In February 1997, as my interest in genealogy was sparked by emerging online resources, I asked my mother about her family history. At that time, I was the only member of my family actively pursuing genealogical research, and she was pleased to entrust me with the care of the long-preserved family documents. When I received these materials, I felt as though I had acquired a small archive, and I became deeply engaged in uncovering the identities and relationships of the individuals named within them, particularly Lancelot Larkham, the son of Thomas Larkham and the progenitor of my branch of the Larkham family.

Lancelot Larkham of South Kingstown, Rhode Island, and later Voluntown, Connecticut, was my fifth great-grandfather, and my line of descent from him is established through a combination of public records and family-held documentation. These sources consistently identify Lancelot as the son of Thomas and Frances Larkham, who resided in South Kingstown in the mid-eighteenth century. Thomas Larkham’s relationship to Lancelot as his father is supported both by family records and by a sequence of documented events that align the lives of the two men.. 

Among my great-grandmother’s handwritten genealogical material was a note outlining the patrilineal line of descent of her Larkham family in the United States. At the head of this list appears the name “Thomas Larkham,” followed by his son Lancelot, Lancelot's son Lancelot, Jr. (Lot), and successive male descendants through her grandfather, my third great-grandfather, William H. Larkham, and William’s three brothers, Daniel, Lancy, and perhaps Erastus (Rastus)

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 The earliest record in my possession, and the earliest known record of Lancelot Larkham is an eighteenth-century apprenticeship indenture dated 7 July 1749. In this contract, Frances Larkham, explicitly identified as Lancelot’s mother, bound him as an apprentice to Joseph and Margaret Enoss, weavers of Richmond, Rhode Island. The indenture describes Frances Larkham as residing in “South Kingstown in Kings County in the Colony of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations in New England, woosted corner.”

Click to open larger image in new window with transciption.

The precise location of “woosted corner” in mid-eighteenth-century South Kingstown has not been identified. However, the term likely refers to a specific street corner or local area associated with the production or trade of worsted yarn or worsted woolen cloth. This interpretation aligns closely with the terms of the indenture, which state that Lancelot was bound to learn the “trade or mystery of a weaver,” and suggests that his placement was deliberately connected to an established textile-producing environment.

Lancelot’s apprenticeship and Frances Larkham’s identity as his mother were later explicitly confirmed in a sworn affidavit dated 13 June 1766 and recorded in Richmond, Rhode Island probate records. In this statement, Lancelot acknowledged receipt from Margaret Enos, executrix, and Benjamin Enos, executor of the estate of Joseph Enos, of the clothing owed to him under the terms of his apprenticeship indenture dated 7 July 1749. He affirmed that the original indenture had been made between Joseph Enos and “my mother Francis Larkham,” and that the apparel, valued at twenty pounds old tenor, was due to him upon completion of the term. This affidavit provides direct, first-person evidence both of the apprenticeship arrangement and of Frances Larkham’s maternal relationship to Lancelot, thereby independently corroborating the earlier indenture and firmly establishing the mother–son connection:

Enhanced copy of Lancelot Larkham's 13 June 1766 affidavit.
Source: Richmond, Rhode Isdland Probate Estates Files, Family History Library Film # 22169128, Item 3, Image 349 of 1,277.

Transcription:
Richmond June the 13th AD 1766 Received of Margret Enoss Executrix
and Benjamon Enoss Executor to the Last Will and testament of
Joseph Enoss Late of Richmond Deceased the Whole suite of appariel
acording to one sartain Indenture dated the seventeenth day of July
and in the year one Thousand seven Hundred Forty-nine wherein the
said Joseph Enoss did Covenent and agree to and with my mother
Francis Larkham that at the Experration of the said Indenture to give
unto me which sute of appariel is to the value of two Hundred pounds
old tenor I say Recd by my ---- Lot Larkham

Young Lancelot’s term of indenture was defined with unusual precision: twelve years, four months, and thirteen days. Calculated from the indenture date of 7 July 1749, the term concluded on 20 November 1761. Subsequent family records establish Lancelot’s birth date as 20 November 1740, demonstrating that the apprenticeship was structured to terminate precisely on his twenty-first birthday. At the time he was bound, Lancelot was only eight and one-half years old, underscoring both the early age at which apprenticeships could begin in mid-eighteenth-century Rhode Island and the careful legal calibration of the indenture to the age of majority.

