Andrew Langworthy: Here's a summary of what we do and don't know about him:

• We don't know when or where he was born. This is discussed in detail under "Genealogical Miscellany", accessed from the main page of this site.
• We don't know when he came to America, what ship he came on, or where he arrived.
• He first appears in Newport, Rhode Island on Oct 6, 1652, when he was baptized "at the mill" by Obadiah Holmes.
• We do not know how Andrew made his living, but he seems to have been a respectable member of society: he is on the list of the freemen of Newport in 1655, he married well, he served on the Newport Grand Jury (1668), and he bought land in several locations. In March, 1688 he owned land "in the Precincts of Newport" which was adjacent to the land of his father-in-law, Samuel Hubbard. (Rhode Island Land Evidences, V1, p212)
• On November 3, 1658 he married Rachel Hubbard, the daughter of Samuel and Tacy (Cooper) Hubbard. They had 10 children, discussed below.
• We do know that the family lived in Newport, Rhode Island in an area that was later set apart as Middletown. We know this because Ezra Stiles, who later became president of Yale, visited Bishop Berkley's Whitehall Farm in Middletown and found there a family graveyard which contained a remarkable memorial stone erected by Samuel Hubbard. The stone recorded Samuel Hubbard's family, including the Langworthys. We also know that Andrew Langworthy owned land adjacent to Samuel Hubbard's. (Rhode Island Land Evidences, V1, p212). You can locate the site on googlemaps using the address: 311 Berkeley Ave, Middletown, RI 02842
• We don't know when Andrew died. William Franklin Langworthy believed that Andrew must have died before 1692 because his name does not appear on the Seventh Day Baptist church list of 1692, but I think the evidence shows that Andrew never joined that church:
  - His name doesn't appear on any membership list I've found.
  - His father in law, Samuel Hubbard, a founder of the Seventh Day Baptist Church in Newport, wrote (March 28, 1686): "...I have no greater joy than to hear of my children walking in the truth, & with me and my wife all of them and two of their husbands the other is a baptized person....". His children were Ruth, Rachel and Bethia - all of them appear on the 1692 list. Ruth's husband Robert Burdick and Bethia's husband Joseph Clarke also appear on the 1692 list. This means that "the other" was Rachel's husband Andrew Langworthy, who was baptized at the mill in Newport in 1652 but evidently didn't join the Seventh Day Baptists.
  - We do know that he was alive on July 4, 1690, when he executed a deed.
  - Evidence that he lived even longer comes from his service as a juror, as cited in Jane Fletcher Fiske's, "Rhode Island General Court of Trials, 1671- 1704", Boxford Mass, 1998. Court sessions were called by the Governor, and jurors were chosen by the towns from among their freemen. Jurors were required to attend the court or pay a fine. Andrew Langworthy served on the Grand Jury on Nov 14, 1693 and Sept 4, 1694, and on the 'Jury of tryalls' on March 26, 1695. The only reasonable candidate for this jury service is Andrew (ca 1630), who was named a freeman of Newport by 1655.
• The graves of Andrew and Rachel haven't been found. But I think it's pretty clear that they were buried in Samuel Hubbard's family graveyard in Middletown, as discussed above. Ezra Stiles, after discussing Samuel Hubbard's memorial stone, says " I took this inscription off a gravestone in a family burying place on Bp. Berkleys White Hall farm on Rd. Isld about AD 1763. Collector Robinson bought the lease about 1765 and demolished the gravestones & put them into a wall: so that all is now lost."
  .

To go to the family card of Andrew and his wife Rachel, click here.


Rachel (Hubbard) Langworthy: Here's a summary of what we know about her:

• She was the daughter of Samuel and Tase (Cooper) Hubbard and was born March 10, 1642, at Agawam, now Springfield, Mass. She was taken by her parents to Fairfield, Conn., in 1647 and, on Oct. 12, 1648, to Newport, Rhode Island.
• Nov 3, 1658, she married Andrew Langworthy in Newport.
• Sept 29, 1661, she was baptized by Elder John Crandall.
• Jan 15, 1666, she began "keeping of the Lord's holy 7th day Sabbath" (Saturday)
• Dec 23, 1671, she entered into a covenant with six others to organize the first Seventh Day Baptist Church in America.
• May 7, 1688, Samuel Hubbard wrote to Richard Brooks of Boston, "The mesles is not gone here, my daughter Rachel have them and some of her family."
• In 1692, she is mentioned on the Seventh Day Baptist membership list at Newport.
• In 1695 she gave a deposition (RI Colonial Land Evidence, Book 2, April 23, 1695)
• Sept 17, 1699, she was a member of a committee of the church appointed to visit Sarah Tifft in answer to her request.

William Franklin Langworthy asserted that two other references applied to her:

• July 21, 1708, on church list.
• 5d. 9m. 1712 follows above entry. WFL suggested that it is the date of Rachel's death.

However both of these references come from the church lists at Westerly, not Newport, so they may apply to Samuel Langworthy's wife or daughter. Moreover 5d. 9m. 1712 means that the individual was on the Westerly membership list taken on that date, and it appears after many names. It's really a proof that a person was alive at that time, and not a date of death.


The Children of Andrew and Rachel Langworthy:

Because the early records of Newport were destroyed, we have very little hard information about them. Here's a summary of what we do know:

• Andrew and Rachel Langworthy had 10 children.
• On Nov 1, 1675 four of these children were alive.
• By September 1688 all ten of the children had been born. Seven were alive and three had died.
• We may know the identity of four of the surviving children and one of those who had passed away.
• We know nothing of the other five children, except that two of them had died before September 1688.

