John Rice, II

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no image Privacy Level: Open (White) John Rice Jr. (1675 - 1755)

Captain John Rice Jr. Born 25 Jul 1675 in Warwick, Kent, Rhode Island Colony, North Americamap ANCESTORS ancestors Son of John Rice Sr. and Elizabeth (Holden) Rice Brother of Randall Rice Husband of Elnathan (Whipple) Rice — married 25 Jul 1695 in Warwick, Kent, Rhode Island Colony, North Americamap DESCENDANTS descendants Father of John Rice, Elizabeth (Rice) Spencer, Thomas Rice, Mary Rice, Nathan Rice, Barbara (Rice) Langford, William Rice, Mary (Rice) Gorton, Lydia (Rice) Sweet, Randall Rice and Elnathan (Rice) Hill Died 9 Jan 1755 in Warwick, Kent County, Rhode Island Colony,North Americamap Profile managers: Harold Templeton private message [send private message] and Barry Meadows private message [send private message] Profile last modified 23 Jan 2021 | Created 3 May 2013 This page has been accessed 2,226 times. Biography

John married Elnathan Whipple on July 25, 1695 in Warwick, Kent, Rhode Island Colony. [1] [2] They had the following children:

1. John Rice 1696 - 1746 2. Elizabeth Rice Spencer 1698 - 1776 3. Thomas Rice 1700 - 1779 4. Mary Rice 1702 - 1703 5. Nathan Rice 1704 - 1800 6. Barbara Rice Langford 1706 - 1779 7. William Rice 1708 - 1746 8. Mary Rice Gorton 1709- 9. Lydia Rice Sweet 1711- 1789 10. Randall Rice 1714 - 1769 11. Elnathan Rice Greene 1716 - John died January 9, 1755 in Warwick, Kent County, Rhode Island Colony, North America. He was buried at Rice Burial Yard in Warwick, Kent County, Rhode Island.[3]

John Rice, Jr. set the pattern of vigorous civic involvement for several generations of a large family. After becoming a freeman of Warwick in 1696 when he turned 21, John Rice, Jr. was constantly involved in the civic life of the town and colony. His sons and sons-in-law eagerly participated in the civic and military arena as well, and by the end of his long life he had built a wide network of political relationships. John Rice, Jr. His activities included:

Served as a member of the General Assembly 5 May 1696. He was constable of Warwick 2 May 1704. He was deputy to the General Assembly from Warwick 1705, 1714-1716, 1718-1719, 1721 and 1727. The Civil and Military List of Rhode Island notes services by "John Rice, Secundus" as ensign, then captain, in the second Warwick Company of the "Militia of the Main Land," second regiment 1720-1722. In February 1729, he and Benjamin Greene were authorized by the Assembly to use £30 of treasury funds to repair the Pawtuxet Bridge. With Nicholas Sheldon he witnessed a letter of administration to Ruth Whipple, widow of Benjamin. He was justice of the peace in Warwick 1721, 1722, 1736-1738 :justice of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the Peace in Providence County 1737-1746 (before it was divided into Kent and Providence counties). With three other men, John Rice, Jr. wrote to Governor Ward concerning the refusal of Mr. Thornton, the previous clerk of the colony, to turn over the seal, books, and papers to his successor. This letter appears to have been part of their duties as a committee to settle financial irregularities in Thornton's account. Like other politically active contemporaries, John Rice, Jr. did not rely exclusively on income from public service to support himself. He was identified in one document in 1723 as a shoemaker, a trade he probably learned from his father. That document, a record of a loan of (£14 3s. 6d.) to Samuel Gorton of Providence, indicates what was to become a Rice family specialty: financial dealings. When Gorton died within the term of the loan, his executors noted three debts to Mr. John Rice, Jr.: a mortgage (of £23, £1 18s. 2d.) due "by book," and (£7 19s.) due "by bond." In addition to lending money to his neighbors, he speculated in trading ventures. Public notary records include two promissory notes from Thomas Goffe and John Rice to John Coddington & Co., reg. 22 August 1734 at Bay of Honduras. When John Rice, Jr. died, the bulk of his estate consisted of bonds (£1,047 9s. 6.) and notes of hand (£273 11s. 8d.). Occasional payments in Warwick town records suggest that he raised additional income by taking in the poor.

