“In answer to your queries, “At what time did Roger Williams depart this life? Where did he dwell in Providence? and where was he buried?” I can only say, that I never met with any record, printed or manuscript, which I thought more correct, as to the time of his death, than the account given by Mr. Backus, in his History of the Baptists, vol. i. p. 515. Governor Hutchinson, in his History of Massachusetts, vol. i. p. 43, says, that he died in the year 1682, forty-eight years after his banishment. Now, adding forty-eight years to the year of his removal from Salem to Providence, which, undoubtedly, was in 1636, it makes the year 1684 as the year of his death, though Governor Hutchinson, by mistake, says it was in 1682. From Mr. Williams’ writings, it appears that he was born in 1599; and, as he died in the eighty-fourth year of his age, it will make the year 1683, as stated by Mr. Backus, that in which his death happened.

“It appears of record, that on the 16th day of January, 1683, Mr. Williams, with others, signed a settlement of a controversy which had long existed between some of the people of Providence and some of those of Pawtuxet, relative to the Pawtuxet purchase; and that, on the 10th day of May following, John Thornton, in a letter to Mr. Hubbard, mentioned his death. So he must have died between January 16 and May 10, 1683.

“The freemen of Providence, in town meeting, July 15, 1771, appointed a committee, viz. Stephen Hopkins, Amos Atwell, and Darius Sessions, Esqrs. to draft an inscription for a monument, which it was then intended to erect to his memory. In their vote on that occasion, Mr. Williams was called “the Founder of the Town and Colony.” The committee did nothing, and the business has slept from that time. In the summer of that year, (forty-eight years ago) when much was said respecting a monument for him, though nothing could be agreed on, his grave was shown to me, near the east end of the house lot now owned by Mr. Dorr. The foot grave-stone was then gone, and the top of the other broken off, so that only the lower part appeared, without any inscription. There were several other grave-stones near his, in memory of some of the Ashton family, who were connected with Mr. Williams, on which the inscriptions were entire. Thinking it a duty to preserve some knowledge of the place, where was deposited the dust of the founder of our State, I have repeatedly, of late years, sought for those monuments, without being able to find any traces of them; though I think I can, within a rod or two, show where they were placed, so that, on digging the ground, the graves may, perhaps, be discovered.

“There is no doubt but that Mr. Williams lived, the latter part of his life, upon the estate whereon he was buried, which was called the Crawford estate, after the connection of the Crawford and Fenner families, by the marriage of Gideon Crawford with Freelove Fenner, daughter of Arthur Fenner, April 13, 1687; which Arthur Fenner, July 31, 1688, gave to his three daughters, Freelove, Bethiah and Phebe, thirty-one acres of land, “in Providence Neck,” all which became the property of Mr. Crawford, who married Freelove Fenner, and I believe was exchanged or negotiated for Mr. Williams’ estate, near the spring.”[[395]]

As Mr. Williams’ grave and others before mentioned were on that estate, I applied, on the 12th of May, 1813, to Mrs. Mary Tripe, a descendant of the said Gideon Crawford, then in the seventy-second year of her age, for information respecting them. She was a woman of intelligence, good sense and information, and careful of what she said. She informed me that your ancestor, Roger Williams, lived in a house which was on the east side of the main street, a little south of the Episcopal church, the foundation whereof then remained, which she showed me, within sight of her house, and which I believe is also now removed, as I saw nothing of it, on looking for it, the last time I was in Providence. So transitory are all things pertaining to humanity! She told me there was no doubt that Mr. Williams was buried at the place which I have mentioned; that she had always been told so; and that she remembered seeing fruit trees growing there, when she was a girl; that her father once owned that and the estate where Moses Brown, Esq. now lives; and that there was a gang-way, fourteen feet wide, south of Mrs. Tripe’s house, given by Mr. Williams, to go to his spring, originally laid out from river to river, near which gang-way his house stood.

“I have an original letter, in the hand writing of Mr. Williams, to the freemen of the town of Providence, dated “11, 3, 60,” [May 11, 1660] claiming personal estate of John Clowson, who had been murdered by Waumaion, an Indian, on the 4th day of the preceding January, containing additional proof that Mr. Williams then lived near the spring before mentioned.

“I can give no satisfactory information relative to the other queries in your letter, but what may be derived from the records of Providence; nor have I any recollection of any circumstance which indicated that Mr. Williams left a will.

“It gives me pleasure to be able to furnish useful information to any of my friends, from documents in my possession. Though in haste, I have written diffusely, in answer to your letter. So far as it goes, I believe the information it contains is correct. That it may in some degree, answer your expectations, and the purpose for which you wanted it, is the wish of

“Yours, respectfully,

THEODORE FOSTER.”