Samuel Gorton (1593–1677) was an early settler and civic leader of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and President of the towns of Providence and Warwick. He had strong religious beliefs which differed from Puritan theology and was very outspoken, and he became the leader of a small sect known as Gortonians, Gortonists, or Gortonites. As a result, he was frequently in trouble with the civil and church authorities in the New England colonies.
Samuel Gorton governor's medallion
19th century depiction of Gorton on trial in Portsmouth
Attack on Shawomet by soldiers from Massachusetts in 1643 from a 19th-century history of the United States
Warwick was destroyed in 1676 during King Philip's War.
Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was one of the original Thirteen Colonies established on the east coast of America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It was founded by Roger Williams. It was an English colony from 1636 until 1707, and then a colony of Great Britain until the American Revolution in 1776, when it became the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
The original 1636 deed to Providence signed by Chief Canonicus
Roger Williams returning with the royal charter
Four-time governor of the colony and first chancellor of Brown University Stephen Hopkins was influential in his support of the American Revolution