayland Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA
Deacon Edmund Rice Homestead Wayland May 1650 Drawing
North Cemetery, Wayland, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA
Edmund Rice Homestead built about 1643 near the Old Connecticut Path in Sudbury (now Wayland).
The house stayed in the Rice family until it burned down in the early 20th Century. Copied from Wikipedia
(Deacon) Edmund Rice and Thomasine Frost Rice HS, Old Burying Ground, Wayland
Deacon Edmund Rice16 June 2011, North Cemetery, Wayland, Middlesex, Massachusetts
Memorial Stone erected by the Rice Association
Headstone Details
Cemetery name: North Cemetery, Wayland, Middlesex, Massachusetts
Name on headstone: Dea. Edmund Rice
Birth 1594
Death 1663
Signature of Edmund Rice on a 1659 land survey record of his estate purchase of the "Dunster Farm" property near Old Connecticut Path in old Sudbury. Original in Massachusetts State Archives, Boston.
Rice, Edmund (1594 to 5-3-1663)(2)28 August 2009, Old North Cemetery, East Sudbury (Wayland), Massachusetts
Headstone Details
Cemetery name: Old Burying-Ground at Sudbury Centre
Name on headstone: Edmund Rice
Birth: 1594 - Buckinghamshire, ENGLAND
Death: 1663 - East Sudbury, Wayland, Massachusetts
Rice-capture-Westboro
Edmund Rice House late 19th century - Late 19th Century, Wayland (formerly part of Sudbury), Massachusetts
Bury St
Postcard of the spring northwest of the Edmund Rice homestead near the Old Connecticut Path in Sudbury (now Wayland), Massachusetts. Spring is at map coordinates 42deg21'41.81"N 71deg22'01.80"W
Edmund Rice Homestead (1642) before 1930, Wayland, Massachusetts
Saint Mary's Church Where Thomasine Frost was married to Edmund Rice
Edmund Rice Introduction
1858, Sudbury, Massachusetts, USA
INTRODUCTION
Edmund Rice came from Barkhamstead, in the county of Hertfordshire, in England, and settled in Sudbury, Massachusetts, in 1638 or 9; as he shared in the three divisions of land in Sudbury, the first of which was made in 1639, he was no doubt residing there at that time.No record has been found of his embarkation for this country, nor in what ship he came, or at what place he first arrived; there is not so much as tradition on the subject. The first we find of him is at Sudbury, with a wife and family of at least seven children that came over with him; that place, called "the plantation lying near unto Concord," was incorporated in 1639 by the name of Sudbury. His residence, was on the east side of Sudbury river, in the southerly part of what is now Wayland, and near the border of the extensive meadows through which that river flows in a northeasterly course to the Merrimac. He was Selectman in 1644, and subsequent years; Deacon of the chh.1648, and, in 1656, one of thirteen petitioners belonging to Sudbury, who besought the General Court for a new plantation, saying, " Where as your petitioners have lived divers years in Sudbury, and God hath been pleased to increase our children, which are now, divers of them, grown to man's estate, and wee, many of us grown into years, so as that wee should bee glad to see them settled before the Lord take us away from hence; as also God having given us some considerable quantity of cattle, so that wee are so straightened, that wee cannot so comfortably subsist as could be desired; and some of us having taken some pains to view the country, wee have found a place, which lieth Westward about eight miles from Sudbury, which wee conceive might bee comfortable for our subsistence," and Sudbury at that time contained less than seventy-five families, and in territory included what is now Wayland. One would naturally think they were "straightened" for the want of neighbors, rather than for want of \room for themselves, or meadows where from to procure subsistence for their cattle; and so they found it, even twenty years later, when the town, with an increased population, was broken up and nearly destroyed by the Indians. Their petition was granted, and the plantation laid to them was incorporated by the name of Marlborough in 1660; whereto he removed and had a house lot of fifty acres granted to him by the proprietors of that town, with the rights appertaining thereto in after divisions. His wife "Tamazine" died at Sudbury, June 13, 1654; the record of her death is the only one wherein; her name has been found. His 2d wife was "Mercie" widow of Thomas Brigham of Cambridge; whom he married, March 1, 1655. His house lot in Marlboro', on which he built and resided, was in the westerly part of the town, on the old county road leading from Marlboro' to Northboro', and in the bend as it passes round the northerly side of the pond, a short distance northerly of the ancient "Williams tavern," afterwards kept by Gates and since by Wetherby. He was intrusted with various important duties by the General Court, which he discharged with a fidelity that occasioned repeated calls for his services, while the records of Sudbury and Marlboro' contain ample evidence of his vigilant and fatherly care in promoting the welfare of those infant settlements; the destruction of which by the Indians, occurring a few years after, he was not permitted to see by reason of death. He died at Marlboro', May 3, 1663, and was buried at Sudbury. A deposition of his on the court files at Cambridge states his age, April 3, 1656, to be "about 62 years "—hence he was born about 1594, and about 69 years old when he died.
RICE FAMILY
No. I. EDMUND RICE, born about 1594, came from England, settled at Sudbury 1639, removed to Marlboro', and died there May 3, 1663. His children were—
(1) Henry, ! ( i married Elizabeth Moore
(2) Edward, \ L \ % , married Anna
(3) Thomas, -, married Mary -r-.
(4) Mathew, { , married Martha Lamson.
(5) Samuel, -j , married Elizabeth King,
(6) Joseph, , married Mercy King.
(7) Lydia, , married Hugh Drury.
(8) Edmund, .
(9) Benjamin, May 31, 1640, married Mary Brown.
(10) Ruth, September 29, 1659, married Samuel Wells.
(11) Ann, November 19, 1661, probably married Nathaniel Gary (Gerry) of Roxbury, November 12, 1685, born July 4, 1663, son of Nathaniel Gery and Ann Dugglas, who were married at Rox. October 14, 1658. Arthur Geary was one of the first settlers of Rox.
(2) II. HENRY RICE called himself 50 years old January 25, 1667, as appears by a deposition on the files of the court hence born about 1617. He was admitted freeman 1658, and married Elizabeth Moore at Sudbury, February 1, 1643. He resided at Sud., and lastly at Framingham, where he died February 10, 1710-11. His wife Elizabeth died August 3, 1705.
Children:
13. 1 Mary, September. 19, 1646, married Thomas Brigham.
barbjkm63added this on 16 May 2011
GENEALOGICAL HISTORY of THE RICE FAMILY: DESCENDANTS of DEACON EDMUND RICE, (1858) From Pg1: The Introduction
found on ancestry.com
notes
Deacon Edmund Riceborn circa 1593/94, died 3 May 1663
Charts
Pedigree Chart for Patricia Noyes
Deacon Edmund Rice was born circa 1593/94 in Sudbury, Suffolk, England. He married as his first wife Thomasine Frost, daughter of Edward Frost and Thomasine Belgrave, on 15 October 1618 in St. Mary's Church, Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk, England. Deacon Edmund Rice married as his second wife Mercy Hurd on 1 March 1655 in Sudbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony. Deacon Edmund Rice died on 3 May 1663 in Marlborough, Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was buried in May 1663 in Old Sudbury Cemetery, Wayland, Massachusetts Bay Colony. Deacon Edmund Rice became a freeman on 13 May 1640 in Massachusetts Bay Colony. From the Edmund Rice Association website: "Twice in the 20th century nationally recognized research genealogists have attempted to determine the parents and ancestors of Edmund Rice. Mary Lovering Holman described the negative result of her search for records in the parishes near Stanstead and Sudbury, Suffolk County, England in "English Notes on Edmund Rice … ", The American Genealogist, Volume 10 (1933/34), pp. 133 - 137. Mrs. Holman is considered by many to be one of the best research genealogists in the 20th century. In 1997 the Edmund Rice (1638) Association commissioned Dr. Joanna Martin, a nationally recognized research genealogist who lives in England only a few miles from Stanstead and Sudbury to search again for records of Edmund Rice's parents. Dr. Martin reported in 1999 that she found no record that identified Edmund's parents or ancestral line. Several authors of published works and computer data sets have claimed names for Edmund Rice's parents. Regrettably they have not given sources that would assist in definitive genealogical research. For example, the Ancestral File and International Genealogical Index, two popular computer data sets widely distributed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, offer parent candidates that include: Henry Rice and Margaret Baker, Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost, Thomas Rice and Catherine Howard, and Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost. From Mrs. Holman's paper we have an excellent record of one Henry Rice's marriage to Elizabeth Frost in November 1605 at Stanstead. Mrs. Holman also documents the baptism of Edmund's first child on 23 August 1619 at Stanstead. If this is the Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost to which the LDS records refer, the LDS records must be erroneous. Our researchers have not been able to find records that support any Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost, Henry Rice and Margaret Baker, Thomas Rice and Catherine Howard, or Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost as parents of Edmund Rice. A scholarly investigation by Donald Lines Jacobus, considered by many as the dean of modern American genealogy, appeared in The American Genealogist, Volume 11, (1936), pp. 14-21. Jacobus traced many of the false accounts to the book by Dr. Charles Elmer Rice entitled "By the Name of Rice … ", privately published by Dr. Rice at Alliance, Ohio in 1911. Edmund Rice deposed in a court document on 3 April 1656 that he was about 62 years old. Sudbury, England includes three parishes, two of which do not have complete records for the years near 1594, which is Edmund's most likely birth year. Thus, if he were born in Sudbury, England his records have been lost and we may never know his origin. In his address to the 1999 annual meeting of the Edmund Rice (1638) Association, Gary Boyd Roberts, Senior Researcher, New England Historic Genealogical Society, reviewed all of the genealogical sleuthing on Edmund's parentage. Mr. Roberts is well known for his research on royal lineage. He concluded that there was no evidence whatsoever that supports the published accounts of Edmund Rice's parents and no evidence that Edmund Rice was from a royal lineage."
Children of Deacon Edmund Rice and Thomasine Frost
Mary Rice born 23 August 1619, died before 1638
Deacon Edward Rice born circa 1621, died 15 August 1712
Henry Rice born 1620/21, died 10 February 1710/11
John Rice born circa 1624, died 1688/89
Thomas Rice born 26 January 1625/26, died 16 November 1681
Lydia Rice born 9 March 1627/28, died 5 April 1675
Matthew Rice born circa 1629, died 1717
Daniel Rice born 1 November 1632, died before 10 November 1632
Samuel Rice born 12 November 1634, died 25 February 1684/85
Joseph Rice born 13 March 1637/38, died 23 December 1711
Benjamin Rice born 31 May 1640, died 19 December 1713
found on ancestry.com
On the Wealth of Deacon Edmund Rice
By Michael A. RiceApril 2007
In her 1938 history of Edmund Rice and family, Elsie Hawes Smith wrote that in the settlement of Edmund’s estate he had provided well for his children. His real estate holdings alone amounted to 743 pounds, eight shillings and four pence (p.35). Smith also stated (p. 34) that at in 1661, from ten to fifty acres of land was considered to be equal to one pound of money, so Edmund's total land holdings could have been quite substantial.
