The Adams Family

of Westerly, Rhode Island and Concord, Massachusetts

Prudence Adams of Rhode Island is my first ancestor in the Adams line. Very few public records exist for her.  She is named as Prudence Larkham, the wife of Lancelot Larkham on the birth record of their children in Richmond, Rhode Island Town Records and in a series of Richmond land deeds. I know her maiden name, and dates of birth, marriage, and death from the records my great-grandmother transcribed.

Because Prudence was an Adams from Washington County Island, she was certainly related to the Adams family there. As Janis K. Arnold stated in her 1984 genealogy, James Adams, of Westerly, Rhode Island, "Generally, it can be stated that any Adams living in Kings County (now Washington County but familiarly called "South County" today) up until the Revolutionary War was a descendant of James of Westerly." (Arnold, 1984)

James Adams' son, John, married Patience Hall, the daughter of John and Elizabeth (Ball) Hall.  Arnold attributes two children born to this marriage, John, died after 1767; and Patience, born ca. 1745.  Clearly, knowledge of the children and their birthdates was imperfect.  According to my great-grandmother's records, Prudence Adams was born 29 July 1741.  She fits easily into the family of John and Patience (Hall) Adams.  This relationship is made more clear by several facts:

1. Prudence Adams appears to have had a relationship with Patience Adams, a known daughter of John and Patience (Hall) Adams. Patience Adams married Thomas Webster, and in the records of the First General Baptist Church of Richmond (Vital Record of Rhode Island, Vol. 11, p. 406), Thomas and Patience Webster have identical dates of membership to Lancelot and Prudence Larkham. Frequently, family members became members of church congregations on the same date.

2. Prudence and Patience Adams were close enough in age to have been sisters.  Patience Adams birthdate is recorded in Richmond Town Records as 17 November 1745.  Prudence Adams was born 29 July 1741.

3. Their marriage dates were close together, but sequenced as older and younger sisters.  According to my great-grandmother's records, Prudence Adams married Lancelot Larkham in 1763.  Patience Adams married Thomas Webster on November 17, 1765 in Richmond, Washington County, R.I. (Vital Record of Rhode Island, Vol. 5, p. 1).

4. The family naming patterns were significant: Lancelot and Prudence Adams named their eldest son John and their youngest daughter Patience. Lancelot and Prudence's daughter, Sarah, named all of her children according to traditional naming patterns. Her youngest daughter, who should have been named for a grandmother, was named Patience.

5. Prudence's husband, Lancelot Larkham, was apprenticed to the aunt of Thomas Webster, Margaret (Webster) Enos. Margaret's father, John Webster (Thomas Webster's grandfather), witnessed Lancelot's apprenticeship contract.

Given this information, it seems safe to conclude that Prudence Adams was a daughter of John and Patience (Hall) Adams.  Proof of John Adams' parentage is well documented.  He was a son of James and Honor (Hall) Adams of Westerly, Rhode Island. However, until 1992, the parentage of his father, James Adams of Westerly, was less clear.

 The Parentage of James Adams of Westerly, Rhode Island

The 1984 genealogy, James Adams, of Westerly, Rhode Island compiled by Janis K. Arnold and published the Connecticut Nutmegger (Volume 17, Pages 160-169) provides a good overview of the life and family of James Adams of Westerly, and she clears up several misconceptions about his parentage, such as who his parents were not.  However, Arnold didn't speculate on who the parents of James Adams of Westerly might be.

In 1992, Byron S. Niemann wrote a provocative article, also published in the Connecticut Nutmegger (Volume 25, pages 573-575) on The Possible Parentage of James Adams (1668-1741) of Westerly, RI.  In this article, Niemann examined the namesake of James Adams, Sr. of Concord, Massachusetts, a Scot who was taken prisoner at the Battle of Dunbar and sold to the Saugus Iron Works in Lynn, Massachusetts and then married Priscilla Ramsden.  According to The Genealogical Dictionary of Maine and New Hampshire, the son of James, Sr. and Priscilla (Ramsden) Adams of Concord was James Adams who married Catherine Ford and settled in Wells, Maine.  Niemann convincingly disproved this relationship by demonstrating that  James Adams of Wells, Maine was actually the son of William and Elizabeth Adams of Sudbury and Concord, Massachusetts.  This left open the possibility that another James Adams was the son of James, Sr. and Priscilla (Ramsden) Adams of Concord.

Niemann outlined several facts that indicate that James Adams, Jr., son of James, Sr. and Priscilla (Ramsden) Adams of Concord was the same person as James Adams of Westerly:

1. Priscilla (Adams) Hardy, daughter of James, Sr. and Priscilla (Ramsden) Adams was living in the same part of Rhode Island as James Adams of Westerly. In the distribution of James Adam, Sr.'s estate (he died intestate), a note states, "That Priscilla another daughter of the intestate the wife of William Hardy of Narranganset hath had in the Intestates lifetime sundry acres of land...".

2. James Adams, Jr. was no longer living in Concord in 1698: This was established by a 12 May 1698 land transaction between James Adams, Sr. of Concord with his son, James Adams,  formerly of Concord, involving 70 acres in Concord bounded by the lands of William Russell, Ebenezer Hartwell, William Hardy, Gershom Heald and John Parling.

3. James Adams, Jr. sold off his Concord land and his obligation of maintenance to his parents there in 1700, the same time period when James Adams first appears on Westerly records.   In a 13 November 1700 land transaction, James Adams, Jr. sold his property and the obligation of maintenance to his parents, to John Heald of Concord. Arnold noted that James Adams was mentioned about 1700 in the Westerly, Rhode Island Records (Arnold, 1984).

4. In 1701, Henry Hall, the father-in-law of James Adams of Westerly, sold 40 acres of land in Westerly to William Hardy, brother-in-law of James Adams, Jr. of Concord. As it was established in #1 above that William Hardy, the husband of Priscilla Adams lived in the same part of Rhode Island as James Adams of Westerly, this provides another connection that he might be the same person as James Adams, Jr. of Concord.

5. James Adams of Westerly had land adjoining the land of William and Priscilla (Adams) Hardy, brother-in-law and sister of James Adams, Jr. of Concord.  This provided another connection between the Westerly and Concord Adams families.

6. The naming of the children of James Adams of Westerly matched the combined families of his and the family of James Adams, Jr. of Concord: James born l 698, for himself, father, and brother-in-law Hall; John, born1700, for his and his wife's brothers; Jonathan born 1702, for uncle Jonathan Ramsden who died young; Henry born l704, for wife's father and brother, Honor born 1706, for wife Honor Hall; Nathaniel born1709, for his younger brother; Thomas born 1710, for his wife's brother-in-law Thomas Stevens or neighbor Thomas Rand; Joseph b.1715, for his brother-in -aw Joseph Lamson of Concord, Massachusetts.

With the parentage of Prudence Adams and James Adams reasonably established, my line of descent from the immigrant ancestor James Adams , Sr. of Concord, Massachusetts to my grandmother is:

The ivy graphic on this page is a scan I made of the stencil, Ivy Garlands - Rebecca Carter,
a stencil template produced by ProvoCrafts.

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Last updated: Tuesday, July 13, 2021 06:58:02 PM