Edmund Rice Homestead East Sudbury, MA

Edmund Rice (1638) Association 24 Buckman Dr., Chelmsford MA 01824 Vol. 77, No. 4   Autumn 2003 © Copyright 2003 by the Edmund Rice (1638) Association return to: [Information page]  [ ERA Main page]

President's Column

Two generations of Sudbury men selected Edmund Rice repeatedly as one of their leaders, with full realization that they were ignoring men of far more English governmental experience who had come with him. (Sumner Chilton Powell, Puritan Village.)
 He ended up with more land than any other Sudbury settler. He was first chosen to represent Sudbury as a Deputy of the General Court (Mass. Legislature) for the session starting 7 October 1640. He was one of the early settlers who were commissioned by the General Court to lay out lands for Sudbury setters on 4 September 1639. He was named to hear small claims for the court in Sudbury as early as 2 June 1641.He was elected Selectman eleven times, Deputy to the General Court five times and Judge of Small Causes 3 times before he removed to Marlborough in 1656. Conceivably it was the move to this new town that best personifies his dissenting nature for he was one of, if not the most, important leaders of Sudbury, yet he helped found the new town. However he worked within the system and helped define the laws that governed colonial Massachusetts.
It is not yet clear why he and a very few others became leaders. None of the Sudbury men, excepting the minister, Edmund Brown, were well educated but most could read and write. The early General Court was headed by John Winthrop or Richard Saltonstall, both well educated. But several early Sudbury settlers had had lots of experience in government in England yet were passed over.
All these Englishmen had come from a tight class system and titles such as Mister still were carefully restricted. On the list of General Court members in which Edmund first appears (May 1640) were 27 as Mister and 3 as Captain or Lieutenant. Edmund Rice was one of thirteen without any title. He became a Freeman 13 May 1640, which meant he was accepted into the Puritan Church and was then entitled to vote. But even though acceptance by the church was necessary, the clergy did not rule these early settlers. Edmund Brown, the minister at Sudbury, had land taken away from him by the Town Meeting, for example.
Despite the fact that Edmund served at least five times in the General Court in Boston there is no direct evidence that he was friendly or hob-nobbed with the colony's leaders. But there is indirect evidence that John Winthrop was aware of him other than as a member of the legislature. Edmund Rice married Thomasine Frost and Thomas Blower married her sister, Alice Frost.
Blower arrived in Massachusetts in 1635 but died shortly after 1639. In 1640, Nathan Lufkin of Hitcham, Suffolk, England wrote to John Winthrop in Boston that Thomas Blower owed him 24 pounds and that Edmund Rice knew about it. By this time Alice Blower had already remarried. The tone of the letter suggests that Lufkin and Winthrop were well acquainted and that Lufkin and Edmund were also. Hitcham, Stanstead, and Groton, Winthrop's old home, form a triangle about 8 or 9 miles on a side in the southwestern portion of Suffolk County. This was in the Stour River Valley that had been a major center of Puritanism for at least a generation before.
In fact the extended families of the three Frost sisters, Elizabeth (who married Henry Rice), Alice and Thomasine, were at the center of one of the largest networks of interrelated Puritans who immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
These might be important underlying facts that allowed Edmund Rice's native abilities to blossom.
-Bob Rice

Editor's Column
 

I was one of the fortunate 45 who were able to attend the Annual Meeting in Lexington in September. Being a new resident of Massachusetts, this gave me a fine excuse to take a day off from work and see some of the nation's most historical sites. Friday afternoon was dedicated to this endeavor, being a whirlwind tour of what there is to see from Lexington to Concord and back again. There was no way a few hours would have been enough to see everything, so this sampler tour was a nice way to get an overview and decide that I indeed would like to return someday with more leisure. I carpooled and then had dinner with the Spofford brothers, Bob and Dick. It turns out that Bob lives less than two miles from me. What a small world it is. Who knows, the stranger you saw in the produce section last week might be a Rice cousin.