What does this mean in current dollars? During Edmund’s time, the British pound was by definition valued at the price of sterling silver. Records exist as to the value of silver through time, so it is possible to estimate the value Edmund’s estate in today’s dollars. During the 1600s and 1700s, the price of silver was relatively stable at about $200 per troy ounce in 1998 dollars (Figure 1). Given the conversion factors of 12 troy ounces to a pound, and 20 shillings to a pound and 12 pence to a shilling, Edmund’s real estate holdings would be worth about $1.78 million in 1998 dollars or about $2.33 million in current 2007 dollars using average Consumer Price Index adjustments of 3% per annum since 1998. In his day, Edmund was solid upper middle class in his lifestyle.
found on ancestry.com
Who Was Edmund Rice?Added by davemac159 on 22 March 2007
Edmund Rice arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony about 1638. Our first record of his presence is in Township Book of the Town of Sudbury in the year 1639. Regrettably, no ship's passenger list has survived and we have no record of Edmund Rice and his family before 1639 so we cannot be certain when or where he and his family arrived in the New World. Knowing the names of Edmund Rice's children at Sudbury, family historians have traced his family back to England using church baptismal records for his children and, eventually, to his marriage to Thomasine Frost on 15 October 1618 at Bury St. Edmunds. However, we have found no record of his baptism or any other record that names his parents.
As yeomen farmers Edmund Rice and the other early settlers at Sudbury were well prepared for the tasks of forming and governing a new community. As yeomen they had assumed both personal and community responsibilities back in England. As Protestant churchmen they had been encouraged to read and write so that they could study and understand their Bible. Although not of the noble class, they had shared many community and church responsibilities in their former communities in England. Edmund Rice was one of the prominent leaders of his community at both Sudbury and Marlborough. In his Pulitzer Prize winning book, Puritan Village, The formation of a New England Town, Sumner Chilton Powell sums up the high regard that his fellow citizens had for Edmund: "Not only did Rice become the largest individual landholder in Sudbury, but he represented his new town in the Massachusetts legislature for five years and devoted at least eleven of his last fifteen years to serving as selectman and judge of small causes." and "Two generations of Sudbury men selected Edmund Rice repeatedly as one of their leaders, with the full realization that they were ignoring men of far more English government experience who had come with him." If your ancestry goes back to Sudbury, be sure to read Powell's superb account of the development of this New England town in the mid 17th century. Although much respected by his fellow townsmen, Edmund seems to have had an independent side to his nature. In 1656 Edmund Rice and others petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for a new town which became the City of Marlborough. Edmund moved his immediate family and was elected a Selectman at Marlborough in 1657. Later generations of Rices were founding members of many new communities, first in New England and Nova Scotia, and later across the United States and Canada. Like many early New England families, Edmund Rice's family was a very large one. Of his twelve children, ten survived to have children of their own. Edmund Rice's descendants through his great great grandchildren number nearly 1,450. This pattern of large families seems to have continued well into the 19th century. The result is that many living people can trace their ancestry to Edmund Rice. Deacon Edmund Rice, Deacon Edmund Rice was born circa 1594 at England. As reported later in this account of Edmund Rice, no record of his birth or christening has been found.1
Deacon Edmund Rice married 1st Thomasine Frost, daughter of Edward Frost and Thomasine Belgrave, on 15 October 1618 at Saint Marys Church, Bury Saint Edmunds, county Suffolk, England.3,2,4,5 Deacon Edmund Rice married Mercy Hurd (?) on 1 March 1655/56 at Sudbury, Massachusetts; (literally 1655) registered as Mary Brigham.2,6 Deacon Edmund Rice died on 3 May 1663 at Sudbury, Massachusetts; (not found in the published records).1,2 He was buried at Old Burying Ground, Wayland, Massachusetts; One possible site of the grave is marked by a monument designed by Arthur Wallace Rice of Boston, Massachusetts. It was dedicated by the Edmund Rice Association on 29 August 1914. A boulder with a bronze tablet was also erected by the Association and it marks Edmund's homestead on the Old Connecticut Path in Wayland.2
He and Thomasine Frost resided in 1627 at Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, England.7,8 In 1638 Edmund Rice acquired 4 acres in then Sudbury (now Wayland) and laid out in the fall of that year. He was one of the first to build in the area. According to Massachusetts Colonial Records, Volume 1, page 271, on 4 September 1639 Edmund Rice was one of the committee appointed by the Massachusetts General Court to lay out the land in Sudbury.Edmund Rice's house was situated on the "Old North Street", near Mill brook. He received his proportion of "Meadowlands", which were divided "to the present inhabitants" under dates of 4 September 1639, 20 April, and 18 November 164-, his share being 42 1/2 acres. He shared in all the division of Uplands and Commons - the total number of acres which fell to his lot, as an original inhabitant, was 247.9,10 Deacon Edmund Rice was a Selectman in 1639, 1643, 1644 and subsequent years; a Deacon of the church in 1648, and, in 1656, one of the petitioners for a new plantation that became known as Marlborough at Sudbury, Massachusetts.11,12 He was designated a Freeman on 13 May 1640 at Massachusetts.13,14 Edmund Rice was recorded as being present as a Deputy at the Massachusetts General Court (legislative assembly) in Boston on 7 October 1640.15 On 2 June 1641 at Boston Edmund Rice was appointed an assosiate(sic) for the Courts and comission'r for the toune (sic) of Sudberry (sic).16 He was a deputy to the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (the Massachusetts legislature) representing the Town of Sudbury, serving on 27 May 1652, 18 May 1653, and 3 May 1654 between 1652 and 1654 at Boston, Massachusetts.17 He resided after 1656 at Marlborough, Massachusetts, lived on "The Great Road" on the northerly side of the pond (Cochituate Pond), not far from Williams Tavern. The pond is also spelled Wachittuate, Caochituet, Chochichawicke, Coijchawicke, Catchchauitt, Charchittawick, Katchetuit, Cochichawauke, or Cochichowicke.18
Twice in the 20th century nationally recognized research genealogists have attempted to determine the parents and ancestors of Edmund Rice. Mary Lovering Holman described the negative result of her search for records in the parishes near Stanstead and Sudbury, Suffolk County, England in “English Notes on Edmund Rice”, The American Genealogist, Volume 10 (1933/34), pp. 133 - 137. Mrs Holman is considered by many to be one of the best research genealogists in the 20th century. In 1997 the Edmund Rice (1638) Association commissioned Dr. Joanna Martin, a nationally recognized research genealogist who lives in Hitcham, Suffolk, England, only a few miles from Stanstead and Sudbury, to search again for records of Edmund Rice's parents. Dr. Martin reported in 1999 that she found no record that identified Edmund's parents or ancestral line.Several authors of published works and computer data sets have claimed names for Edmund Rice's parents. Regrettably they have not given sources that would assist in definitive genealogical research. For example, the Ancestral File and International Genealogical Index, two popular computer data sets widely distributed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, offer parent candidates that include: Henry Rice and Margaret Baker, Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost, Thomas Rice and Catherine Howard, and Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost.From Mrs. Holman's paper we have an excellent record of one Henry Rice's marriage to Elizabeth Frost in November 1605 at Stanstead. Mrs. Holman also documents the baptism of Edmund's first child on 23 August 1619 at Stanstead. If this is the Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost to which the LDS records refer, the LDS records must be erroneous. Our researchers have not been able to find records that support any Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost, Henry Rice and Margaret Baker, Thomas Rice and Catherine Howard, or Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost as parents of Edmund Rice.A scholarly investigation by Donald Lines Jacobus, considered by many as the dean of modern American genealogy, appeared in The American Genealogist, volume 11, (1936), pp. 14-21 and was reprinted in the fall of 1968 and the winter of 1998 issues of Newsletter of the Edmund Rice (1638) Association. Jacobus traced many of the false accounts to the book by Dr. Charles Elmer Rice entitled "By the Name of Rice”, privately published by Dr. Rice at Alliance, Ohio in 1911.Sudbury, England includes three parishes, two of which do not have complete records for the years near 1594, which is Edmund's most likely birth year. Edmund Rice deposed in a court document on 3 April 1656 that he was about 62 years old. Thus, if he were born in Sudbury his records have been lost and we may never know his origin. In his address to the 1999 annual meeting of the Edmund Rice (1638) Association, Gary Boyd Roberts, Senior Researcher, New England Historic Genealogy Society, reviewed all of the genealogical sleuthing on Edmund's parentage. Mr. Roberts is well known for his research on royal lineage. He concluded that there was no evidence whatsoever that supports the published accounts of Edmund Rice's parents and no evidence that Edmund Rice was from a royal lineage.The Edmund Rice (1638) Association is very interested in proving the ancestry of Edmund Rice. The association encourages anyone who can identify a primary source that names Edmund and his parents to identify that source. Records of a baptism, estate probate, or land transaction naming Edmund and his parents are the most likely records to contain that proof. Until someone can cite such a record, the association must state emphatically that Edmund Rice's parents and ancestry are not known and that Edmund Rice's descendants can not claim royal ancestry.19,20,21 WRN: 1.
Children of Deacon Edmund Rice and Thomasine Frost:
Henry Rice+
Mary Rice
Deacon Edward Rice+
Thomas Rice+
Lydia Rice+
Matthew Rice+
Daniel Rice
Samuel Rice+
Joseph Rice+
Benjamin Rice+
Children of Deacon Edmund Rice and Mercy Hurd (?):
Lydia Rice+
Ruth Rice+
Citations
1. [S1] Andrew Henshaw Ward, Genealogical History of THE RICE FAMILY: Descendants of DEACON EDMUND RICE (Boston, Massachusetts) A: C. Benjamin Richardson, 1858), p. 5. Hereinafter cited as Rice Family (Ward).
2. [S3] Edmund Rice (1638) Association, A Genealogical Register of Edmund Rice Descendants (Rutland, VT: The Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1970), p. 1. Hereinafter cited as Rice Gen'l Register.
3. [S1] Andrew Henshaw Ward, Genealogical History of THE RICE FAMILY: Descendants of DEACON EDMUND RICE (Boston, Massachusetts: C. Benjamin Richardson, 1858). Hereinafter cited as Rice Family (Ward).