Like his father, John Rice, Jr. spent most of his life acquiring real estate in Warwick and surrounding towns and then parceling it out to his sons. Between 1699 and 1739 the Warwick grantee and grantor indexes list some 18 real estate transactions. On 29 March 1709/10 John Rice, Jr. bought 15 acres adjoining his farm from Charles Holden. On 23 November 1716 he bought from his father a lot in Cowesett which had originally been bought from Benjamin Barton, "being the 17th Lott." Apparently, he in turn made a deed of gift of these 28 acres in 1723 to his "Loving Son John Rice for his better Livelyhood & more Cumfortable Maintenance." In making a deed of gift to his son Randall on 11 May 1724, John Rice, Sr. mentioned "ye Lott I bought of Benjm. Barton in ye sd. Cowesett which my grandson John Rice now dwelleth on" John Rice, Jr. invested also in land in other towns, though there is no evidence that he ever lived outside Warwick. In December 1733 John Rice, Jr. of Warwick, Rhode Island gave a mortgage of (£320 3s.) to Joseph Parke of Plainfield, Connecticut, on 200 acres of land, partly in Plainfield and partly in Voluntown. Parke paid off the mortgage February 1739/40, and Rice's name does not appear again in Voluntown land evidence records.

John Rice, Jr. also bought "one Right" in the original division of West Greenwich. His ventures in land ownership - even where land had been deeded to him by his father - sometimes ended in court. These legal wrangles resulted not from any personal fault, but rather from the inevitable testing of Warwick's often-imprecise 1st deeds. In the mid-1720's he sued and was counter-sued by heirs of Eliza Collins over farm #3 in the Wecachonet division. This land was held in common with John Smith of South Kingston and Jonathan Hill of Swansea. After several trials Rice and his partners won. They quickly divided the land. On 11 February 1728/9 John Rice, Jr. and John Low divided their Timberland lot containing 19 acres, lot #3 in the division. On 4 December 1730 John Rice of Warwick "yeoman ye 2nd" and Jonathan Hill of Swansea divided their Wecachonet land into two 105-acres lots.

Some ten years later he was back in court - perhaps in jail as an arrest warrant is included in the file papers - over another 105-acre lot that he and Philip Sweet both claimed. On 22 December 1739. Philip Sweet sued John Rice, Esq., of Warwick in an action of "Trespass and ejectment," seeking damages of £1400. (39) Sweet charged the defendant with "illegally entring with fource and Armes into and Unjustly witholding from the plaintiff ye Possession of One hundred and five acres of Land, part pasture & part woodland." Rice claimed, "Actual Uninterrupted peaceable and Quiet possession for upwards of Twenty Years Last past" and attempted to use William Tippits v. Martin Howard et al., as a precedent. The jury, however, awarded the land and court cost to Sweet.

John Rice, Jr. sued his neighbor John Holden, Jr. over land in the 1740's and was consequently in court many more times. Petitions to the General Assembly show that it was long and involved, with appeals on the basis of improper jury selection and reversals and then more appeals. The worst of these suits came in the final years of his life. John Rice, Jr. was involved in a bitter, potentially violent legal wrangle with John and Thomas Pearce of East Greenwich specifically, but in a more general way with the proprietors and heirs of proprietors of East Greenwich. He sued the two men in "an action of partition" for £3,000 in the December 1747 session of the Providence Co., Court of Common Pleas, arguing that land the three occupied as tenants in common be divided. [4]

Sources

↑ "A Family Register of the People" by James Arnold, Editor of the Narragansett Historical Register. Volume 1, Kent County. published Providence, RI 1891 John2 Rice, Jr. of Warwick, Rhode Island. ↑ Passengers on the Lion from England to Boston 1632 and Five Generations of Their Descendants; Sandra Sutphin Olney; Heritage Books, Inc., 2008; Part 2, page 608; Digital Image, Google Books ↑ Find A Grave ↑ ~ Cherry Fletcher Bamberg - Rhode Island Roots article25:3 (Sep 1999) p. 81-118. See also:

Annals of Our Colonial Ancestors and Their Descendants By Ambrose Milton Shotwell, pg 47 The history of Warwick, Rhode Island: from its settlement in 1642 to the present time including accounts of the early settlement and development of its several villages, sketches of the origin and progress of the different churches of the town, &c., &c by Oliver P. Fuller Representative Men and Old Families of Rhode Island Genealogical Records ... Page 1640