Thomas Larkham: Father, Soldier, and Early Death

Rhode Island records show why it was Lancelot's mother who placed him in the apprenticeship.  In The Muster rolls of three companies enlisted by the colony of Rhode Island in May, 1746 appears the record of Thomas Larkham who enlisted in Captain Edward Cole's Company on  8 July 1746 in the campaign against Canada, King George's War.  Two months later, Thomas Larkham died, having served 58 days, wages due 1£ 6S  on 4 September 1746.

Enhanced excerpt of Thomas Larkham's service record from Ancestry.com.
The Muster rolls of three companies enlisted by the colony of Rhode Island in May, 1746 [database on-line].
Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2005.

Short-term enlistments were common during King George’s War, and mortality from disease often exceeded losses from combat. Arnold provides important context for Thomas Larkham’s service and death in his History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations:  Writing of the Rhode Island troops raised in 1746, Arnold observed:

“These troops were quartered on Goat Island by July and from that time until November 2, when they finally sailed for Nova Scotia they were in a state of uncertainty as to their destination. . . .The number of desertions in the third roll is noticeably large. The fact that the pay of these men was recorded just as it was for those who stayed with the colors is evidence that the authorities knew of extenuating circumstances, or in some way looked leniently upon what is technically a serious fault.”

The muster rolls indicate that Thomas Larkham apparently never left Fort George on Goat Island in Newport Harbor. Given Arnold’s remarks and the conditions known to have prevailed among troops confined there, it is plausible that disease was among the “extenuating circumstances” to which he referred. Of the one hundred men listed on the muster roll of Captain Edward Cole’s Company, twenty-five died and twenty deserted—a mortality rate consistent with epidemic illness rather than combat.

Thomas Larkham’s death in 1746 provides critical context for events that followed. By July 1749, it was Frances Larkham, not a father, who placed young Lancelot into a formal apprenticeship at the age of eight and one-half years. Ordinarily, a father would have been the more likely contracting party. As a widow, Frances Larkham may have had limited resources to support and raise a child, making apprenticeship both a practical necessity and a means of securing her son’s maintenance and future livelihood.

With Thomas Larkham’s early death establishing the circumstances of his family’s situation in Rhode Island, the question then turns to his own origins and how he came to be present in South Kingstown by the late 1720s.

The Origins of the Mid-18th Century Rhode Island Larkhams

 Thomas Larkham first appears in South Kingstown records in August 1728, when he served as a witness to the purchase of fifteen acres of land in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, for £300 by Aaron Milliman, a tailor, from his in-laws, Joseph Case, yeoman, and his wife Elisabeth of South Kingstown (South Kingstown, Rhode Island Town Clerk, 1696–1885). The occupation of Aaron Milliman as a tailor is probably significant and is discussed further below. 

A survey of early-to-mid eighteenth-century South Kingstown records reveals no individuals bearing the surname Larkham other than Thomas, his wife Frances, their son Lancelot, and a probable daughter, Elizabeth. [1] The absence of additional Larkham households strongly suggests that Thomas Larkham was not native to Rhode Island but arrived from elsewhere.

When Thomas Larkham appeared in South Kingstown, the Rhode Island economy was flourishing. Profitable plantations dominated the Narragansett country, while maritime trade expanded rapidly through the ports of Providence and Newport, which ranked among the busiest in the New World. Rhode Island merchants were deeply engaged in transatlantic commerce, exporting rum and other goods and participating in the lucrative, though morally abhorrent, triangle trade involving enslaved Africans. Trade networks connected the colony to England, continental Europe, other North American ports, the West Indies, and Africa (John Carter Brown Library, n.d.). This dynamic economic environment likely attracted migrants seeking opportunity.

Having established Thomas Larkham’s presence in Rhode Island and the economic environment in which he lived, the analysis now turns to naming traditions as a form of supporting genealogical evidence.

