William Gorton I (abt. 1706 - 1761)

Born about 1706 in Mashapaug (Cranston), Rhode Island Colony

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 12 Nov 1761 at about age 55 in Hudson River, Dutchess, New York

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Biography

Birthdate uncertain, estimated as same as wife's

Moved to Stony Brook (near New Haven), Connecticut colony, sometime before January, 1758, where he leased a farm. Died from drowning when his boat capsized in the Hudson River, New York colony.

Was a delegate to the Friends convention at or near Poughkeepsie, NY and was drowned on the Hudson by the capsizing of the boat in which he was returning home. "We hear that Mr. William Gorton of this town, and another man with his wife and a child, were drowned on the 12th instant, by the over-setting of a boat in the North-River, near the Fish-Kills. Three others were in the boat who were saved. Mr. Gorton has left a widow and six children." New London Summary or the Weekly Advertiser, 27 Nov., 1761.

This Wm Gorton was drowned in Hudson River crossing in a small boat on way home from Quaker quarterly meeting.

Sources

• Gorton, Adelos,. The life and times of Samuel Gorton : the founders and the founding of the Republic : a section of early United States history and a history of the colony of Providence and Rhode Island plantations in the Narragansett Indian country now the state of Rhode Island, 1592-1636-1677-1687 : with a genealogy of Samuel Gorton's descendants to the present time. Philadelphia: unknown, 1907; pp. 181-182. An Archive .org book. Samuel Gorton

• Ernest Brown manuscript, c. 1957

• Rootsweb, Ancestry.com
• Story of death from inherited Freeman family history