4. [S258] Harold F Porter, The American Genealogist (n.p.: n.pub., January/April 1986), p. 166.
5. [S1171] Letter from Dr Joanna Martin (Oak Tree Farm, Finborough Road, Hitcham, Ipswich, England 1P7 7LS) to Dr Robert V Rice, 13 November 1997;. During her examination of the Stanstead parish records pertaining to the Edmund Rice family, Dr Martin found that several of the dates did not agree with dates previously recorded in Edmund Rice (1638) Association records. Several were from The American Genealogist 1933-4, information that had been transcribed by other that the TAG author. Dr Martin had the dates from the TAG article and was able to confirm that her dates were the correct ones. Dr Martin observed that the dates were in Roman numerals and speculated that the original transcriber may have been unfamiliar Roman numerals.
6. [S2365] Sudbury Massachusetts, Vital Records of Sudbury, Massachusetts, to the year 1850 (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1903), p. 258. Hereinafter cited as Sudbury, Massachusetts, Vital Records.
7. [S53] Mary Lovering Holman, The American Genealogist (n.p.: n.pub., 1933-34), p. 136.
8. [S120] David Kent Young, The Ancestry of Siobhan Eddy Young (West Wardsboro, Vermont: David Kent Young, 1996). Hereinafter cited as Young, Siobhan Eddy.
9. [S228] Josiah H Temple, A Genealogical Register of Framingham Families including All Who Took Up Residence in Town Before AD 1860 (Framingham, Massachusetts: The Town of Framingham, 1887), pp. 680-681. Hereinafter cited as Framingham Families (Temple).
10. [S1150] Nathaniel B Shurtleff, editor, Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (Boston, Massachusetts: The Commonwealth, 1854), vol. I, p. 271. Hereinafter cited as Massachusetts colonial records.
11. [S1] Andrew Henshaw Ward, Genealogical History of THE RICE FAMILY: Descendants of DEACON EDMUND RICE (Boston, Massachusetts: C. Benjamin Richardson, 1858), p. 1. Hereinafter cited as Rice Family (Ward).
12. [S3036] Sudbury, Massachusetts, Town records: book 1, Town Clerk, 322 Concord Road, Sudbury, Massachusetts. Hereinafter cited as Sudbury, Massachusetts, Town records.
13. [S233] Lucius R. Paige, List of Freemen of Massachusetts (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co, 1978). Hereinafter cited as Freemen of Massachusetts.
14. [S1150] Nathaniel B Shurtleff, editor, Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (Boston, Massachusetts: The Commonwealth, 1854), vol. I, p. 377. Hereinafter cited as Massachusetts colonial records.
15. [S1150] Nathaniel B Shurtleff, editor, Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (Boston, Massachusetts: The Commonwealth, 1854), vol. I, p. 301. Hereinafter cited as Massachusetts colonial records.
16. [S1150] Nathaniel B Shurtleff, editor, Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (Boston, Massachusetts: The Commonwealth, 1854), vol. I, p. 328. Hereinafter cited as Massachusetts colonial records.
17. [S1150] Nathaniel B Shurtleff, editor, Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (Boston, Massachusetts: The Commonwealth, 1854), vol. 3, pp. 259, 297, 340. Hereinafter cited as Massachusetts colonial records.
18. [S1] Andrew Henshaw Ward, Genealogical History of THE RICE FAMILY: Descendants of DEACON EDMUND RICE (Boston, Massachusetts: C. Benjamin Richardson, 1858), p. 2. Hereinafter cited as Rice Family (Ward).
19. [S53] Mary Lovering Holman, The American Genealogist (n.p.: n.pub., 1933-34), pp. 133 - 137.
20. [S60] D. L Jacobus, The American Genealogist (n.p.: The American Genealogist, 1936), pp. 14 -
21. Hereinafter cited as TAG - 11. 21. [S61] Mary Lovering Holman, The American Genealogist (n.p.: The American Genealogist, 1936), p. 227.
found on ancestry.com
Edmund RiceEdmund Rice (ca. 1594 – May 3, 1663), arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in summer or fall of 1638, presumed to be first residing in the town of Watertown, Massachusetts. Shortly thereafter he was a founder of Sudbury in 1638, and later in life, was one of the thirteen petitioners for the founding of Marlborough in 1656. He was a Deacon in the Puritan Church, and served in local politics as a selectman and judge, as well as serving five years as a member of the Great and General Court, the combined colonial legislature and judicial court.[1]
[2]Biographical notes
Edmund Rice's estimated birth date of 1594 is derived from a 3 April 1656 court deposition in Massachusetts in which he stated that he was 62 years of age. His presumed birthplace, somewhere in Suffolk in East Anglia, is deduced from the location of his marriage and site of his earliest children's birth. Many of the church records from 1594 in Suffolk are lost, so any record of his birth or the identity of his parents or any of his ancestors is unknown.[3][4] Edmund Rice had a presumed brother, Henry, who married Elizabeth Frost (sister of Edmund's wife Thomasine) on 12 November 1605 at St. James Church,[5] Stanstead, Suffolk52°06′ 42″N 0°41′26″E / 52.111652°N 0.690641°E / 52.111652; 0.690641. Repeated attempts to find record of Edmund Rice's birth or the birth his presumed brother Henry in church or civil records of the Stanstead, Sudbury and Bury St. Edmunds region of Suffolk have not been successful.[6]
Considerable information about the early life of Edmund Rice in England can be gleaned from his children's baptismal records and land ownership records in Stanstead, Suffolk and Berkhamsted, Hertsfordshire. He moved from Stanstead to Berkhamstead sometime between 1625 and 1626, based upon the baptismal dates of his children Thomas and Lydia. In Berkhamsted, he acquired and was taxed on 3 acres (12,000 m2) of land in 1627, and on 15 acres (61,000 m2) from 1633 to 1637.[7]
There is no surviving record of Edmund Rice's voyage to America with his family, but it is known to have occurred between the 13 March 1638 baptism of his son Joseph in Berkhamsted and the petition to the Great and General Court to found Sudbury, Massachusetts 6 September 1638, showing the Sudbury founders residing in Watertown, Massachusetts.[8] However, the 6 September 1638 petition to the General Court to found Sudbury does not explicitly mention Rice's name, so there is in actuality poor documentation of Rice's short-term residence in Watertown.
Between 1638 and 1657, Rice resided in Sudbury where he became a leader in the community. He was appointed on 4 September 1639 by the General Court to lay out the roads and lots of Sudbury, and he was granted 4 acres (16,000 m2) of land near the original Sudbury meetinghouse 42°22′26″ N 71°22′21″W / 42.373835°N 71.372609°W / 42.373835; -71.372609. He served as a selectman in Sudbury in 1639 and subsequently for several years between 1644 and 1656. He was designated a freeman on 13 May 1640,[9] and was elected as a deputy (representative) of the Great and General Court in October of 1640. He was later appointed as a Judge of Small Causes by the Massachusetts General Court for the Sudbury district on 2 June 1641.[10] Sumner Chilton Powell wrote, in his 1964 Pulitzer Prize winning Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town, "Not only did Rice become the largest individual landholder in Sudbury, but he represented his new town in the Massachusetts legislature for five years and devoted at least eleven of his last fifteen years to serving as selectman and judge of small causes." [11] In 1648, Rice was ordained as a Deacon in the Puritan Church at Sudbury.[12] He was reelected as a deputy of the Massachusetts General Court in 1652 through 1654. And by 1659, he had acquired about 600 acres (2.4 km2) of land in southeastern Sudbury (present day Wayland and Cochituate), including lands purchased from the probated estate of Henry Dunster.[13]
Open field or communal farming was practiced in most of Sudbury, following traditions of the commons and governance practices brought from central and western England. Rice and twelve other dissenters from Sudbury who were interested in 'closed field' or owner-operator farming petitioned the Great and General Court in 1656 to create the town of Marlborough in which individual ownership of farmland was to be exclusively practiced.[14] Rice was elected a selectman at Marlborough in 1657 as the town was being established. The town was formally chartered on 12 June 1660 by the General Court. With his maximum allotment of 50 acres (200,000 m2) of land in Marlborough, Rice was one of the largest initial landholders of the new town.[15]
Edmund Rice died on 3 May 1663 in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and is presumed to be buried at the Old North Cemetery (site of the first Sudbury Meeting House) in what is now Wayland, Massachusetts42° 22′15″N 71°22′09″W / 42.370877°N 71.369052°W / 42.370877; -71.369052. Probate records show that his wife, Mercy, was executrix and that his estate was valued at £743, 8s, and 4p., which was a considerable sum for the time.[16][17]
Edmund Rice was married to Thomasine Frost on October 15, 1618 in St. Mary's Church, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England and they had 10 children including:[18]
Mary Rice, baptized August 23, 1619 at Stanstead, Suffolk, England (possibly =Mary Axtell, married John Maynard 16 June 1646 after death of first husband Thomas Axtell that year at Sudbury, Massachusetts).[19][20]
Henry Rice, baptized February 13, 1620 at Stanstead, Suffolk, died February 10, 1710 at Framingham, married Elizabeth Moore February 1, 1642
Edward Rice, baptized October 20, 1622 at Stanstead, Suffolk, died August 15, 1712 at Marlborough, Massachusetts, married (1) Anna, (2) Agnes Bent 1646
Thomas Rice, baptized January 26, 1626 at Stanstead, Suffolk, died November 16, 1681 at Sudbury, Massachusetts, married Mary King 1652[21]
Lydia Rice, baptized March 9, 1627 at Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, died April 5, 1675, at Boston, Massachusetts, married Hugh Drury 1645.[22]
Matthew Rice, baptized February 28, 1628 at Berkhamsted, died 1717 at Sudbury, Massachusetts, married Martha Lamson November 2, 1654.
Daniel Rice, baptized November 1, 1632 at Berkhamsted, died November 10, 1632 at Berkhamsted.