The speaker, David Dearborn, did a marvelous job, in my opinion. Not only is he an expert on the subject of migrations out of New England, he took the time to prepare examples using Rice families who moved west. One of the points he made, and illustrated well with various maps, was that most people tended to migrate westward, on pretty much the same latitude. One exception was the people of eastern New England, who could find unclaimed land closer to home by moving east into Maine. Of course, there were other exceptions, but in general it seems like a helpful guideline. We can figure that Rices in Ohio in 1800 were more likely to be "our" Rices, than ones in Tennessee, for example.
I also enjoyed meeting most of the Board for the first time, and various other members - and was quite amused to receive the award for being the youngest one there!
-Lynn McLaughlin

New Director, Perry Bent

Perry Bent was elected as a new director at the annual meeting. Here is what she has to say about herself:
"I have been dabbling in genealogy since my early 20s, but thirty years later, I decided to get serious. Part of that was joining the ERA-- recalling my grandmother's stories about going to the Rice Reunions in the early 1900s. I've always felt a little guilty about the ease of my research, since all of my ancestors were the Sudbury/Wayland/Framingham founders or the Hampton, NH founding families-- only two towns to research in. I am descended from Edmund Rice (of course), John Bent, Gregory Stone, Walter Haynes, Ezekiel How, John Trowbridge, and other old names in town-- Perry, Reed/Reade, Foster, Kendall, Shattuck, Goodnow, Willis, etc. I have a few genealogical factoids which may be of interest: My 2nd great-grandfather sold the Perry homestead in Sudbury, Elm Farm, to Babe Ruth, after hosting him for several years; another 2nd great-grandfather on my mother's side helped restore the Wayside Inn, which was built and run for centuries by my 3rd great grandmother's ancestors on my father's side. I am now going back and re-researching to get definitive proofs and documentation on my ancestors, and I'm looking forward to lending my fledgling efforts to the ERA projects."

WELCOME to our new members:
Scott R. Huntsman (CA), Perry L. Bent (MA), Gordon L. Rice (VA),  James P. Rice (IL), Ellen M. Blanchard (MA), Dean & Mary Rice (MI), Mr. & Mrs. Elling Eidbo (VA),  Larry R. King (UT), Betty C. Jones Seacord (CA), John W. Rice III (CA)

Status of the Master Database

Activities since September 2002:
... Edited and merged seven databases from cousins
... Merged the Nova Scotia Rice database (about 18,000 names)
... Merged more than 2,100 updates, primarily to the first five generations of Edmund Rice's descendants and to the Nova Scotia Rice database
... Database now contains more than 74,000 person-records
... Began editing the master source list to provide end notes and bibliography entries that are professional in format and content
... Five TMG 4 databases from cousins in work
... Four TMG 5 databases from cousins edited and ready to merge
... Responded to numerous requests from potential ERA members and cousins for information about their Rice ancestors. Each request was answered with a report of the cousin's Rice ancestry, a note of encouragement to exchange information, and encouragement to join our association.
Planned activities for 2003-2004
... Continue to respond to requests from potential ERA members and cousins
... Continue to edit and merge databases submitted by cousins
... Complete the editing of the master source list for professional end notes and bibliography entries
... Move the master database to TMG 5 early this fall.
... Merge extensive updates from John Chandler.
-George King
 

Nine Generation Rice Database Available on CD At our annual reunion, we viewed a report of the first nine generations of Edmund Rice's descendants from our association database as of early September  2003. The report was a set of web pages that anyone can view and search using their computer web browser. The format is the same as the five-generation report posted on our ERA web page space. The web page format has links among all names, relationships and foot noted sources for the reader to follow easily. Four directors brought their lap top computers so that four attendees could search the report at one time. Why just the first nine generations? Whenever we receive information from a cousin, we commit to not exchanging with others any information about living  people. This encourages cousins to share information about people living in the 21st century so that later generations will have the benefit of our research. The ninth generation of Edmund's descendants were all born in the late 19th century, offering a very easy way to protect the privacy of living individuals.

At its September meeting your Board of Directors (BoD) agreed that we would offer the nine-generation report and database to our members. The BoD approved a charge of $10 postpaid for a CD-ROM containing both documents. Bill Drury, our book custodian and treasurer, agreed to make copies of the CD-ROM for ERA members upon request. Bill's postal address is included in this newsletter.
The BoD placed three caveats on the distribution of these documents:
... the information is copyrighted by the Edmund Rice (1638) Association and is restricted to the.personal use of association members.
... the CDs will be available only to association members who agree to its terms of use.
... the association master data base is an ongoing effort. We expect to add an additional 25,000 names and 20,000 updates during the next three years for generations six and more recent generations. This CD-ROM represents our database effort as of September 2003.
-George King

