page_title: William Arnold (settler)
section_title: The correct ancestry and English home of William Arnold
hierarchical_section_title: William Arnold (settler) / Ancestry / The correct ancestry and English home of William Arnold
caption_attribution_description: English: West tower and west end of the nave of St Andrew's parish church, Northover, Ilchester, Somerset, seen from the south
context_page_description: William Arnold was one of the founding settlers of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and he and his sons were among the wealthiest people in the colony. He was raised and educated in England where he was the warden of St. Mary's, the parish church of Ilchester in southeastern Somerset. He emigrated to New England with family and associates in 1635. He initially settled in Hingham in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but he soon relocated to the new settlement of Providence Plantation with Roger Williams. He was one of the 13 original proprietors of Providence, appearing on the deed signed by Roger Williams in 1638, and was one of the 12 founding members of the first Baptist church to be established in America.
  After living in Providence for about two years, Arnold moved with his family and others to the north side of the Pawtuxet River forming a settlement commonly called Pawtuxet, later a part of Cranston, Rhode Island.
context_section_description: Edson Jones eventually published his findings on the Arnold family in 1915, demonstrating the accuracy of the Arnold family record, and then carefully revealing each inconsistency and factual error found in Somerby's pedigree.  In 1921, Fred Arnold summarized these findings and synthesized them into a coherent lineage of the Arnold family which is consistent with every known historical document, and presented his findings to the Rhode Island Historical Society.  To summarize the work of both Edson Jones and Fred Arnold, William Arnold was the son of Nicholas Arnold of Northover and Ilchester in Somerset based on the Arnold family record and the Northover parish register. Arnold's mother was Alice Gully, and her parents were John and Alice Gully based on the same two documents.  These are the only known ancestors of William Arnold based on known historical records, and the parents of Nicholas Arnold have not been identified in any historical document.
  The Somerby pedigree of the Arnold family indicated that the family had lived in many counties in both England and Wales.  This was not the case; the Arnolds and their associates all lived in a small area within southeastern Somerset. While in England William Arnold and his family lived in Ilchester. His parents had come from the village of Northover, scarcely one-half mile (0.80 km) across the River Yeo to the north.  When Arnold's son Benedict mentioned his "Lemmington" farm in his will, he was referring to a New England property named after the village of Limington in old England; this village is less than a mile and a half (2.5 km) east of Ilchester.  A very short distance north of Limington across the River Yeo is the town of Yeovilton where William Hopkins, the husband of Arnold's sister Joanne, lived. Six miles (9.7 km) west of Ilchester is the village of Muchelney, the home of Arnold's wife Christian Peak, and five miles (8.0 km) south of Ilchester is Yeovil, the home of Stukeley Westcott, whose daughter Damaris married Arnold's son Benedict, and who may have accompanied the Arnolds on their voyage to the New World.  Thus, Arnold and all of his known kinsmen had lived within six miles (9.7 km) of each other in southeastern Somerset.
caption: Church of St. Andrew in Northover, England where William Arnold's mother and oldest sister were baptized.
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