-----FAMILY LINKS-----

PARENTS:
. Richard Waterman (1606-1673)
. Bethiah Rice (1600-1680)

MARRIAGE:
. Arthur Fenner (1619 -1703)

CHILDREN with Mehitable Waterman:
1. Samuel Fenner (1650-1680)
2. Thomas Fenner (1652-1718)
+ sp: Alice Ralph (1657 -1676)
+ sp: Dinah Borden (1665 - 1761)
3. Sarah Fenner (1654 - 1676)
4. Freelove Fenner (1656-1712)
+ sp: Gideon Crawford (1651-1708)
5. Arthur Fenner III (1658-1725)
+ sp: Mary Smith (1670 - 1737)
6. Bethia Fenner (b.1662)
+ sp: Robert Kilton
7. Phoebe Fenner (b.1665)
+ sp: Joseph Latham

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FACTS CONCERNING:

We know very little about Mehitable. She was born in Nyland, Somerset England and Immigrated with her parents to the Colony in Salem Mass in 1629. She was abt three years of age. In 1638 she relocated to Providence Rhode Island. There she married Arthur Fenner in abt 1649. She gave birth to all of his children.

The following account is of her father and sheds a little light as to how Mehitable ended up in RI.

Colonel Richard Waterman, immigrant ancestor and founder of the Waterman family of New England, was a passenger to America in the fleet with Higginson in the year 1629, and having been sent as an expert hunter by the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, although tradition brought forward at various times has stated that he came in the same ship with Roger Williams, with whom he later joined his fortunes. The family bore coat-of-arms as follows:

Arms -- Or a buck's head cabossed gules.

Richard Waterman settled in Salem, Mass., where he became a member of the church. He soon fell into disrepute in the Salem settlement because of his sympathy with the views of Roger Williams, and in March, 1638, followed Roger Williams to Providence, having been banished from Salem. In Providence in the same year he was the twelfth among those to whom were granted equal shares of the land that Williams received from Canonicus and Miantonomi. After a period of years he joined with Randall Holden, Samuel Gorton, and others, in the purchase of a large tract on the western shore of Narragansett Bay from Miantonomi. Here was commenced the settlement of Shawomut, which afterward became known as Warwick. Richard Waterman did not removed thither, however, but remained in Providence. He endured with the other purchasers of that property the losses and persecutions which fell upon the small colony through the unjust claims of Massachusetts to the district. In 1643 the Massachusetts authorities sent a squad of soldiers to arrest the leaders of the colony, and carried them prisoners to Boston, where many of them were imprisoned for several months. Richard Waterman suffered the confiscation of part of his estate by order of the court in October, 1643, and was bound over to appear at the May term following. His companions barely escaped the death sentence, while the sentence pronounced against Waterman at the General Court was as follows: 'Being found erroneous, heretical and obstinate, it was agreed that he should be detained prisoner till the Quarter Court in the seventh month, unless five of the magistrates do find cause to send him away; which, if they do, it is ordered that he shall not return within this jurisdiction upon pain of death.' After his release, however, he took an important part in securing justice for the Warwick settlers. The long controversy was eventually settled by a decision of the English authorities in favor of the rightful owners who had purchased the land from Miantonomi. Waterman held possession of his valuable property in Providence and in old Warwick, bequeathing it to his heirs, whose descendants have been numerous and prominent and influential in Rhode Island affairs to the present day.
TF