CHAPTER XIV

WILLIAM HARRIS AND THE PAWTUXET PURCHASEA XVII. CENTURY PIECE OF LITIGATION

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AVING brought the story of King Philip's War to a conclusion, it now behooves us to recount a series of events which, beginning at Providence in 1660, was interrupted by the war in question, and culminated in something very like tragedy in 1681.

Between the years 1660 and 1678, William Harris - with whom we have already formed a somewhat intimate acquaintance-maintained within the jurisdictions of Rhode Island and the United Colonies actions at law against the towns of Warwick and Providence.1 These suits were based

'Besides bringing suits against the towns of Warwick and Providence, Harris became involved in serious litigation with individuals. He charged trespass upon John Harrud, Roger Burlingame, and Thomas Ralph; upon John Towers; upon Edmund Calverly, James and John Sweet, and their associates. The case against Harrud was attended with great bitterness, the defendant resisting execution gun in hand. On July 26, 1669, Edmund Calverly wrote to Governor Benedict Arnold that he had heard that William Harris [had] of late obtained to have a law made that by execution John Harrud [should] be dispossessed of the house he now dwells in." He asked, therefore, that Harris be kept away from Mashantatuck [Harrud's home], "to stop manslaughter, if not bloodshed and murder, on the one side or the other."-Moses Brown Papers (R. I. Hist. Soc.), vol. xviii.

upon the claim that the corporations defendant withheld from Harris lands within the Pawtuxet purchase which belonged either to him or to his partners and co-proprietors. The importance of the litigation for the participants lay, it is needless to observe, in the immediate outcome; for us, it lies in the disclosure afforded of moral and governmental conditions, and in the bearing sustained (more especially indicated in Chapter XV.) upon the territorial relations between Rhode Island and Connecticut.

1

On May 17, 1659, the Rhode Island General Assembly made an order, " that Providence should have liberty to buy out and cleare off Indians within the boundes of Providence as expressed in the towne evidence, and to purchase a little more in case they wish to add, seeing they are straytened, not exceeding three thousand acres joyinge to their township." This order was probably the result of an application put forward in the town's behalf by or through Roger Williams and his friends. It, however, as appears from its language, did not specifically authorize these men, or any others, to take action for the town; the right of the latter to decide whether it would take action at all, and if deciding to act, to select its own agents, was fully recognized.

R. I. Col. Rec., vol. i.,

P. 418.

2

246 In my Testimonie I have declared that . . upon my Motion paymnts were given by us . . . for in land Enlargemnts, according to leave granted us by ye Gen Court upon our Petition."-Roger Williams in his letter to the Court of Commissioners, Oct. 18, 1677. Narr. Club Pub., vol. vi., P. 390.