The Lucius Rice Family

Lucius Manley Rice was a direct descendant of Edmund (Edmund¹, Edward² and Thomas², Anna³ and Thomas³, Charles⁴, Zebulon⁵, Adam⁶, Ephraim⁷, Samuel Tainter⁸, Rollin Gordencio⁹, Lucius Manley¹⁰, born in 1863 in Leslie, Ingham County, Michigan. His descendants and those of some of his close cousins have an active family group, with a newsletter and annual reunion. Doyle Rice, one of Lucius' great-grandchildren sent a letter and copy of the newsletter to us. There is a lot of information, which I can only excerpt, but if you send $2.00 for copying and postage to Doyle Rice, 1220 Fourth Street, Jackson, MI 49203-3008, he'll send you a copy.
The most recent Lucius Rice Family reunion was held in Mason, MI, September 21, the same weekend as the ERA reunion. They had 78 family members there, the oldest being almost 101 years old. Next year, they are planning their reunion a week later, in hopes that some of them will be able to come to the ERA reunion, and that someone officially representing the ERA can come to theirs and give a brief talk.
Doyle also mentions the idea of regional Rice reunions, and is seriously considering having one for the Midwest ("360 miles and 360 degrees" radius around Jackson) in the Jackson MI area next June. If it indeed gets organized, he plans to announce it in the spring ERA newsletter, so stay tuned. If you're interested please let him know ASAP; as this will probably determine his going ahead w/ plans, or not. His email address is SusanMarieRice@yahoo.com.
In addition to an article about the ERA, the Lucius Rice Family newsletter has vital records updates; an article about a related Rice branch planning a reunion in Concord, MI next summer on July 11th; and three about members' research into their own branches of the family, reported in great detail. Doyle Rice is the elected Historian/Geneaoligist for the Lucius Rice Family and its closely related cousins' branches. He has resigned as editor of the newsletter, but will continue as a contributor. The new editor is his cousin Gaylene Johnson, who has been an ERA member in the past. She can be contacted through Doyle for the time being.
As the recent ERA reunion focused on Lexington/Concord at the outset of the Revolutionary War,as well as migrations, it seems appropriate to mention that  Sgt. Adam6 Rice served as a minuteman/patriot, called out from Amherst, MA. His son Ephraim7, born 4 yrs. prior in Jan. 1770, in Brookfield MA; became a pioneer settler in Leslie Township, Ingham County, MI when in his late 60s. He, his married younger sister, his brother, and their families migrated there between 1836 and 1638, from northwestern Vermont; 2 centuries after Edmund came into the wilderness of the Massachusetts  Bay Colony. Michigan was just transitioning from a territory to the 26th state, and was very crude. Leslie Township, in south-central Michigan, was swampy and heavily wooded. Ephraim's gravestone still exists, representing the earliest born person memorialized in Leslie City's only remaining cemetary, Woodlawn.
Doyle knows of 3 other Rice branches that descend from Edmund; each settling in southern Lower Michigan nearly the same time, purchasing land from the U. S. government. One was Thomas Jefferson Rice, who is written about in the ERA book, More About Those Rices by Elsie Hawes Smith, in chapter 12. He settled 30 miles due east of Ephraim's group, in what's now Hamburg Township, Livingston County, Michigan. The Rice brothers Job and Squire, came from NY State and settled in Grass Lake Township of Jackson County, 12 miles south-southeast of Ephraim's group. Doyle's curious as to whether or not they trace to Edmund. Anyone that can find them in early 1800's NY records, please help him solve the mystery. There was also Sylvester Rice, who settled 40 miles southwest, in Branch County. It has been proposed this branch is related to the Rices of Conway, MA.