Samuel Rice, baptized November 12, 1634 at Berkhamsted, died February 25, 1684 at Marlborough, Massachusetts, married (1) Elizabeth King, (2) Mary Dix September 1668, (3) Sarah White December 13, 1676
Joseph Rice, baptized March 13, 1638, at Berkhamsted, died December 23, 1711 at Stow, Massachusetts, married (1) Sarah Prescott, (2) Mary Beers, (3) Mercy King
Benjamin Rice, born May 31, 1640 at Sudbury, Massachusetts, died December 19, 1713 at Sudbury, Massachusetts, married (1) Mary Chamberlain, (2) Mary Browne
After the death of Thomasine Frost Rice on June 13, 1654 in Sudbury, Massachusetts, Edmund Rice married the widow Mercy Brigham on March 1, 1655 in Sudbury, Massachusetts. To that marriage, two daughters were born as follows:
Lydia Rice, born about 1657 at Sudbury, Massachusetts, died May 26, 1718, married James Hawkins circa 1678
Ruth Rice, born September 29, 1659 at Marlborough, Massachusetts, died March 30, 1742 at Glastonbury, Connecticut, married Capt. Samuel Welles, son of Thomas Welles on 20 June 1683
found on ancestry.com
Prominent Leader
Edmund RiceAdded by bilkeyfamily on 6 January 2008
Edmund Rice was one of the prominent leaders of his community at both Sudbury and Marlborough. In his Pulitzer Prize winning book, Puritan Village, The formation of a New England Town, Sumner Chilton Powell sums up the high regard that his fellow citizens had for Edmund: "Not only did Rice become the largest individual landholder in Sudbury, but he represented his new town in the Massachusetts legislature for five years and devoted at least eleven of his last fifteen years to serving as selectman and judge of small causes." and "Two generations of Sudbury men selected Edmund Rice repeatedly as one of their leaders, with the full realization that they were ignoring men of far more English government experience who had come with him." If your ancestry goes back to Sudbury, be sure to read Powell's superb account of the development of this New England town in the mid 17th century.Although much respected by his fellow townsmen, Edmund seems to have had an independent side to his nature. In 1656 Edmund Rice and others petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for a new town which became the City of Marlborough. Edmund moved his immediate family and was elected a Selectman at Marlborough in 1657. Later generations of Rices were founding members of many new communities, first in New England and Nova Scotia, and later across the United States and Canada.
Like many early New England families, Edmund Rice's family was a very large one. Of his twelve children, ten survived to have children of their own. Edmund Rice's descendants through his great great grandchildren number nearly 1,450. This pattern of large families seems to have continued well into the 19th century. The result is that many living people can trace their ancestry to Edmund Rice."
found on ancestry.com
Edmund Rice (1638) AssociationAdditional information on the Drury/Rice line can be found on the Edmund Rice (1638) Association website at http://www.edmund-rice.org/.
found on ancestry.com
Edmund Rice NotesDescendants of Edmund Rice
© Copyright 2002, 2008 by the Edmund Rice (1638) Association
Person Page - 1
Main Page
Surname Index
Master Index
Deacon Edmund Rice1,2
Deacon Edmund Rice was born circa 1594 at England. As reported later in this account of Edmund Rice, no record of his birth or christening has been found.1 Deacon Edmund Rice married 1st Thomasine Frost, daughter of Edward Frost and Thomasine Belgrave, on 15 October 1618 at Saint Marys Church, Bury Saint Edmunds, co Suffolk, England.3,2,4,5 Deacon Edmund Rice married Mercy Hurd (?) on 1 March 1655/56 at Sudbury, Massachusetts; (literally 1655) registered as Mary Brigham.2,6 Deacon Edmund Rice died on 3 May 1663 at Sudbury, Massachusetts; (not found in the published records).1,2 He was buried at Old Burying Ground, Wayland, Massachusetts. One possible site of the grave is marked by a monument designed by Arthur Wallace Rice of Boston, Massachusetts. It was dedicated by the Edmund Rice Association on 29 August 1914. A boulder with a bronze tablet was also erected by the Association and it marks Edmund's homestead on the Old Connecticut Path in Wayland.2 Deacon Edmund Rice and Thomasine Frost resided in 1627 at Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, England.7,8 In 1638 Edmund Rice acquired 4 acres in then Sudbury (now Wayland) and laid out in the fall of that year. He was one of the first to build in the area. According to Massachusetts Colonial Records, Volume 1, page 271, on 4 September 1639 Edmund Rice was one of the committee appointed by the Massachusetts General Court to lay out the land in Sudbury.Edmund Rice's house was situated on the "Old North Street", near Mill brook. He received his proportion of "Meadowlands", which were divided "to the present inhabitants" under dates of 4 September 1639, 20 April, and 18 November 164-, his share being 42 1/2 acres. He shared in all the division of Uplands and Commons - the total number of acres which fell to his lot, as an original inhabitant, was 247.9,10 Deacon Edmund Rice was a Selectman in 1639, 1643, 1644 and subsequent years; a Deacon of the church in 1648, and, in 1656, one of the petitioners for a new plantation that became known as Marlborough at Sudbury, Massachusetts.11,12 He was designated a Freeman on 13 May 1640 at Massachusetts.13,14 Edmund Rice was recorded as being present as a Deputy at the Massachusetts General Court (legislative assembly) in Boston on 7 October 1640.15 On 2 June 1641 at Boston Edmund Rice was appointed an assosiate(sic) for the Courts and comission'r for the toune (sic) of Sudberry (sic).16 He was a deputy to the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (the Massachusetts legislature) representing the Town of Sudbury, serving on 27 May 1652, 18 May 1653, and 3 May 1654 between 1652 and 1654 at Boston, Massachusetts.17 He resided after 1656 at Marlborough, Massachusetts, lived on "The Great Road" on the northerly side of the pond (Cochituate Pond), not far from Williams Tavern. The pond is also spelled Wachittuate, Caochituet, Chochichawicke, Coijchawicke, Catchchauitt, Charchittawick, Katchetuit, Cochichawauke, or Cochichowicke.18 Twice in the 20th century nationally recognized research genealogists have attempted to determine the parents and ancestors of Edmund Rice. Mary Lovering Holman described the negative result of her search for records in the parishes near Stanstead and Sudbury, Suffolk County, England in “English Notes on Edmund Rice”, The American Genealogist, Volume 10 (1933/34), pp. 133 - 137. Mrs Holman is considered by many to be one of the best research genealogists in the 20th century. In 1997 the Edmund Rice (1638) Association commissioned Dr. Joanna Martin, a nationally recognized research genealogist who lives in Hitcham, Suffolk, England, only a few miles from Stanstead and Sudbury, to search again for records of Edmund Rice's parents. Dr. Martin reported in 1999 that she found no record that identified Edmund's parents or ancestral line. Several authors of published works and computer data sets have claimed names for Edmund Rice's parents. Regrettably they have not given sources that would assist in definitive genealogical research. For example, the Ancestral File and International Genealogical Index, two popular computer data sets widely distributed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, offer parent candidates that include: Henry Rice and Margaret Baker, Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost, Thomas Rice and Catherine Howard, and Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost. From Mrs. Holman's paper we have an excellent record of one Henry Rice's marriage to Elizabeth Frost in November 1605 at Stanstead. Mrs. Holman also documents the baptism of Edmund's first child on 23 August 1619 at Stanstead. If this is the Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost to which the LDS records refer, the LDS records must be erroneous. Our researchers have not been able to find records that support any Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost, Henry Rice and Margaret Baker, Thomas Rice and Catherine Howard, or Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost as parents of Edmund Rice. A scholarly investigation by Donald Lines Jacobus, considered by many as the dean of modern American genealogy, appeared in The American Genealogist, volume 11, (1936), pp. 14-21 and was reprinted in the fall of 1968 and the winter of 1998 issues of Newsletter of the Edmund Rice (1638) Association. Jacobus traced many of the false accounts to the book by Dr. Charles Elmer Rice entitled "By the Name of Rice”, privately published by Dr. Rice at Alliance, Ohio in 1911. Sudbury, England includes three parishes, two of which do not have complete records for the years near 1594, which is Edmund's most likely birth year. Edmund Rice deposed in a court document on 3 April 1656 that he was about 62 years old. Thus, if he were born in Sudbury his records have been lost and we may never know his origin. In his address to the 1999 annual meeting of the Edmund Rice (1638) Association, Gary Boyd Roberts, Senior Researcher, New England Historic Genealogy Society, reviewed all of the genealogical sleuthing on Edmund's parentage. Mr. Roberts is well known for his research on royal lineage. He concluded that there was no evidence whatsoever that supports the published accounts of Edmund Rice's parents and no evidence that Edmund Rice was from a royal lineage. The Edmund Rice (1638) Association is very interested in proving the ancestry of Edmund Rice. The association encourages anyone who can identify a primary source that names Edmund and his parents to identify that source. Records of a baptism, estate probate, or land transaction naming Edmund and his parents are the most likely records to contain that proof. Until someone can cite such a record, the association must state emphatically that Edmund Rice's parents and ancestry are not known and that Edmund Rice's descendants cannot claim royal ancestry.19,20,21
found on ancestry.com
His HouseHIS HOUSE LOT WAS ON OLD NORTH STREET NEAR MILL BROOK. HE RECEIVED HIS SHARE IN RIVER MEADOWS, DIVIDED SEPTEMBER 4, 1639, APRIL 20 AND NOVEMBER 18, 1640 AND SHARED ALSO IN ALL VARIOUS DIVISIONS OF UPLANDS AND COMMON LANDS RECEIVING ALTOGETHER 247 ACRES. BUILT A 2ND HOUSE IN THE SOUTH PART OF TOWN BETWEEN TIMBER NECK AND THE GLOVER FARM NEAR THE SPRING. SOLD SOME LAND THERE TO THOMAS AXTELL AND PHILEMON WHALE BOTH OF WHOM BUILT THEIR HOUSES THERE. SOLD HIS HOME SEPTEMBER 1, 1642 TO JOHN MOORE AND SEPTEMBER 13, 1642 TOOK A 6-YEAR LEASE ON THE DUNSTER FARM ON THE EAST SHORE OF LAKE COCHITUATE. HE BOUGHT LAND BETWEEN THAT OF MARY AXTELL AND PHILEMON WHALE AND HIS OWN, THUS LOCATING HIS HOMESTEAD AT RICE'S SPRING. THEN HE BOUGHT THE WHALE'S HOUSE AND 9 ACRES, FORMING THE NUCLEUS OF THE RICE HOMESTEAD WHICH HE SOLD FINALLY TO HIS SON EDMUND, AND WHICH WAS OCCUPIED BY EDMUND AND HIS DESCENDANTS DOWN TO A RECENT DATE. ON SEPTEMBER 26, 1647 HE LEASED FOR TEN YEARS THE GLOVER FARM, WHICH IS WITHIN THE PRESENT LIMITS OF FRAMINGHAM. HE BOUGHT THE DUNSTER FARM. BESIDES THESE GRANTS AND PURCHASES THE GENERAL COURT GAVE HIM 50 ACRES AT RICE'S END IN 1652 AND 80 ACRES NEAR BEAVER DAM IN 1659. ON SEPTEMBER 4, 1639 HE WAS ON THE 1ST COMMITTEE TO APPORTION THE MEADOWS. ELECTED SELECTMAN 1639, 1644 AND LATER AT VARIOUS TIMES. DEPUTY TO THE GENERAL COURT 1654-56. ONE OF THE PETITIONERS FOR MARLBOROUGH AND RECEIVED A HOUSE LOT AND MOVED THERE IN 1660. MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE TO CONVEY LAND AT WHIP SUFFERAGE IN 1657. DEACON ON FILE OF SUDBURY CHURCH. AN EDMUND RICE TESTIFIED TO THE WILL OF THOMAS AXTELL ON MARCH 6, 1646. ENTERED ON LIST OF FREEMEN ON MAY 13, 1640. KNOWN AS OLD EDMUND OR EDMUND THE PILGRIM. AFTER EDMUND DIED MERCY MARRIED WILLIAM HUNT. D. RUTH Born SEPT 29 1699 found on ancestry.com