For a more detailed argument, click here)


Here's what we know about the five who are presumed to be the children of Andrew and Rachel:

• M: The existence of M Langworthy is based on a broken gravestone found in the Hubbard family graveyard discussed above. The stone says that M died in 1676, age 16, so M would have been Andrew and Rachel's first child, born ca 1660, about two years after they were married. For more information and photos of the stone, click here


• Samuel: Affidavits by John Phillips and his wife Ruth, and by Joseph Crandall, both given in 1716 (after Samuel's death), stated that he was the oldest son of Andrew Langworthy. The implication, of course, is that there was more than one son. Because Samuel was the oldest son, I've assumed that he, was born ca 1662, about 2 years after M.
  Although we do know that Samuel was a son of Andrew - the oldest, in fact - the problems start with the next generation. We can't prove who Samuel's children were, or even if he had any.
  
  • To continue with a discussion of Samuel and his family, click here.
  • To go to the family card of Samuel and his wife Rachel, click here.


• John: The 1692 rolls of the Sabbatarian Church of Newport, RI, show John and Elizabeth Langworthy as members. Because Rachel Hubbard Langworthy was a founding member of this church, this is taken as evidence that John was Rachel's son.
  John's wife, Elizabeth was born ca 1663, so I've assumed that John was born ca 1664, two years after Samuel.
  
  • To continue with a discussion of John and his family, click here.
  • To go to the family card of John and his wife Elizabeth Witter, click here.


• Andrew of Little Compton: There are no records tying him to either Andrew or Rachel Langworthy, but his age is about right and his name, of course, makes this reasonable. More compelling is a deed in which Andrew Langworthy of Little Compton sells land in Westerly to Samuel Langworthy of Westerly. Two points are raised by this deed:
  1) How did Andrew Langworthy of Little Compton acquire the land in Westerly? Although records of land transactions are by no means complete, the only Langworthy known to have land in Westerly before this date was the immigrant, Andrew Langworthy of Newport. So this land may have passed from Andrew of Newport to Andrew of Little Compton.
  2) Deeds of this era generally contain several elaborate sentences in which the grantor guarantees to the grantee that the land is truly his and will never be contested by any of the grantor's heirs. But this particular deed is unusually elaborate in this regard, and may indicate that there was some relationship between Andrew and Samuel which required the extra emphasis. And we know from an earlier deed that this Samuel was the grandson of Andrew Langworthy of Newport. For a transcription of the deed, click here.
  Another important consideration is that some of Andrew's descendants were Seventh Day Baptists, which ties him back to Andrew and Rachel.
  
  • To continue with a discussion of Andrew and his family, click here.
  • To go to the family card of Andrew and his wife Patience Brownell, click here.


• James: This web site follows the view expressed in William Franklin Langworthy's book (The Langworthy Family, Tuttle, 1940) that James was the son of Andrew and Rachel Langworthy. But there are arguments both for and against, which I'll briefly review:
  
  
  • James as the son of Andrew and Rachel:
    • The argument that James was the son of Andrew of Newport rests on a deposition of about 1698 in which Rachel Langworthy, age about 56, and James Langworthy, age about 18, swore they saw an individual at Kingston, RI. Rachel's age agrees with the age of Rachel (Hubbard) Langworthy (1698 - 1642 = 56) so, given the unusual name and the agreement in age, this is probably Andrew's wife. The assumption then is that John was her son, born in 1680.
    • The names of James' sons may also support this assumption: James (named for his father), Andrew (named for James' father) and Stephen (named for James' father in law).
  • James as a relative of Lawrence Langworthy:
    • Lawrence Langworthy was born in Ashburton, Devonshire, England around 1693. He was an accomplished pewterer in England, and he maintained that trade when he came to America. A Newport obituary calls him "Brazier of this Place". The records also show that he made gunpowder for the colony. Lawrence was a vestryman in Trinity Church, Newport, implying that he and his family were aligned with the Church of England.
    • Andrew and Rachel Langworthy were Baptists and Rachel. along with her parents, was a founding member of the first Seventh Day Baptist Church in America. Their probable sons, Samuel, John and Andrew all had Seventh Day Baptists among their descendants. But James and his wife Mary - like Lawrence - were members of Trinity Church in Newport; their children were baptized and married there, and I do not know of any Baptists among the the next few generations of their descendants.
    • The inventory of James' estate shows a number of old tools (unspecified), a 'Brass Skaile & 5 waits', and parcels of old or broken iron and pewter. So he may have been a metal worker, like Lawrence.
    • Westerly records show that he was paid for "ten pound of power" by "the wider willcocks", so he may have made or supplied gunpowder, again, like Lawrence.
    • So James had at least three things in common with Lawrence Langworthy of Newport (Trinity Church, metal worker, supplier of gunpowder), and it wouldn't be surprising if there were some relationship between the two men.
  
  Either of the above (or both!) could be true, but anything more I might say would be just speculation at this point. It's an area that needs more work, and I'd welcome comments and suggestions.
  
  • To continue with a discussion of the James and his family, click here.
  • To go to the family card of James and his wife Mary Remington, click here.


• Where's Robert?
  
  William Franklin Langworthy's book, and many websites, say that Andrew and Rachel Langworthy had a son named Robert. But there's no evidence at all that he existed. For a detailed argument, click here.

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