Naming Traditions among the English and American Larkhams
Naming Patterns as Supporting Genealogical Evidence

Research into the family of the nonconformist Puritan minister Reverend Thomas Larkham of Tavistock, who resided briefly in Dover, New Hampshire, between 1636 and 1642, reveals several interesting parallels with what is known about Thomas Larkham of Sounth Kingstown. Reverend Thomas Larkham’s son, Reverend George Larkham, had a son named Lancelot Larkham, born on 29 November 1661 in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England; that Lancelot, in turn, had a son named Thomas. In the absence of competing candidates, the chronology and continuity of these names support the identification of this Thomas as the individual who later appears in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. These naming continuities occur within a family culture that accommodated both clerical and secular vocational paths, a distinction that becomes increasingly important when assessing Thomas Larkham’s occupational trajectory.

Within the Larkham family, the given name Lancelot entered the line through Dorothy (Fletcher) Larkham, wife of Reverend George Larkham. Dorothy was the daughter of Lancelot Fletcher, himself the grandson of another Lancelot Fletcher, and the Fletcher family of Cumberland employed the name repeatedly across several generations. Contemporary authorities noted its prevalence in the region: Burke documented multiple successive clergymen named Lancelot Fletcher serving in Cumberland parishes from the mid-sixteenth to the late seventeenth century, and Bardsley observed that Lancelot was “very common in Cumberland and North England generally for many centuries.”

By contrast, the name Lancelot was uncommon in colonial New England and particularly rare in eighteenth-century Rhode Island. Its repeated appearance within the Rhode Island and Connecticut Larkham family, beginning with Lancelot Larkham, the first of the name born in America, and continuing through several generations, therefore warrants attention.  Beginning with my fifth-great-grandfather, Lancelot Larkham, the first of the name born in America, the name persisted across multiple generations, includng his son, my fourth-great-grandfather Lancelot Larkham, Jr., and through numerous descendants, including Lancey Lot Larkham, Lot Larkham Colegrove, Lancey Lott Witter, Lance Himes, Lancy Burdick, and others. The persistence of the name is unlikely to be coincidental when considered alongside independent evidence of English origin.

A parallel pattern is evident in the recurrent use of the name Thomas. Lancelot Larkham of Rhode Island named a son Thomas, who in turn named his eldest son Thomas, mirroring the earlier English naming sequence. While naming patterns alone cannot establish lineage, the consistent reuse of both Lancelot and Thomas, when evaluated in conjunction with chronological alignment, documented apprenticeships, and trade continuity, provides meaningful circumstantial support for identifying Thomas Larkham of South Kingstown as a descendant of Reverend Thomas Larkham of Tavistock.

Lancelot Larkham of Cockermouth and His Son Thomas
within the English Larkham Family

Even more compelling is the internal naming evidence found within the English Larkham family itself. Lancelot Larkham, son of Reverend George Larkham, named one of his own sons Thomas, thereby preserving the name of his grandfather. This continuity is explicitly documented in Reverend George Larkham’s will, dated 10 January 1699 and proved 17 March 1700. In this document, George Larkham bequeathed ten pounds to his son Lancelot and an additional ten pounds to “his son Thomas (my Grand-child),” specifying that the money was to be invested “in order to his bringing up to some trade.” This testamentary provision establishes that Lancelot Larkham of Cockermouth had a son named Thomas and demonstrates that the pairing of the names Lancelot and Thomas was already embedded within the family by the close of the seventeenth century. Notably, the will explicitly links the name Thomas with vocational training, a theme that reappears two generations later when Thomas Larkham’s widow, Frances, placed their son Lancelot into a formal apprenticeship in Rhode Island. The recurrence of both names, together with the repeated emphasis on skilled trades, strongly reinforces the conclusion that the Rhode Island Larkham family preserved not only names but familial expectations and practices inherited from their English antecedents:

Enhanced excerpt of the will of Reverend George Larkham, original held at the Carlisle Library, Cumbria, United Kingdom.

Transcription:
It^m My will is, and I doe hereby bequeath to my Son Lancelot for a Legacy Ten pound: Item to his Son Thomas (my Grandchild) Ten pound, To be let out for him, in order to his bringing up to some trade: And I hope his parents will not defraud him &c:-

This testamentary emphasis on vocational preparation is reinforced by contemporaneous correspondence illustrating how these expectations were implemented during Reverend George Larkham’s lifetime.