1858, Sudbury, Massachusetts, USA
INTRODUCTION
Edmund Rice came from Barkhamstead, in the county of Hertfordshire, in England, and settled in Sudbury, Massachusetts, in 1638 or 9; as he shared in the three divisions of land in Sudbury, the first of which was made in 1639, he was no doubt residing there at that time.No record has been found of his embarkation for this country, nor in what ship he came, or at what place he first arrived; there is not so much as tradition on the subject. The first we find of him is at Sudbury, with a wife and family of at least seven children that came over with him; that place, called "the plantation lying near unto Concord," was incorporated in 1639 by the name of Sudbury. His residence, was on the east side of Sudbury river, in the southerly part of what is now Wayland, and near the border of the extensive meadows through which that river flows in a northeasterly course to the Merrimac. He was Selectman in 1644, and subsequent years; Deacon of the chh.1648, and, in 1656, one of thirteen petitioners belonging to Sudbury, who besought the General Court for a new plantation, saying, " Where as your petitioners have lived divers years in Sudbury, and God hath been pleased to increase our children, which are now, divers of them, grown to man's estate, and wee, many of us grown into years, so as that wee should bee glad to see them settled before the Lord take us away from hence; as also God having given us some considerable quantity of cattle, so that wee are so straightened, that wee cannot so comfortably subsist as could be desired; and some of us having taken some pains to view the country, wee have found a place, which lieth Westward about eight miles from Sudbury, which wee conceive might bee comfortable for our subsistence," and Sudbury at that time contained less than seventy-five families, and in territory included what is now Wayland. One would naturally think they were "straightened" for the want of neighbors, rather than for want of \room for themselves, or meadows where from to procure subsistence for their cattle; and so they found it, even twenty years later, when the town, with an increased population, was broken up and nearly destroyed by the Indians. Their petition was granted, and the plantation laid to them was incorporated by the name of Marlborough in 1660; whereto he removed and had a house lot of fifty acres granted to him by the proprietors of that town, with the rights appertaining thereto in after divisions. His wife "Tamazine" died at Sudbury, June 13, 1654; the record of her death is the only one wherein; her name has been found. His 2d wife was "Mercie" widow of Thomas Brigham of Cambridge; whom he married, March 1, 1655. His house lot in Marlboro', on which he built and resided, was in the westerly part of the town, on the old county road leading from Marlboro' to Northboro', and in the bend as it passes round the northerly side of the pond, a short distance northerly of the ancient "Williams tavern," afterwards kept by Gates and since by Wetherby. He was intrusted with various important duties by the General Court, which he discharged with a fidelity that occasioned repeated calls for his services, while the records of Sudbury and Marlboro' contain ample evidence of his vigilant and fatherly care in promoting the welfare of those infant settlements; the destruction of which by the Indians, occurring a few years after, he was not permitted to see by reason of death. He died at Marlboro', May 3, 1663, and was buried at Sudbury. A deposition of his on the court files at Cambridge states his age, April 3, 1656, to be "about 62 years "—hence he was born about 1594, and about 69 years old when he died.
RICE FAMILY
No. I. EDMUND RICE, born about 1594, came from England, settled at Sudbury 1639, removed to Marlboro', and died there May 3, 1663. His children were—
(1) Henry, ! ( i married Elizabeth Moore
(2) Edward, \ L \ % , married Anna
(3) Thomas, -, married Mary -r-.
(4) Mathew, { , married Martha Lamson.
(5) Samuel, -j , married Elizabeth King,
(6) Joseph, , married Mercy King.
(7) Lydia, , married Hugh Drury.
(8) Edmund, .
(9) Benjamin, May 31, 1640, married Mary Brown.
(10) Ruth, September 29, 1659, married Samuel Wells.
(11) Ann, November 19, 1661, probably married Nathaniel Gary (Gerry) of Roxbury, November 12, 1685, born July 4, 1663, son of Nathaniel Gery and Ann Dugglas, who were married at Rox. October 14, 1658. Arthur Geary was one of the first settlers of Rox.
(2) II. HENRY RICE called himself 50 years old January 25, 1667, as appears by a deposition on the files of the court hence born about 1617. He was admitted freeman 1658, and married Elizabeth Moore at Sudbury, February 1, 1643. He resided at Sud., and lastly at Framingham, where he died February 10, 1710-11. His wife Elizabeth died August 3, 1705.
Children:
13. 1 Mary, September. 19, 1646, married Thomas Brigham.
barbjkm63added this on 16 May 2011
GENEALOGICAL HISTORY of THE RICE FAMILY: DESCENDANTS of DEACON EDMUND RICE, (1858) From Pg1: The Introduction
found on ancestry.com
notes
Deacon Edmund Riceborn circa 1593/94, died 3 May 1663
Charts
Pedigree Chart for Patricia Noyes
Deacon Edmund Rice was born circa 1593/94 in Sudbury, Suffolk, England. He married as his first wife Thomasine Frost, daughter of Edward Frost and Thomasine Belgrave, on 15 October 1618 in St. Mary's Church, Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk, England. Deacon Edmund Rice married as his second wife Mercy Hurd on 1 March 1655 in Sudbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony. Deacon Edmund Rice died on 3 May 1663 in Marlborough, Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was buried in May 1663 in Old Sudbury Cemetery, Wayland, Massachusetts Bay Colony. Deacon Edmund Rice became a freeman on 13 May 1640 in Massachusetts Bay Colony. From the Edmund Rice Association website: "Twice in the 20th century nationally recognized research genealogists have attempted to determine the parents and ancestors of Edmund Rice. Mary Lovering Holman described the negative result of her search for records in the parishes near Stanstead and Sudbury, Suffolk County, England in "English Notes on Edmund Rice … ", The American Genealogist, Volume 10 (1933/34), pp. 133 - 137. Mrs. Holman is considered by many to be one of the best research genealogists in the 20th century. In 1997 the Edmund Rice (1638) Association commissioned Dr. Joanna Martin, a nationally recognized research genealogist who lives in England only a few miles from Stanstead and Sudbury to search again for records of Edmund Rice's parents. Dr. Martin reported in 1999 that she found no record that identified Edmund's parents or ancestral line. Several authors of published works and computer data sets have claimed names for Edmund Rice's parents. Regrettably they have not given sources that would assist in definitive genealogical research. For example, the Ancestral File and International Genealogical Index, two popular computer data sets widely distributed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, offer parent candidates that include: Henry Rice and Margaret Baker, Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost, Thomas Rice and Catherine Howard, and Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost. From Mrs. Holman's paper we have an excellent record of one Henry Rice's marriage to Elizabeth Frost in November 1605 at Stanstead. Mrs. Holman also documents the baptism of Edmund's first child on 23 August 1619 at Stanstead. If this is the Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost to which the LDS records refer, the LDS records must be erroneous. Our researchers have not been able to find records that support any Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost, Henry Rice and Margaret Baker, Thomas Rice and Catherine Howard, or Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost as parents of Edmund Rice. A scholarly investigation by Donald Lines Jacobus, considered by many as the dean of modern American genealogy, appeared in The American Genealogist, Volume 11, (1936), pp. 14-21. Jacobus traced many of the false accounts to the book by Dr. Charles Elmer Rice entitled "By the Name of Rice … ", privately published by Dr. Rice at Alliance, Ohio in 1911. Edmund Rice deposed in a court document on 3 April 1656 that he was about 62 years old. Sudbury, England includes three parishes, two of which do not have complete records for the years near 1594, which is Edmund's most likely birth year. Thus, if he were born in Sudbury, England his records have been lost and we may never know his origin. In his address to the 1999 annual meeting of the Edmund Rice (1638) Association, Gary Boyd Roberts, Senior Researcher, New England Historic Genealogical Society, reviewed all of the genealogical sleuthing on Edmund's parentage. Mr. Roberts is well known for his research on royal lineage. He concluded that there was no evidence whatsoever that supports the published accounts of Edmund Rice's parents and no evidence that Edmund Rice was from a royal lineage."
Children of Deacon Edmund Rice and Thomasine Frost
Mary Rice born 23 August 1619, died before 1638
Deacon Edward Rice born circa 1621, died 15 August 1712
Henry Rice born 1620/21, died 10 February 1710/11
John Rice born circa 1624, died 1688/89
Thomas Rice born 26 January 1625/26, died 16 November 1681
Lydia Rice born 9 March 1627/28, died 5 April 1675
Matthew Rice born circa 1629, died 1717
Daniel Rice born 1 November 1632, died before 10 November 1632
Samuel Rice born 12 November 1634, died 25 February 1684/85
Joseph Rice born 13 March 1637/38, died 23 December 1711
Benjamin Rice born 31 May 1640, died 19 December 1713
found on ancestry.com
On the Wealth of Deacon Edmund Rice
By Michael A. RiceApril 2007
In her 1938 history of Edmund Rice and family, Elsie Hawes Smith wrote that in the settlement of Edmund’s estate he had provided well for his children. His real estate holdings alone amounted to 743 pounds, eight shillings and four pence (p.35). Smith also stated (p. 34) that at in 1661, from ten to fifty acres of land was considered to be equal to one pound of money, so Edmund's total land holdings could have been quite substantial.
What does this mean in current dollars? During Edmund’s time, the British pound was by definition valued at the price of sterling silver. Records exist as to the value of silver through time, so it is possible to estimate the value Edmund’s estate in today’s dollars. During the 1600s and 1700s, the price of silver was relatively stable at about $200 per troy ounce in 1998 dollars (Figure 1). Given the conversion factors of 12 troy ounces to a pound, and 20 shillings to a pound and 12 pence to a shilling, Edmund’s real estate holdings would be worth about $1.78 million in 1998 dollars or about $2.33 million in current 2007 dollars using average Consumer Price Index adjustments of 3% per annum since 1998. In his day, Edmund was solid upper middle class in his lifestyle.
found on ancestry.com
Who Was Edmund Rice?Added by davemac159 on 22 March 2007
Edmund Rice arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony about 1638. Our first record of his presence is in Township Book of the Town of Sudbury in the year 1639. Regrettably, no ship's passenger list has survived and we have no record of Edmund Rice and his family before 1639 so we cannot be certain when or where he and his family arrived in the New World. Knowing the names of Edmund Rice's children at Sudbury, family historians have traced his family back to England using church baptismal records for his children and, eventually, to his marriage to Thomasine Frost on 15 October 1618 at Bury St. Edmunds. However, we have found no record of his baptism or any other record that names his parents.
