page_title: Stukely Westcott
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Stukely Westcott / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: St John the Baptist parish church, Yeovil, Somerset, seen from the south
context_page_description: Stukely Westcott was one of the founding settlers of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and one of the original members of the first Baptist Church in America, established by Roger Williams in 1638. He came to New England from the town of Yeovil in Somerset, England and first settled in Salem in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but difficulties with the authorities prompted him to join Roger Williams in settling near the Narragansett Bay in 1638 at Providence Plantations. He remained there for a few years, but he was recorded as an inhabitant of Warwick in 1648, probably having settled there several years earlier. He was most active in colonial affairs from 1650 to 1660 when he was a commissioner, surveyor of highways, and the keeper of a house of entertainment. His highest offices were as an Assistant in 1653 and much later as a deputy to the General Court in 1671 when he was almost 80 years old. He made his will on January 12, 1677 but died the same day with it unsigned, leaving his affairs in limbo for the following two decades.
context_section_description: The place of origin of the Westcott family appears to center around the town of Affton in county Devon, England. Here the unusual combination appears of the surnames Stukely and Westcott, as does the very unusual female given name of Damaris, found in the Stukely family.
  Stukely Westcott first appears on a public record when he was married to Juliann Marchante in St. John's Church in Yeovil, Somerset on October 5, 1619; his marriage record indicated that he was from Ilminster, a town in Somerset about 12 miles west of Yeovil. The baptisms of two of Stukely Westcott's children were also recorded in Yeovil, daughter Damaris in 1620/21 and son Samuel in 1622/23. There is no record of where Westcott lived following the baptisms of these two children, but there is evidence that he and his family accompanied the family of William Arnold to New England, departing from the port town of Dartmouth in county Devon in 1635, based on a memorandum made in April 1656 by Benedict Arnold, the oldest son of William Arnold. Westcott's daughter Damaris married Benedict Arnold several years later.
caption: St John's Church in Yeovil, Somerset, England where Stukely Westcott and Juliann Marchante were married in 1619
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