Following the paper trail of Lancelot Larkham of Cockermouth (son of Reverend George Larkham and father of Thomas Larkham) provides evidence of this. A letter written about 1671 by Reverend George Larkham to his brother-in-law, Daniel Condy of Tavistock, shows that young Lancelot was sent to live with the Condy family in Tavistock when he was about 9 years old.  Reverend Larkham encouraged his brother-in-law to "deal truly with me in the business of his capacity. I shall not discourage the lad; let him fancy his own employment, and I will do my best for him. In the mean time, I should desire, if you think fit, that he learn to write a good hand, and to cast accounts; that so he may be fit for an employment." (Lewis, 1870)  This early placement and emphasis on practical skills anticipates Lancelot Larkham’s later formal entry into apprenticeship, documenting a progression from preparatory training to skilled trade.

 The Court Minutes Book of the Upholders Company of the City of London shows that Lancelot was placed in an apprenticeship with the upholder, John Howard (Haward) of London about March 1646 when he was 14 years old, from which Lancelot earned his freedom on 6 March 1683 at age 21 years (The Worshipful Company of Upholders, 1683) :

 Upholders were typically represented by various trades, including the manufacture and sale of upholstered goods, cabinet makers, undertakers, soft furnishers, auctioneers, and valuers. 17th and 18th century upholders were part of the mercantile class and some were involved in overseas trade.

The English Larkhams:
Overseas Trade, Transatlantic Networks, and Family Migration

Reverend Thomas Larkham participated directly in seventeenth-century maritime trade, particularly in tobacco. He invested in a “single” joint-venture system, in which groups of merchants combined resources to charter a vessel and dispatch a single trading cargo (Taylor, 2018). His interest in tobacco was likely connected to his work as an apothecary. His involvement is documented in his diary. On 17 November 1667, he recorded:

“Where[a]s I laid out about freeing of Tobacco for T. M. [Thomas Miller] and for charges about bringing it to Tavistocke
13. 17. 04. I have received for Tobacco & the caske in which it was brought from Virginia 141i. 01. 03.”

In addition to his mercantile activities, Reverend Larkham owned tucking (fulling) mills at Dolvin, near Tavistock, from which he derived income. Tucking was a critical step in the woolen clothmaking process, producing a dense and durable textile. Together, these activities place Reverend Larkham within a commercial milieu that linked textile production, overseas trade, and capital investment.

Two of Lancelot Larkham of Cockermouth’s first cousins, both raised largely under the supervision of their grandfather, Reverend Thomas Larkham, were also directly involved in overseas and colonial commerce. One cousin, Thomas Larkham (“Tom”), grandson of Reverend Thomas Larkham, described himself as “Merchant of Saint Martin Orgar, City of London” in his will, written on 21 June 1685 and proved on 4 February 1686 (Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1686). Reverend Thomas Larkham’s own will refers to funds provided to this grandson “to set him forth to sea” and notes that he had “lately returned from the Barbadoes,” demonstrating direct engagement in transatlantic trade (Moore, 2011) [2][3].

Another cousin, Thomas Miller (referenced in Reverend Larkham's diary record, above), was trained as an apothecary under Reverend Larkham’s guidance before becoming involved in the colonial tobacco trade in Virginia and in the proprietary colony of Albemarle (now North Carolina)  (Moore, 2011; Parker, 1991) [4] [5]. On 1 March 1672/73, Miller was recorded in Albemarle contracting for the shipment of a substantial quantity of tobacco to England, along with his own passage. In this contract he was identified as an apothecary of “Balley Samson in the County of Waxford in Ireland” (Parker, 1991). Miller later served as Interim Governor and President of the Executive Council of Albemarle and was a central figure in the Culpeper Rebellion (McIlvenna, 2009; Parker, 1991).

Following his return to England, Thomas Miller was imprisoned for mishandling funds while serving as customs collector at Weymouth. His cousin, Tom (Thomas Larkham of Saint Martin Orgar) stood surety for him in the substantial sum of £1,000. Miller died in prison in 1685 (Daniels, 2005), after which Tom was himself arrested and imprisoned for the unpaid debt (Shaw, ed., 1923). Conditions of confinement were evidently severe, as Tom Larkham also died in prison sometime between 21 June 1685, when he wrote his will, and 16 October 1685, when his widow, Hannah, submitted her first petition to the Customs Commissioners seeking release from the bond given by her late husband (Shaw, ed., 1923).

These documented patterns of trade, apprenticeship, and overseas engagement provide important context for understanding how later generations of the Larkham family, including Thomas Larkham of South Kingstown, may have been positioned to migrate within the Atlantic world.