As yeomen farmers Edmund Rice and the other early settlers at Sudbury were well prepared for the tasks of forming and governing a new community. As yeomen they had assumed both personal and community responsibilities back in England. As Protestant churchmen they had been encouraged to read and write so that they could study and understand their Bible. Although not of the noble class, they had shared many community and church responsibilities in their former communities in England. Edmund Rice was one of the prominent leaders of his community at both Sudbury and Marlborough. In his Pulitzer Prize winning book, Puritan Village, The formation of a New England Town, Sumner Chilton Powell sums up the high regard that his fellow citizens had for Edmund: "Not only did Rice become the largest individual landholder in Sudbury, but he represented his new town in the Massachusetts legislature for five years and devoted at least eleven of his last fifteen years to serving as selectman and judge of small causes." and "Two generations of Sudbury men selected Edmund Rice repeatedly as one of their leaders, with the full realization that they were ignoring men of far more English government experience who had come with him." If your ancestry goes back to Sudbury, be sure to read Powell's superb account of the development of this New England town in the mid 17th century. Although much respected by his fellow townsmen, Edmund seems to have had an independent side to his nature. In 1656 Edmund Rice and others petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for a new town which became the City of Marlborough. Edmund moved his immediate family and was elected a Selectman at Marlborough in 1657. Later generations of Rices were founding members of many new communities, first in New England and Nova Scotia, and later across the United States and Canada. Like many early New England families, Edmund Rice's family was a very large one. Of his twelve children, ten survived to have children of their own. Edmund Rice's descendants through his great great grandchildren number nearly 1,450. This pattern of large families seems to have continued well into the 19th century. The result is that many living people can trace their ancestry to Edmund Rice. Deacon Edmund Rice, Deacon Edmund Rice was born circa 1594 at England. As reported later in this account of Edmund Rice, no record of his birth or christening has been found.1
Deacon Edmund Rice married 1st Thomasine Frost, daughter of Edward Frost and Thomasine Belgrave, on 15 October 1618 at Saint Marys Church, Bury Saint Edmunds, county Suffolk, England.3,2,4,5 Deacon Edmund Rice married Mercy Hurd (?) on 1 March 1655/56 at Sudbury, Massachusetts; (literally 1655) registered as Mary Brigham.2,6 Deacon Edmund Rice died on 3 May 1663 at Sudbury, Massachusetts; (not found in the published records).1,2 He was buried at Old Burying Ground, Wayland, Massachusetts; One possible site of the grave is marked by a monument designed by Arthur Wallace Rice of Boston, Massachusetts. It was dedicated by the Edmund Rice Association on 29 August 1914. A boulder with a bronze tablet was also erected by the Association and it marks Edmund's homestead on the Old Connecticut Path in Wayland.2
He and Thomasine Frost resided in 1627 at Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, England.7,8 In 1638 Edmund Rice acquired 4 acres in then Sudbury (now Wayland) and laid out in the fall of that year. He was one of the first to build in the area. According to Massachusetts Colonial Records, Volume 1, page 271, on 4 September 1639 Edmund Rice was one of the committee appointed by the Massachusetts General Court to lay out the land in Sudbury.Edmund Rice's house was situated on the "Old North Street", near Mill brook. He received his proportion of "Meadowlands", which were divided "to the present inhabitants" under dates of 4 September 1639, 20 April, and 18 November 164-, his share being 42 1/2 acres. He shared in all the division of Uplands and Commons - the total number of acres which fell to his lot, as an original inhabitant, was 247.9,10 Deacon Edmund Rice was a Selectman in 1639, 1643, 1644 and subsequent years; a Deacon of the church in 1648, and, in 1656, one of the petitioners for a new plantation that became known as Marlborough at Sudbury, Massachusetts.11,12 He was designated a Freeman on 13 May 1640 at Massachusetts.13,14 Edmund Rice was recorded as being present as a Deputy at the Massachusetts General Court (legislative assembly) in Boston on 7 October 1640.15 On 2 June 1641 at Boston Edmund Rice was appointed an assosiate(sic) for the Courts and comission'r for the toune (sic) of Sudberry (sic).16 He was a deputy to the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (the Massachusetts legislature) representing the Town of Sudbury, serving on 27 May 1652, 18 May 1653, and 3 May 1654 between 1652 and 1654 at Boston, Massachusetts.17 He resided after 1656 at Marlborough, Massachusetts, lived on "The Great Road" on the northerly side of the pond (Cochituate Pond), not far from Williams Tavern. The pond is also spelled Wachittuate, Caochituet, Chochichawicke, Coijchawicke, Catchchauitt, Charchittawick, Katchetuit, Cochichawauke, or Cochichowicke.18
Twice in the 20th century nationally recognized research genealogists have attempted to determine the parents and ancestors of Edmund Rice. Mary Lovering Holman described the negative result of her search for records in the parishes near Stanstead and Sudbury, Suffolk County, England in “English Notes on Edmund Rice”, The American Genealogist, Volume 10 (1933/34), pp. 133 - 137. Mrs Holman is considered by many to be one of the best research genealogists in the 20th century. In 1997 the Edmund Rice (1638) Association commissioned Dr. Joanna Martin, a nationally recognized research genealogist who lives in Hitcham, Suffolk, England, only a few miles from Stanstead and Sudbury, to search again for records of Edmund Rice's parents. Dr. Martin reported in 1999 that she found no record that identified Edmund's parents or ancestral line.Several authors of published works and computer data sets have claimed names for Edmund Rice's parents. Regrettably they have not given sources that would assist in definitive genealogical research. For example, the Ancestral File and International Genealogical Index, two popular computer data sets widely distributed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, offer parent candidates that include: Henry Rice and Margaret Baker, Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost, Thomas Rice and Catherine Howard, and Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost.From Mrs. Holman's paper we have an excellent record of one Henry Rice's marriage to Elizabeth Frost in November 1605 at Stanstead. Mrs. Holman also documents the baptism of Edmund's first child on 23 August 1619 at Stanstead. If this is the Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost to which the LDS records refer, the LDS records must be erroneous. Our researchers have not been able to find records that support any Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost, Henry Rice and Margaret Baker, Thomas Rice and Catherine Howard, or Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost as parents of Edmund Rice.A scholarly investigation by Donald Lines Jacobus, considered by many as the dean of modern American genealogy, appeared in The American Genealogist, volume 11, (1936), pp. 14-21 and was reprinted in the fall of 1968 and the winter of 1998 issues of Newsletter of the Edmund Rice (1638) Association. Jacobus traced many of the false accounts to the book by Dr. Charles Elmer Rice entitled "By the Name of Rice”, privately published by Dr. Rice at Alliance, Ohio in 1911.Sudbury, England includes three parishes, two of which do not have complete records for the years near 1594, which is Edmund's most likely birth year. Edmund Rice deposed in a court document on 3 April 1656 that he was about 62 years old. Thus, if he were born in Sudbury his records have been lost and we may never know his origin. In his address to the 1999 annual meeting of the Edmund Rice (1638) Association, Gary Boyd Roberts, Senior Researcher, New England Historic Genealogy Society, reviewed all of the genealogical sleuthing on Edmund's parentage. Mr. Roberts is well known for his research on royal lineage. He concluded that there was no evidence whatsoever that supports the published accounts of Edmund Rice's parents and no evidence that Edmund Rice was from a royal lineage.The Edmund Rice (1638) Association is very interested in proving the ancestry of Edmund Rice. The association encourages anyone who can identify a primary source that names Edmund and his parents to identify that source. Records of a baptism, estate probate, or land transaction naming Edmund and his parents are the most likely records to contain that proof. Until someone can cite such a record, the association must state emphatically that Edmund Rice's parents and ancestry are not known and that Edmund Rice's descendants can not claim royal ancestry.19,20,21 WRN: 1.
Children of Deacon Edmund Rice and Thomasine Frost:
Henry Rice+
Mary Rice
Deacon Edward Rice+
Thomas Rice+
Lydia Rice+
Matthew Rice+
Daniel Rice
Samuel Rice+
Joseph Rice+
Benjamin Rice+
Children of Deacon Edmund Rice and Mercy Hurd (?):
Lydia Rice+
Ruth Rice+
Citations
1. [S1] Andrew Henshaw Ward, Genealogical History of THE RICE FAMILY: Descendants of DEACON EDMUND RICE (Boston, Massachusetts) A: C. Benjamin Richardson, 1858), p. 5. Hereinafter cited as Rice Family (Ward).
2. [S3] Edmund Rice (1638) Association, A Genealogical Register of Edmund Rice Descendants (Rutland, VT: The Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1970), p. 1. Hereinafter cited as Rice Gen'l Register.
3. [S1] Andrew Henshaw Ward, Genealogical History of THE RICE FAMILY: Descendants of DEACON EDMUND RICE (Boston, Massachusetts: C. Benjamin Richardson, 1858). Hereinafter cited as Rice Family (Ward).
4. [S258] Harold F Porter, The American Genealogist (n.p.: n.pub., January/April 1986), p. 166.
5. [S1171] Letter from Dr Joanna Martin (Oak Tree Farm, Finborough Road, Hitcham, Ipswich, England 1P7 7LS) to Dr Robert V Rice, 13 November 1997;. During her examination of the Stanstead parish records pertaining to the Edmund Rice family, Dr Martin found that several of the dates did not agree with dates previously recorded in Edmund Rice (1638) Association records. Several were from The American Genealogist 1933-4, information that had been transcribed by other that the TAG author. Dr Martin had the dates from the TAG article and was able to confirm that her dates were the correct ones. Dr Martin observed that the dates were in Roman numerals and speculated that the original transcriber may have been unfamiliar Roman numerals.
6. [S2365] Sudbury Massachusetts, Vital Records of Sudbury, Massachusetts, to the year 1850 (Boston, Massachusetts: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1903), p. 258. Hereinafter cited as Sudbury, Massachusetts, Vital Records.
7. [S53] Mary Lovering Holman, The American Genealogist (n.p.: n.pub., 1933-34), p. 136.