Rice Descent of Alison Mercer Coyne

Edmund Rice¹, Thomas Rice², Ephraim Rice³, Josiah Rice⁴, Cyrus Rice⁵ m. Elizabeth Wright, Ezekiel Rice⁶ m. Hannah Billing, Erwin⁷ Rice m. Diadema Bishop, Charles Billing Marion Rice⁸ m. Caroline Offutt, James E. Rice⁹ m. Margaretta Pitman Beck, Victoria Corydon Rice¹⁰ m. Robert A. Mercer, Robert Arlyn Mercer¹¹ m. Helen Irene Mathewson, Pamela Ann Mercer¹² m. Timothy C. Coyne, Alison Mercer Coyne¹³

Rice Boys Captured by Indians

This coming August will mark the 300-year anniversary of a sad event in the early Rice history. On August 8, 1704, tragedy struck at the families of Edmund (son of Samuel) and Thomas (the second) Rice. A group of their sons was playing in a field near Thomas' house in what is now Westborough (formerly a part of Marlborough) where the women were spreading flax. Suddenly, a party of 8 to 10 Indians rushed from the woods and seized Edmund's sons Silas (age 9), Timothy (age 7), and Nahor (age 5), and Thomas' sons Ashur (age 10) and Adonijah (age 8) as they played. The youngest of the boys was killed in the raid and the others taken to Canada where they integrated into Indian life. One of the boys was returned four years later, while another later became a chief of the Caugnawauga Tribe. A marker near the Westborough High School on Route 30 indicates the location of this capture. The words on the marker are "IN THE FIELD SOUTH OF THIS SPOT AUGUST 8, 1704 INDIANS KILLED NAHOR AND CAPTURED ASHUR, ADONIJAH, SILAS AND TIMOTHY RICE".

John Willard Rice, III

Philip Rice

Betty C. Jones Seacord

The Family Thicket, Part II

In the previous article (Spring 2003), I described some of the interconnections between the families of early Massachusetts immigrants William Ward and Edmund Rice, who both settled first at Sudbury and then at Marlborough.  Because of this close proximity, it is not really surprising that the two families developed ties, but it is certainly interesting that all 13 Ward children had descendants within a few generations who married descendants of Edmund Rice.  This next installment of the saga follows another early settler who did not live in either Sudbury or Marlborough, but who nonetheless came to be closely associated with Rice descendants.
In 1635, Thomas Brigham, then aged 32, came to Massachusetts on the Susan and Ellen and settled in Cambridge.  There is no record of his bringing a wife or children, but he had five children born after his arrival, apparently all by his wife Mercy.  (She is often described as Mercy Hurd, but there is no evidence of her maiden name. In particular, there is no record in Massachusetts of her marriage to Thomas.)  The first connection between Thomas Brigham and Edmund Rice is this wife Mercy, who was left a widow in 1653 and married Edmund in 1655, in due course bearing him two daughters.  In addition, all five of the Brigham children have links that we can follow.  As with the Ward family, much of this story takes place "off-screen" from the standpoint of the on-line database of Edmund Rice's immediate descendants; only one of Thomas' children appears in the index of that database (along with Thomas himself and his widow).  However, the full story appears in the (much larger) master database (or will do so when the currently pending updates are completed).

1. Thomas (c1641-1717) married Mary³ Rice (Henry², Edmund¹). What could be simpler than that?Of course, in view of the remarriage already mentioned, Thomas was actually the step-uncle of his (first) wife Mary, but we'll let that pass.Interestingly enough, Thomas' second wife was the widowed second wife of his brother-in-law John Fay (see section 3).

2. John (1644/5-1728) married Sarah and had a son John whose daughter Phebe married Joseph⁵ Hubbard (Joseph⁴, Hannah³ Rice, Samuel², Edmund¹).

3. Mary (c1648-c1676) married John Fay, though there is no record of the marriage.The confirmation is provided instead by the fact that two of their sons were parties to a court case many years later regarding her father's estate (the senior Fays both being dead by then).The Fays also had a daughter Mary who married her cousin Jonathan⁴ Brigham, son of Thomas and Mary³ (Rice) Brigham mentioned above.The Fays' son John Jr had a grandson Jedediah Fay who married Elizabeth⁶ Brigham (Nathan⁵, Nathan⁴, Mary³ Rice, Henry², Edmund¹). Just to complicate matters, this Elizabeth also belonged to the fifth generation, as her mother was Dinah⁴ Rice (Edmund³, Samuel², Edmund¹). Another grandson of John Jr, David Goodenow, married Abigail⁵ Rice (Adonijah⁴, Jonas³, Thomas², Edmund¹). Yet another pair of grandsons, brothers John and Stephen Fay, married a pair of sisters, Mary⁵ and Susan⁵Fiske (Mary⁴ Stone, Mary³ Rice, Joseph², Edmund¹).