In his will, Tom Larkham made the following bequest to his cousin Lancelot Larkham of Cockermouth:

Transcription:
Item I give and bequeath unto my cousin Lancelott Larkham the sonne of George Larkham of Cockermouth my Seald Ring which was left me by my grandfather [Reverend Thomas Larkham].

This bequest is likely significant. Lancelot was not the eldest living male descendant of Reverend Thomas Larkham in 1685: his father George was still living, as were two older brothers, Thomas [6] and Deliverance, and a cousin, Daniel Condy. The decision to pass the grandfather’s ring to Lancelot therefore suggests a close personal relationship between Lancelot and his cousin Tom Larkham, and indicates that affective ties, rather than strict primogeniture, may have influenced the disposition of this family heirloom.

Interpreting Trade as a Factor in Migration

The documented involvement of multiple members of the English Larkham family in overseas and colonial trade provides important context for understanding later Larkham migration to North America. Through commercial activity linking England with the West Indies, Virginia, and Albemarle, members of the extended family gained first-hand familiarity with transatlantic travel, colonial markets, and the economic opportunities available beyond England. These commercial networks facilitated not only the movement of goods but also the circulation of information, capital, and family connections across the Atlantic world.

When Thomas Larkham appeared in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, in the late 1720s, he did so in a colony whose economy was deeply embedded in similar transatlantic trade networks. Rhode Island merchants were heavily involved in maritime commerce linking England, the West Indies, Africa, and other American colonies, and skilled artisans, particularly those trained in textile-related trades, were well positioned to take advantage of these opportunities. Against this backdrop, Thomas Larkham’s relocation to Rhode Island can be understood not as an isolated or anomalous event, but as consistent with a broader family pattern of outward-looking, trade-oriented engagement with the Atlantic economy.

Taken together, the evidence of overseas trade among Larkham cousins, the repeated emphasis on apprenticeship and skilled training across generations, and the eventual settlement of Thomas Larkham in mercantile Rhode Island suggest a durable family strategy grounded in mobility, vocational preparation, and engagement with transatlantic commerce. While no document directly connects the migration of Thomas Larkham of South Kingstown to the specific commercial ventures of his English relatives, the family’s demonstrated familiarity with overseas trade and colonial life makes his migration both plausible and historically coherent within the broader patterns of early modern Atlantic movement.

The Later Life of Lancelot Larkham of Cockermouth

Lancelot Larkham of Cockermouth likely remained in the vicinity of London for the remainder of his adult life, as records associated with him appear in the London parishes of Battersea and St. Olave, Bermondsey. In addition to his son Thomas, named in Reverend George Larkham’s will, Lancelot also had a daughter, Mary, born sometime before 1707.

Among the burial records of St. Mary's Church, Battersea, is an entry for a "Hide's nurse child", Mary Larkham, daughter of Lancelot, who was buried on 28 July 1707 (Society of Genealogists, 2020). The entry appears in two concurrent parish registers for St. Mary’s, preserved in enhanced copy form.

The description “nurse child” indicates that Mary had been placed in the care of another household. As noted by Gillian Clark in A Study of Nurse Children, 1550–1750, nurse children were “children sent away from the parental home to be reared by another family,” typically under arrangements in which the parents paid for the child’s care. The Battersea records therefore suggest that Lancelot was employing a woman surnamed Hide to nurse and raise his young daughter.

Just over two years later, parish records from St. Olave, Bermondsey, Surrey, record the burial of Lancelot Larkham on 21 September 1709 (London Metropolitan Archives). His burial at St. Olave indicates that he was living in Bermondsey at the time of his death, likely in the vicinity of Tooley Street, where the church was located.

  During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Bermondsey was a densely commercial district shaped by its proximity to the River Thames. The riverfront supported extensive warehousing, wharves, and manufacturing activity, including tanning, leatherworking, ship provisioning, food processing, and the storage and distribution of imported goods. Bermondsey was closely linked to London’s maritime economy, serving as a hub where commodities arriving by river could be stored, finished, or redistributed. Trades associated with furnishing and household goods, such as those practiced by upholders, were well suited to this environment, which combined access to imported materials with ready connections to merchants and overseas markets. If Lancelot continued to work as an upholder, a trade in which he had earlier been trained, it is plausible that he was engaged in the furnishing trade, possibly dealing in imported furniture, carpets, or tapestries, and operating in or near one of the warehouses concentrated in this district. Lancelot Larkham’s residence in Bermondsey therefore situates him within one of London’s most active commercial corridors at the turn of the eighteenth century. While the precise nature of his later occupation remains undocumented, the location of his burial is consistent with residence in an area closely tied to the commercial and mercantile life of London..