8. [S120] David Kent Young, The Ancestry of Siobhan Eddy Young (West Wardsboro, Vermont: David Kent Young, 1996). Hereinafter cited as Young, Siobhan Eddy.
9. [S228] Josiah H Temple, A Genealogical Register of Framingham Families including All Who Took Up Residence in Town Before AD 1860 (Framingham, Massachusetts: The Town of Framingham, 1887), pp. 680-681. Hereinafter cited as Framingham Families (Temple).
10. [S1150] Nathaniel B Shurtleff, editor, Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (Boston, Massachusetts: The Commonwealth, 1854), vol. I, p. 271. Hereinafter cited as Massachusetts colonial records.
11. [S1] Andrew Henshaw Ward, Genealogical History of THE RICE FAMILY: Descendants of DEACON EDMUND RICE (Boston, Massachusetts: C. Benjamin Richardson, 1858), p. 1. Hereinafter cited as Rice Family (Ward).
12. [S3036] Sudbury, Massachusetts, Town records: book 1, Town Clerk, 322 Concord Road, Sudbury, Massachusetts. Hereinafter cited as Sudbury, Massachusetts, Town records.
13. [S233] Lucius R. Paige, List of Freemen of Massachusetts (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co, 1978). Hereinafter cited as Freemen of Massachusetts.
14. [S1150] Nathaniel B Shurtleff, editor, Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (Boston, Massachusetts: The Commonwealth, 1854), vol. I, p. 377. Hereinafter cited as Massachusetts colonial records.
15. [S1150] Nathaniel B Shurtleff, editor, Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (Boston, Massachusetts: The Commonwealth, 1854), vol. I, p. 301. Hereinafter cited as Massachusetts colonial records.
16. [S1150] Nathaniel B Shurtleff, editor, Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (Boston, Massachusetts: The Commonwealth, 1854), vol. I, p. 328. Hereinafter cited as Massachusetts colonial records.
17. [S1150] Nathaniel B Shurtleff, editor, Records of the governor and company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England (Boston, Massachusetts: The Commonwealth, 1854), vol. 3, pp. 259, 297, 340. Hereinafter cited as Massachusetts colonial records.
18. [S1] Andrew Henshaw Ward, Genealogical History of THE RICE FAMILY: Descendants of DEACON EDMUND RICE (Boston, Massachusetts: C. Benjamin Richardson, 1858), p. 2. Hereinafter cited as Rice Family (Ward).
19. [S53] Mary Lovering Holman, The American Genealogist (n.p.: n.pub., 1933-34), pp. 133 - 137.
20. [S60] D. L Jacobus, The American Genealogist (n.p.: The American Genealogist, 1936), pp. 14 -
21. Hereinafter cited as TAG - 11. 21. [S61] Mary Lovering Holman, The American Genealogist (n.p.: The American Genealogist, 1936), p. 227.
found on ancestry.com
Edmund RiceEdmund Rice (ca. 1594 – May 3, 1663), arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in summer or fall of 1638, presumed to be first residing in the town of Watertown, Massachusetts. Shortly thereafter he was a founder of Sudbury in 1638, and later in life, was one of the thirteen petitioners for the founding of Marlborough in 1656. He was a Deacon in the Puritan Church, and served in local politics as a selectman and judge, as well as serving five years as a member of the Great and General Court, the combined colonial legislature and judicial court.[1]
[2]Biographical notes
Edmund Rice's estimated birth date of 1594 is derived from a 3 April 1656 court deposition in Massachusetts in which he stated that he was 62 years of age. His presumed birthplace, somewhere in Suffolk in East Anglia, is deduced from the location of his marriage and site of his earliest children's birth. Many of the church records from 1594 in Suffolk are lost, so any record of his birth or the identity of his parents or any of his ancestors is unknown.[3][4] Edmund Rice had a presumed brother, Henry, who married Elizabeth Frost (sister of Edmund's wife Thomasine) on 12 November 1605 at St. James Church,[5] Stanstead, Suffolk52°06′ 42″N 0°41′26″E / 52.111652°N 0.690641°E / 52.111652; 0.690641. Repeated attempts to find record of Edmund Rice's birth or the birth his presumed brother Henry in church or civil records of the Stanstead, Sudbury and Bury St. Edmunds region of Suffolk have not been successful.[6]
Considerable information about the early life of Edmund Rice in England can be gleaned from his children's baptismal records and land ownership records in Stanstead, Suffolk and Berkhamsted, Hertsfordshire. He moved from Stanstead to Berkhamstead sometime between 1625 and 1626, based upon the baptismal dates of his children Thomas and Lydia. In Berkhamsted, he acquired and was taxed on 3 acres (12,000 m2) of land in 1627, and on 15 acres (61,000 m2) from 1633 to 1637.[7]
There is no surviving record of Edmund Rice's voyage to America with his family, but it is known to have occurred between the 13 March 1638 baptism of his son Joseph in Berkhamsted and the petition to the Great and General Court to found Sudbury, Massachusetts 6 September 1638, showing the Sudbury founders residing in Watertown, Massachusetts.[8] However, the 6 September 1638 petition to the General Court to found Sudbury does not explicitly mention Rice's name, so there is in actuality poor documentation of Rice's short-term residence in Watertown.
Between 1638 and 1657, Rice resided in Sudbury where he became a leader in the community. He was appointed on 4 September 1639 by the General Court to lay out the roads and lots of Sudbury, and he was granted 4 acres (16,000 m2) of land near the original Sudbury meetinghouse 42°22′26″ N 71°22′21″W / 42.373835°N 71.372609°W / 42.373835; -71.372609. He served as a selectman in Sudbury in 1639 and subsequently for several years between 1644 and 1656. He was designated a freeman on 13 May 1640,[9] and was elected as a deputy (representative) of the Great and General Court in October of 1640. He was later appointed as a Judge of Small Causes by the Massachusetts General Court for the Sudbury district on 2 June 1641.[10] Sumner Chilton Powell wrote, in his 1964 Pulitzer Prize winning Puritan Village: The Formation of a New England Town, "Not only did Rice become the largest individual landholder in Sudbury, but he represented his new town in the Massachusetts legislature for five years and devoted at least eleven of his last fifteen years to serving as selectman and judge of small causes." [11] In 1648, Rice was ordained as a Deacon in the Puritan Church at Sudbury.[12] He was reelected as a deputy of the Massachusetts General Court in 1652 through 1654. And by 1659, he had acquired about 600 acres (2.4 km2) of land in southeastern Sudbury (present day Wayland and Cochituate), including lands purchased from the probated estate of Henry Dunster.[13]
Open field or communal farming was practiced in most of Sudbury, following traditions of the commons and governance practices brought from central and western England. Rice and twelve other dissenters from Sudbury who were interested in 'closed field' or owner-operator farming petitioned the Great and General Court in 1656 to create the town of Marlborough in which individual ownership of farmland was to be exclusively practiced.[14] Rice was elected a selectman at Marlborough in 1657 as the town was being established. The town was formally chartered on 12 June 1660 by the General Court. With his maximum allotment of 50 acres (200,000 m2) of land in Marlborough, Rice was one of the largest initial landholders of the new town.[15]
Edmund Rice died on 3 May 1663 in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and is presumed to be buried at the Old North Cemetery (site of the first Sudbury Meeting House) in what is now Wayland, Massachusetts42° 22′15″N 71°22′09″W / 42.370877°N 71.369052°W / 42.370877; -71.369052. Probate records show that his wife, Mercy, was executrix and that his estate was valued at £743, 8s, and 4p., which was a considerable sum for the time.[16][17]
Edmund Rice was married to Thomasine Frost on October 15, 1618 in St. Mary's Church, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England and they had 10 children including:[18]
Mary Rice, baptized August 23, 1619 at Stanstead, Suffolk, England (possibly =Mary Axtell, married John Maynard 16 June 1646 after death of first husband Thomas Axtell that year at Sudbury, Massachusetts).[19][20]
Henry Rice, baptized February 13, 1620 at Stanstead, Suffolk, died February 10, 1710 at Framingham, married Elizabeth Moore February 1, 1642
Edward Rice, baptized October 20, 1622 at Stanstead, Suffolk, died August 15, 1712 at Marlborough, Massachusetts, married (1) Anna, (2) Agnes Bent 1646
Thomas Rice, baptized January 26, 1626 at Stanstead, Suffolk, died November 16, 1681 at Sudbury, Massachusetts, married Mary King 1652[21]
Lydia Rice, baptized March 9, 1627 at Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, died April 5, 1675, at Boston, Massachusetts, married Hugh Drury 1645.[22]
Matthew Rice, baptized February 28, 1628 at Berkhamsted, died 1717 at Sudbury, Massachusetts, married Martha Lamson November 2, 1654.
Daniel Rice, baptized November 1, 1632 at Berkhamsted, died November 10, 1632 at Berkhamsted.
Samuel Rice, baptized November 12, 1634 at Berkhamsted, died February 25, 1684 at Marlborough, Massachusetts, married (1) Elizabeth King, (2) Mary Dix September 1668, (3) Sarah White December 13, 1676
Joseph Rice, baptized March 13, 1638, at Berkhamsted, died December 23, 1711 at Stow, Massachusetts, married (1) Sarah Prescott, (2) Mary Beers, (3) Mercy King
Benjamin Rice, born May 31, 1640 at Sudbury, Massachusetts, died December 19, 1713 at Sudbury, Massachusetts, married (1) Mary Chamberlain, (2) Mary Browne
After the death of Thomasine Frost Rice on June 13, 1654 in Sudbury, Massachusetts, Edmund Rice married the widow Mercy Brigham on March 1, 1655 in Sudbury, Massachusetts. To that marriage, two daughters were born as follows:
Lydia Rice, born about 1657 at Sudbury, Massachusetts, died May 26, 1718, married James Hawkins circa 1678
Ruth Rice, born September 29, 1659 at Marlborough, Massachusetts, died March 30, 1742 at Glastonbury, Connecticut, married Capt. Samuel Welles, son of Thomas Welles on 20 June 1683
found on ancestry.com
Prominent Leader
Edmund RiceAdded by bilkeyfamily on 6 January 2008
Edmund Rice was one of the prominent leaders of his community at both Sudbury and Marlborough. In his Pulitzer Prize winning book, Puritan Village, The formation of a New England Town, Sumner Chilton Powell sums up the high regard that his fellow citizens had for Edmund: "Not only did Rice become the largest individual landholder in Sudbury, but he represented his new town in the Massachusetts legislature for five years and devoted at least eleven of his last fifteen years to serving as selectman and judge of small causes." and "Two generations of Sudbury men selected Edmund Rice repeatedly as one of their leaders, with the full realization that they were ignoring men of far more English government experience who had come with him." If your ancestry goes back to Sudbury, be sure to read Powell's superb account of the development of this New England town in the mid 17th century.Although much respected by his fellow townsmen, Edmund seems to have had an independent side to his nature. In 1656 Edmund Rice and others petitioned the Massachusetts General Court for a new town which became the City of Marlborough. Edmund moved his immediate family and was elected a Selectman at Marlborough in 1657. Later generations of Rices were founding members of many new communities, first in New England and Nova Scotia, and later across the United States and Canada.