• John Rice, II - Find A Grave - ID 59011904
• John Rice
• Birth: Jul. 25, 1675 Warwick, Kent County, Rhode Island, USA
• Death: Jan. 9, 1755 Warwick, Kent County, Rhode Island, USA
• Family links:
• Parents:
• John Rice (1646 - 1731)
• Elizabeth Holden Rice (1652 - 1730)
• Spouse:
• Elnathan Whipple Rice (1675 - 1753)*
• Children:
  • John Rice (1696 - ____)*
  • Randall Rice (1714 - 1769)*
• Burial: Rice Burial Yard, Warwick, Kent County, Rhode Island, USA
• Find A Grave Memorial# 59011904
• From: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=59011904 ___________________
• WHIPPLE, Elnathan
• b. 2 JAN 1674/5 Providence Co., RI.
• d. 1753
• Parents:
• Father: WHIPPLE, John
• Mother: OLNEY, Mary
• Family:
• Marriage: 25 JUL 1695
• Spouse: RICE, John
• b. 25 JUL 1675 Warwick, Kent, RI.
• d. 9 JAN 1755 Warwick, Kent, RI.
• Parents:
• Father: RICE, John
• Mother: HOLDEN, Elizabeth
• Children:
  • RICE, John
  • RICE, Elizabeth
  • RICE, Thomas
  • RICE, Nathan
  • RICE, Barbara
  • RICE, William
  • RICE, Mary
  • RICE, Lydia
  • RICE, Randall
  • RICE, Elnathan
• From: http://www.genealogyofnewengland.com/f_745.htm#3 ___________
• Steere Genealogy: A Record of the Descendants of John Steere, who Settled in ... By James Pierce Root
• https://books.google.com/books?id=Yz5VAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&d...
• Pg.185
• HON. JOHN WHIPPLE, eldest son of John, Sen., baptized in infancy, November 7, 1641, in Dorchester, Mass., came with his parents to Providence. He married, first, December 4, 1663, Mary, daughter of Thomas and Mary (Small) Olney, who died about 1676. He married, second, April 15, 1678, Rebecca Scott, widow of John Scott.
• .... etc.
• He became blind in his later years, as appears from the old council records in the proceedings relating to his will. He died December 10, 1700, and his wife presented a will of his that disinherited his only son John, but it was proved that he had stated that "he could not help doing as he had done, for he was now blind and he must do as other would have him," and expressed his desire not to disinherit his son but to help him if he could. The will was set aside because of undue influence on the part of his second wife.
• Children of John and Mary Whipple:
  • I. .... etc.
  • III. ELNATHAN, b. January 2, 1675; m. John Rice of Warwick.
• .... etc. __________________

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GEDCOM Note

Also 1714-1716, 1718-1719, 1721-1722, and 1727

GEDCOM Note

He and Benjamin Greene were authorized by the Assembly to draw 30 pounds from the General Treasury towards rebuilding the Pawtuxet Bridge.

GEDCOM Note

Will - proved 10 Feb 1755, Executor son Randall. To grandson Thomas, son of John, deceased, 35 acres adjoining land where he lives he paying grandson John, son of William £100 at decease of my wife, and also paying £100 to my son Nathan, and Thomas also to pay his brother Henry £100. In case of death of grandson John, the £100 to paid his brother James. To son Thomas, all my lands in forks of Pawtuxet River, two other lots of land and £25. To son Nathan, a meadow share and two small lots near the ???? mill. To our daughters Elizabeth Spencer, Barbara Langford, Mary Gorton, Lydia Sweet, and Elnathan Hill, each £80. To wife, all indoor movables, negro called Moil(?), one-quarter income of estate and benefit of dwelling house for life. To three sons Thomas, Nathan, and Randall, all wearing apparel. To son Randall, negro boy Rufus, he paying grandson James £100 at age. To son Nathan, £100 at decease of wife and liberty to plant two acres in common field for life. Executor of will to provide wife with firewood. To son Randall, all homestead both sides the way, and all other lands, stock, and movables. To three sons, equally the bonds and money. Inventory, £4461, 16s, 2d, viz: bonds £1017, 9s, 6d, books £15, 11s, 8d, sword and belt, spinning wheel, 8 silver spoons, warming pan, 5 candle sticks, cheese tub, 7 cows, 2 heifers, 2 yearlings, 2 calves, pair of oxen, 60 sheep, 6 swine, 2 mares, 1 yearling mare, negro boy £250, negro girl £200, &c.

GEDCOM Note

In 1721, John was promoted to the rank of Captain. In February 1729, he and Benjamin Greene were authorized by the Assembly to draw £30 from the General Treasury towards rebuiklding the Pawtuxet Bridge.