Thomas Larkham Becomes the Ward of His Uncle Deliverance Larkham
and Is Apprenticed in Exeter

Less than one year after Lancelot's death, a 1710 apprenticeship contract was signed by Deliverance Larkham, of Exeter, Devonshire, England (older brother of Lancelot Larkham and son of Reverend George Larkham of Cockermouth), placing his nephew, Thomas Larkham into an apprenticeship with the tailor, Samuel Cole [7] of Exeter (The National Archives, Kew, 1710-1811; The Society of Genealogists, 1921-1928) . 

Master's Names Places of Abode & Employment: Saml Cole of the City of Exon Taylor
Clerks and Apprentices to their Parents &c: Thom. Nephew of Deliverance Larkham of the City and Conv. of Exon Clerk
Date: 10th July [1710] Terms of Years: 8 yrs. fr. Date

Source: National Archives IR 1/41

This contract provides strong evidence that Lancelot Larkham of Bermondsey was the same individual as Lancelot Larkham of Cockermouth, son of Reverend George Larkham. Following Lancelot’s death, custody of his minor son Thomas would ordinarily have passed to the nearest surviving adult male relative. In this case, that relative was Lancelot’s older brother, Deliverance Larkham. 

Deliverance Larkham was an unmarried clergyman and likely ill-equipped to raise a pre-teenaged boy. Placing Thomas into an apprenticeship was therefore a practical and socially accepted solution. Apprenticeship was a common means by which teenage boys in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England learned a trade, secured maintenance, and prepared for adult independence. Significantly, this practice mirrors earlier and later family behavior: Lancelot Larkham of Cockermouth himself had been apprenticed to the London upholder John Howard, and two generations later, when Thomas Larkham of South Kingstown, Rhode Island died, his son Lancelot was likewise placed into an apprenticeship.

The term of Thomas Larkham’s apprenticeship, eight years, is one year longer than the more typical seven-year term, suggesting that Thomas was younger than average at the time of binding. If the apprenticeship concluded on his twenty-first birthday, as was customary, Thomas would have been approximately thirteen years old on 10 July 1710, placing his birth around 10 July 1697. Under this chronology, Thomas would have been about eighteen months old when Reverend George Larkham named him in his will of 1699. Notably, the £10 paid by Deliverance Larkham for Thomas’s apprenticeship was the exact sum that Reverend George Larkham had bequeathed to his grandson “in order to his bringing up to some trade,” further reinforcing the continuity of family intent and practice. 

This apprenticeship establishes that Thomas Larkham spent much of his youth, approximately ages thirteen to twenty-one, in Exeter between 1710 and 1718, assuming he completed his term. In the early eighteenth century, Exeter was at the height of its commercial prosperity. It was a major English port with an active canal system for loading and unloading goods, a thriving wool trade, and extensive commercial connections with Holland, Portugal, Spain, and Italy (Kemp, 1992). Exeter was therefore an ideal location for training in the tailoring trade, exposing Thomas to a wide range of textiles as well as to the maritime and commercial dimensions of his craft.

Although records for Thomas Larkham between the end of his apprenticeship and his first appearance in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, in 1728 have not been identified, it is plausible that he emigrated to Rhode Island during this period. There are notable parallels between early eighteenth-century Exeter and South Kingstown. Both economies were closely tied to nearby shipping ports, and both supported the production of wool, linen, and other textiles.  In the 1749 apprenticeship contract of Lancelot Larkham of South Kingstown, his mother Frances was described as residing at “Woosted Corner,” a name strongly suggestive of an area associated with worsted wool production. This context helps explain why Lancelot was placed into an apprenticeship to learn the trade of weaving. 

It may also be significant that the earliest known Rhode Island record of Thomas Larkham is his witnessing of a land deed for another tailor, Aaron Milliman. In Narragansett country, weaving and tailoring were closely integrated trades. As described in The Narrangansett Weaver:

" From the shepherd who dagged the sheep, the wool-comber who combed the wool, the spinners who spun, the weavers who wove, all in regular order till the travelling tailor made the clothes up, and Thomas Hazard went to meeting in a suit made from wool of his own growing."