Like many early New England families, Edmund Rice's family was a very large one. Of his twelve children, ten survived to have children of their own. Edmund Rice's descendants through his great great grandchildren number nearly 1,450. This pattern of large families seems to have continued well into the 19th century. The result is that many living people can trace their ancestry to Edmund Rice."
found on ancestry.com
Edmund Rice (1638) AssociationAdditional information on the Drury/Rice line can be found on the Edmund Rice (1638) Association website at http://www.edmund-rice.org/.
found on ancestry.com
Edmund Rice NotesDescendants of Edmund Rice
© Copyright 2002, 2008 by the Edmund Rice (1638) Association
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Deacon Edmund Rice1,2
Deacon Edmund Rice was born circa 1594 at England. As reported later in this account of Edmund Rice, no record of his birth or christening has been found.1 Deacon Edmund Rice married 1st Thomasine Frost, daughter of Edward Frost and Thomasine Belgrave, on 15 October 1618 at Saint Marys Church, Bury Saint Edmunds, co Suffolk, England.3,2,4,5 Deacon Edmund Rice married Mercy Hurd (?) on 1 March 1655/56 at Sudbury, Massachusetts; (literally 1655) registered as Mary Brigham.2,6 Deacon Edmund Rice died on 3 May 1663 at Sudbury, Massachusetts; (not found in the published records).1,2 He was buried at Old Burying Ground, Wayland, Massachusetts. One possible site of the grave is marked by a monument designed by Arthur Wallace Rice of Boston, Massachusetts. It was dedicated by the Edmund Rice Association on 29 August 1914. A boulder with a bronze tablet was also erected by the Association and it marks Edmund's homestead on the Old Connecticut Path in Wayland.2 Deacon Edmund Rice and Thomasine Frost resided in 1627 at Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, England.7,8 In 1638 Edmund Rice acquired 4 acres in then Sudbury (now Wayland) and laid out in the fall of that year. He was one of the first to build in the area. According to Massachusetts Colonial Records, Volume 1, page 271, on 4 September 1639 Edmund Rice was one of the committee appointed by the Massachusetts General Court to lay out the land in Sudbury.Edmund Rice's house was situated on the "Old North Street", near Mill brook. He received his proportion of "Meadowlands", which were divided "to the present inhabitants" under dates of 4 September 1639, 20 April, and 18 November 164-, his share being 42 1/2 acres. He shared in all the division of Uplands and Commons - the total number of acres which fell to his lot, as an original inhabitant, was 247.9,10 Deacon Edmund Rice was a Selectman in 1639, 1643, 1644 and subsequent years; a Deacon of the church in 1648, and, in 1656, one of the petitioners for a new plantation that became known as Marlborough at Sudbury, Massachusetts.11,12 He was designated a Freeman on 13 May 1640 at Massachusetts.13,14 Edmund Rice was recorded as being present as a Deputy at the Massachusetts General Court (legislative assembly) in Boston on 7 October 1640.15 On 2 June 1641 at Boston Edmund Rice was appointed an assosiate(sic) for the Courts and comission'r for the toune (sic) of Sudberry (sic).16 He was a deputy to the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (the Massachusetts legislature) representing the Town of Sudbury, serving on 27 May 1652, 18 May 1653, and 3 May 1654 between 1652 and 1654 at Boston, Massachusetts.17 He resided after 1656 at Marlborough, Massachusetts, lived on "The Great Road" on the northerly side of the pond (Cochituate Pond), not far from Williams Tavern. The pond is also spelled Wachittuate, Caochituet, Chochichawicke, Coijchawicke, Catchchauitt, Charchittawick, Katchetuit, Cochichawauke, or Cochichowicke.18 Twice in the 20th century nationally recognized research genealogists have attempted to determine the parents and ancestors of Edmund Rice. Mary Lovering Holman described the negative result of her search for records in the parishes near Stanstead and Sudbury, Suffolk County, England in “English Notes on Edmund Rice”, The American Genealogist, Volume 10 (1933/34), pp. 133 - 137. Mrs Holman is considered by many to be one of the best research genealogists in the 20th century. In 1997 the Edmund Rice (1638) Association commissioned Dr. Joanna Martin, a nationally recognized research genealogist who lives in Hitcham, Suffolk, England, only a few miles from Stanstead and Sudbury, to search again for records of Edmund Rice's parents. Dr. Martin reported in 1999 that she found no record that identified Edmund's parents or ancestral line. Several authors of published works and computer data sets have claimed names for Edmund Rice's parents. Regrettably they have not given sources that would assist in definitive genealogical research. For example, the Ancestral File and International Genealogical Index, two popular computer data sets widely distributed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, offer parent candidates that include: Henry Rice and Margaret Baker, Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost, Thomas Rice and Catherine Howard, and Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost. From Mrs. Holman's paper we have an excellent record of one Henry Rice's marriage to Elizabeth Frost in November 1605 at Stanstead. Mrs. Holman also documents the baptism of Edmund's first child on 23 August 1619 at Stanstead. If this is the Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost to which the LDS records refer, the LDS records must be erroneous. Our researchers have not been able to find records that support any Henry Rice and Elizabeth Frost, Henry Rice and Margaret Baker, Thomas Rice and Catherine Howard, or Thomas Rice and Elizabeth Frost as parents of Edmund Rice. A scholarly investigation by Donald Lines Jacobus, considered by many as the dean of modern American genealogy, appeared in The American Genealogist, volume 11, (1936), pp. 14-21 and was reprinted in the fall of 1968 and the winter of 1998 issues of Newsletter of the Edmund Rice (1638) Association. Jacobus traced many of the false accounts to the book by Dr. Charles Elmer Rice entitled "By the Name of Rice”, privately published by Dr. Rice at Alliance, Ohio in 1911. Sudbury, England includes three parishes, two of which do not have complete records for the years near 1594, which is Edmund's most likely birth year. Edmund Rice deposed in a court document on 3 April 1656 that he was about 62 years old. Thus, if he were born in Sudbury his records have been lost and we may never know his origin. In his address to the 1999 annual meeting of the Edmund Rice (1638) Association, Gary Boyd Roberts, Senior Researcher, New England Historic Genealogy Society, reviewed all of the genealogical sleuthing on Edmund's parentage. Mr. Roberts is well known for his research on royal lineage. He concluded that there was no evidence whatsoever that supports the published accounts of Edmund Rice's parents and no evidence that Edmund Rice was from a royal lineage. The Edmund Rice (1638) Association is very interested in proving the ancestry of Edmund Rice. The association encourages anyone who can identify a primary source that names Edmund and his parents to identify that source. Records of a baptism, estate probate, or land transaction naming Edmund and his parents are the most likely records to contain that proof. Until someone can cite such a record, the association must state emphatically that Edmund Rice's parents and ancestry are not known and that Edmund Rice's descendants cannot claim royal ancestry.19,20,21
found on ancestry.com
His HouseHIS HOUSE LOT WAS ON OLD NORTH STREET NEAR MILL BROOK. HE RECEIVED HIS SHARE IN RIVER MEADOWS, DIVIDED SEPTEMBER 4, 1639, APRIL 20 AND NOVEMBER 18, 1640 AND SHARED ALSO IN ALL VARIOUS DIVISIONS OF UPLANDS AND COMMON LANDS RECEIVING ALTOGETHER 247 ACRES. BUILT A 2ND HOUSE IN THE SOUTH PART OF TOWN BETWEEN TIMBER NECK AND THE GLOVER FARM NEAR THE SPRING. SOLD SOME LAND THERE TO THOMAS AXTELL AND PHILEMON WHALE BOTH OF WHOM BUILT THEIR HOUSES THERE. SOLD HIS HOME SEPTEMBER 1, 1642 TO JOHN MOORE AND SEPTEMBER 13, 1642 TOOK A 6-YEAR LEASE ON THE DUNSTER FARM ON THE EAST SHORE OF LAKE COCHITUATE. HE BOUGHT LAND BETWEEN THAT OF MARY AXTELL AND PHILEMON WHALE AND HIS OWN, THUS LOCATING HIS HOMESTEAD AT RICE'S SPRING. THEN HE BOUGHT THE WHALE'S HOUSE AND 9 ACRES, FORMING THE NUCLEUS OF THE RICE HOMESTEAD WHICH HE SOLD FINALLY TO HIS SON EDMUND, AND WHICH WAS OCCUPIED BY EDMUND AND HIS DESCENDANTS DOWN TO A RECENT DATE. ON SEPTEMBER 26, 1647 HE LEASED FOR TEN YEARS THE GLOVER FARM, WHICH IS WITHIN THE PRESENT LIMITS OF FRAMINGHAM. HE BOUGHT THE DUNSTER FARM. BESIDES THESE GRANTS AND PURCHASES THE GENERAL COURT GAVE HIM 50 ACRES AT RICE'S END IN 1652 AND 80 ACRES NEAR BEAVER DAM IN 1659. ON SEPTEMBER 4, 1639 HE WAS ON THE 1ST COMMITTEE TO APPORTION THE MEADOWS. ELECTED SELECTMAN 1639, 1644 AND LATER AT VARIOUS TIMES. DEPUTY TO THE GENERAL COURT 1654-56. ONE OF THE PETITIONERS FOR MARLBOROUGH AND RECEIVED A HOUSE LOT AND MOVED THERE IN 1660. MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE TO CONVEY LAND AT WHIP SUFFERAGE IN 1657. DEACON ON FILE OF SUDBURY CHURCH. AN EDMUND RICE TESTIFIED TO THE WILL OF THOMAS AXTELL ON MARCH 6, 1646. ENTERED ON LIST OF FREEMEN ON MAY 13, 1640. KNOWN AS OLD EDMUND OR EDMUND THE PILGRIM. AFTER EDMUND DIED MERCY MARRIED WILLIAM HUNT. D. RUTH Born SEPT 29 1699 found on ancestry.com
Hi there! I was wondering if you could share with me the reference you used to get the coordinates of the spring and also where you found a picture of that postcard. I am a neighbor of the current spring and would love to learn more about its rich history. Thanks!
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