4. Hannah (1650/1-1719) married William Ward, a son of immigrant William, as described in the previous article. To save the reader the trouble of looking that up, I repeat here: the Wards had two children who are relevant to our story: William, whose son Elisha married Ruth⁴ Rice (Joseph³, Joseph², Edmund¹), and Nahum, whose daughter Persis married Bezaleel⁵ Eager (Lydia⁴ Woods, Lydia³ Rice, Edward², Edmund¹).

5. Samuel (1652/3-1713) married Elizabeth Howe and had no fewer than five children who come into play.

Again, these are just the most obvious connections. As a parenthetical note, I should add that the woman who married in turn John Fay and Thomas Brigham (see section 1), was Susanna Shattuck, who had previously been married to Joseph Morse of  Watertown and Groton, and they may have been the parents of Jonathan Morse of Marlborough Jonathan's great-grandson Peabody Houghton married Betsey⁷ Tuttle (Lucia⁶ Brewer, Peter⁵, Jonathan⁴, Elizabeth³ Rice, Henry², Edmund¹). The family thicket goes on.

Genetics Committee Report
(John Chandler, George King, Bob Rice)

There are now 18 male descendants of Edmund Rice who have had their Y-DNA analyzed. Many have all 25 loci completed. All agree with each other with five showing single mutations as to be expected. A few added recently do not have complete paper pedigrees as yet. The Ancestral Reconstructed Haplotype of Edmund determined with 12 verified pedigrees still holds.
The two purported sons of Gershom Rice, Abishai and Matthias, have sets of genetic markers that agree now with nine other descendants of Robert Royce. Four of the Royce descendants have verified pedigrees from two sons of Robert Royce.
Our search for the biological father of Abishai and Matthias has been accepted by New England Ancestors as a sequel to our paper last fall. Y-DNA by itself can never determine the parentage but through conventional genealogy we have narrowed a group of Royce males to one likely father. He is David Royce, grandson of Robert.
Professor Bryan Sykes, who with Catherine Irven published their analysis of the Sykes males in the spring 2000, sparked genealogists' current interest in Y-DNA. They only used four loci compared to the 12 or 25 used today and concluded, along with Dr. George Redmonds, that many British surnames originated from an unique single male. Our Rice study, along with many other single surname DNA studies to date, do not support their assertion. It is clear that a great many immigrants to our shores were from different families with the same surname.
Perhaps the most important new result is that at least 25 totally different Rice families have been identified with Y-DNA analysis. Most are in the United States (especially Southern States) or Canada but one currently lives in England and one in Australia. The actual number of distinct Rice families in the world is probably much higher as most recent Rice DNA analyses are unique and do not match any other Rice family. We do have four Rice families that seem to have internal agreement (but without substantiated pedigrees) in addition to those of Edmund Rice and Robert Royce. We have obtained Y-DNA results of three different Rice males who appear to come from New England Rice families and whose DNA are unique from each other and all other Rices analyzed so far. Their pedigrees are not completely verified but in two cases, at least, are nearly so. One is from a John Rice of Warwick, Rhode Island (mid 1600) and one is from another John Rice who married in Dedham, MA 1649. The one in most doubt may be from Richard Rice of Concord 1636. None match the Edmund Rice Ancestral Haplotype.
Our present conclusion is that Edmund Rice (and probably Henry) was of a Rice family not connected to any other Rice family that we know of.
The DNA results also provide indirect evidence on the origin of the Rice surname, but in two contradictory ways. First, the multitude of separate Rice families lends support to the patronymic theory that the various Rice families descend from different men with the popular Welsh given name Rice or Rhys. Second, the haplotypes of both Edmund Rice and Robert Royce both strongly suggest that they belong to a haplogroup that is very rare in Wales, indicating that at least these two families have an English origin. Haplogroups are not the same as, and may contain, many haplotypes.
All DNA results are posted on our web site: edmund-rice.org.
It is probable that we will continue our present level of activity (since April) which means that new Rice males (mostly non-Edmund) will trickle in their samples. It does not seem practical to search for Edmund's connections in Great Britain without conventional genealogy to guide us. A Y- DNA kit has just been sent to a male Rice Mohawk Amerindian in Montreal. He may well be a descendant of Silas Rice. It may be auspicious that 8 Aug 2004 will be the 300th anniversary of the Rice boys' capture.
-Bob Rice