The preceding sections bring together documentary, contextual, and behavioral evidence from both England and New England, which can now be evaluated in combination.

Assessing the Evidence

Taken together, the evidence of repeated family naming (Lancelot → Thomas → Lancelot), the close alignment of timelines, the rarity and regional significance of the name Lancelot in colonial Rhode Island, the documented apprenticeship of Thomas Larkham in Exeter, the continuity of textile-related trades, and the English Larkham family’s demonstrable engagement with transatlantic commerce all point toward a common origin for the Rhode Island and Connecticut Larkhams.

The internal naming patterns are particularly compelling. Within the English Larkham family, the paired use of the names Lancelot and Thomas is firmly documented by the close of the seventeenth century and is explicitly recorded in Reverend George Larkham’s will. That same pairing reappears in Rhode Island one generation later, in a colonial setting where the name Lancelot was otherwise rare. While naming evidence alone cannot establish identity, its consistent transmission across generations and across continents strongly suggests deliberate familial continuity rather than coincidence.

Chronological considerations further support this interpretation. The documented birth, apprenticeship, and adult activity of Thomas Larkham in England align plausibly with the appearance of Thomas Larkham in South Kingstown by 1728. There is no chronological conflict between the English and Rhode Island records, nor is there evidence of competing individuals of the same name who could account for Thomas Larkham of South Kingstown. In a small colonial community where new arrivals were often readily identifiable, the sudden appearance of a man bearing an uncommon name and lacking local antecedents is itself suggestive of migration.

Equally significant is the continuity of occupational practice within the family. In England, the Larkhams demonstrated a sustained emphasis on vocational preparation through education, apprenticeship, and skilled trades, particularly in textile-related enterprises. Reverend George Larkham’s correspondence shows active parental involvement in arranging early placement and practical education for his children, while his will explicitly links the upbringing of his grandson Thomas to preparation for a trade. That emphasis reappears in the next generation when Thomas Larkham of South Kingstown’s widow, Frances, placed their son Lancelot into a formal apprenticeship at a young age. The recurrence of apprenticeship as a family strategy -- across time, place, and circumstance -- indicates inherited practice rather than independent reinvention.

This pattern is further illuminated by the range of vocational pathways evident within the English Larkham family. While Reverend Thomas Larkham, his son Reverend George Larkham, and George's son Deliverance Larkham pursued clerical careers, the documentary record makes clear that not all male descendants were directed toward the ministry. Younger sons and grandsons were prepared for secular livelihoods through literacy, numeracy, apprenticeship, and engagement with trade. Reverend George Larkham’s correspondence explicitly acknowledges this choice, expressing willingness for Lancelot to “fancy his own employment” while ensuring he was equipped with practical skills. Within this family context, entry into skilled trades or commerce functioned as a parallel and acceptable alternative to clerical life, shaped by aptitude and opportunity rather than rigid expectation.

The broader commercial context also merits consideration. Members of the English Larkham family participated directly in overseas trade, maritime investment, and colonial commerce, including tobacco ventures and transatlantic networks. Their documented involvement demonstrates both familiarity with and access to the Atlantic world. Against this backdrop, the movement of a younger family member to New England in the early eighteenth century would have been neither unusual nor implausible. Thomas Larkham’s eventual establishment in South Kingstown occurred within a colonial economy that valued precisely the skills -- textile knowledge, trade experience, and adaptability -- that the English Larkhams demonstrably cultivated.

Although no single surviving document conclusively proves that Thomas Larkham of South Kingstown was the same individual as Thomas Larkham, son of Lancelot Larkham of Cockermouth, the cumulative weight of the evidence supports a coherent and historically plausible explanation for that identification. The convergence of naming traditions, chronology, occupational continuity, vocational choice, and documented family practice satisfies the standard of a reasoned genealogical conclusion, even as it falls short of absolute proof. Research will continue with the goal of narrowing the remaining documentary gap between the English and American branches of the Larkham family and, if possible, identifying direct evidence of Thomas Larkham’s migration to Rhode Island.

A Hypothesized Line of Descent Based on Documentary and Contextual Evidence