Thomas Baylies, Sr.

Baylies (with his son Nicholas and daughter Esther) emigrated from London to Boston, Massachusetts, arriving in June 1737. The following year, he brought over his wife and his daughters Mary and Helen. He settled at Attleborough Gore (now Cumberland, Rhode Island), where he was an ironmaster under contract (of 1738) with Richard Clarke & Co. of Boston. Little is known of his time in America, but he and his wife (who died on 7 May 1754) were buried in a family burying ground beside the Taunton River.

Walter Ashworth, 6 th Great Grandson

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Baylies Marker

There is a large flat slab in the graveyard and it has the following inscription:

In 1923 there were removed from this burial grounds to the South Dighton Cemetery, the remains of twelve of the earliest ancestors and kindred of the Baylies Family in America whose names are here inscribed.

Thomas Baylies 1687-1756

Esther Sargeant 1687-1754

Nicholas Baylies 1719-1807

Elizabeth Park 1717-1791

Thomas Baylies, Jr. 1715-1756

Lucy Baylies 1745-1769

Thomas Sargeant Baylies 1748-1835

Bethiah Godfrey 1750-1796

Charles Baylies 1783-1830

Keziah Rounds 1794-1859

Henry Baylies 1781-1808

Clarissa Baylies 1785-1786

The reason why these people and their gravestones were removed was because Mrs. Baylies was concerned about the remote location of the graveyard and possible vandalism of the markers. This was in 1923. She had good reason to have concern!

Gideon Pendleton was originally from Westerly, RI. In the Revolutionary War, he served in Capt. Stillman’s 3rd Westerly Company in 1776, and in Col. John Topham’s Regiment, beginning on the 25th of December in that year. When he was 21 yrs. old he came up the Taunton River from Narragansett Bay to Dighton, Mass. Within a couple of months he was engaged to Anne Rose of Dighton. One descendant of Anne noted that people had thought it strange that Anne Rose would marry a "foreigner!" A "foreigner" was anyone who didn’t live in Dighton.

From the book on the Baylies history, that states that when Thomas and Ester immagrated from England in 1737 they had 8 children. Helen married Peter Walker of Taunton. His farm was south of Westville, on the road to MT.Hope factory, and is still owned by his descendents. He died in 1762 and his will indicates that he had no children, as he bequeathed his farm to his nephew Peter. To his wife he left the negro Peggy, her two children and Man Cambridge, with 300 Pounds. Also 3 pounds yearly to Rev. John Lyon for ten years, if he remained minister of St.Thomas church, Taunton. Helen married for her second husband Rev. John Lyon. This connection may have been how the Baylies ended up in this burial ground. There are three other locations in this little book that mention the graveyard are as follows:

"Their place of burial is in Dighton which I have seen. It is on the Taunton River and shielded by high bushes from the view of passers on the water. Some years since Fredrick (Allen, Mary R. Baylies wrote this history) and I visited the grave yard and thought it was the most dismal, forsaken spot we had ever seen. It was over run with briars and high, tough grass, and has received no new internments for many years. It was a Baylies burying ground, for we saw few names except those of family."

Walter Ashworth, 6th Great Grandson

He arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, in June, 1737, accompanied by his son Nicholas and daughter Esther, but soon returned to England for his wife and two other daughters, returning to this country in 1787.

He did considerable work as a pioneer, for in those days the colonists were versatile men, able to turn their hands to almost any trade, and there were few of them who did not assist in cultivating the land as well as engage in commercial and industrial pursuits. He finally settled at Uxbridge, where he owned land and engaged in farming and other occupations. His training seems to have been largely commercial and manufacturing, and he established iron works, at Uxbridge, which developed to a considerable size.

He married, June 5, 1706, Esther, daughter of Thomas Sargent, of Fullford Heath, Warwickshire, England.