Some of the eighteen Flushing Charter signers remain enigmas even in the Internet age, their biographies as sketchy as the interior of New Netherland in old maps. Thomas Beddard is one of these “International Men of Mystery.” He left no dates of birth and death, no details as to his origins, occupation, wife or children. Even his name shape-shifts; thanks to the vagaries of 17th century spelling, Beddard also appears as “Beeder,” “Beader,” and “Beddar.”
However, Beddar’s sparse appearances in the early New England records place him among those Flushing patentees who arrived via the scattered settlements that soon afterwards became Rhode Island. Coming directly from one haven for religious dissidents, iconoclasts like Thomas were naturally drawn to another place that offered them “liberty of conscience.”
Thomas Beddard emigrated from Newport, Rhode Island - and vanished.
Beddard first appears on the Island of Aquidneck in the Narragansett Bay, where he showed up on the 24th of the 11th month, 1638 among a dozen men as anonymous as he was. Why they traveled through a near-wilderness in the dead of a New England winter (this being January 1639 in the modern calendar) is not explained. The town records of Portsmouth relate that a “Thomas Beeder” and three others were formally admitted as inhabitants by order of the Judge and Elders about two weeks later, at a meeting held 7th day, 12th month, 1638/9. One of the men admitted alongside him had the unusual name Osamund Doutch- suggesting some relation to “Lawrence Dutch” -an equally enigmatic character who also appears in the Flushing Charter.
The Execution of Mary Dyer - Artist, Howard Pyle. Beddard briefly settled in Pocasset (Portsmouth) with the Dyers and other religious dissidents.
Portsmouth, then known by the Indian name Pocasset, was founded by Judge William Coddington and other supporters of Anne Hutchinson, who had been exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony following a theological dispute with the Boston Church known as the Free Grace Controversy. Hutchinson’s husband, brother-in-law, and eldest son all signed the Portsmouth Compact, which established a non-sectarian “Biblical” government independent of the King and Church of England. So did John Clarke, a Baptist minister and prominent advocate of “soul-freedom,” who later enshrined religious liberty in the Rhode Island Constitution. Other members included future Quaker converts William and Mary Dyer; Mary became one of the Boston Martyrs, four Quakers who were executed on the Boston Common for preaching “heresy.” Beeder himself does not figure in the records of the Bay Colony, and it’s unclear what drew him to Pocasset. However, the roster of prominent religious non-conformists testifies to the company he kept.
“We whose names are underwritten do acknowledge ourselves the legal subjects of His Majesty King Charles, and in his name do hereby bind ourselves into a civil body politic, unto his laws according to matters of justice.”
- PORTSMOUTH “COMPACT OF LOYALTY” 1639
On April 30, 1639, our protagonist resurfaces as “Thomas Beddar” in a Compact of Loyalty signed by 29 Pocasset inhabitants. Without mentioning the Church of England, this document acknowledges the Crown and brings the signers under English Common Law in civil matters. Possibly the signatories saw this as a step towards applying for an official patent for their land, which Plymouth, the Bay Colony, and Connecticut all were eyeing, and for which the settlers only possessed an Indian Deed from the Narragansetts.
With the exception of William Hutchinson, there is no overlap between the signers of this Loyalty Compact and those of the original Portsmouth Compact. This proclamation seems to represent a rift between separatists and those who still saw themselves as loyal English subjects. Many of the latter, Beeder among them, would soon break away to form Newport, at the opposite end of the island. The Loyalty Compact may have been the brainchild of Samuel Gorton, a recent arrival who had been expelled from Boston for heterodox beliefs. These included an odd fusion of Royalism and anarchism- the only worldly authorities he recognized were the King and himself. Beeder/Beddar is among the 16 illiterate subscribers who signed with his mark -in his case, a horseshoe shape. George Clere, a future signer of the Flushing Remonstrance, also appears on this list, likewise signing with a mark. Perhaps the less educated or privileged residents felt less secure flouting the established order than the original covenanters, only one of whom was illiterate.
Newport, R.I. a hundred years after Thomas Beddard helped to settle it.
A month after the signing of the Loyalty Compact, a second settlement named Newport was established, following a split between the Hutchinsons and their former champion, Judge Coddington. Beeder followed Coddington to the new plantation; in November 1640 his name appears in the Newport Town Records on a list of 59 inhabitants of Aquidneck “having submitted themselves to the Government that is or shall be established, according to the word of God therein.” These inhabitants include the aforementioned George Clere and Osamond Doutch, as well as Toby Knight and Nathaniel Hazzard, whom the historian Purcell Robinson identifies as the uncle of Remonstrance signer Nathaniel Hefferd, making up a cohort of people with known or suspected ties to Flushing. Like the other Rhode Island communities, Newport was non-sectarian and upheld religious freedom. It became home to many Baptists, who were shunned elsewhere for their moral opposition to the sacrament of infant baptism. In 1658 the town would welcome a community of Portuguese Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition; these refugees erected the second-oldest synagogue in America.
Despite such unprecedented freedom, Beddard/Beeder did not linger long in Newport. In 1642, he sold two four-acre plots of land to his neighbor, suggesting that around this time he left for New Netherland. We can only guess at his reasons. However, in 1642 Rhode Island’s liberties were only guaranteed by the Covenants and Compacts of its towns. There was no Charter from the English government to confer legal status, and the individual settlements were not yet organized into a colony. Various New England colonies laid claim to part of the territory, and sporadically threatened this nest of heretics and their Narragansett Indian allies. In 1642 Roger Williams duly left for England to secure a Patent, but he did not return with one until 1644. Even then, factions and differences among the settlers prevented a colony from immediately coalescing. Coddington did not want Newport to come under the control of a united Rhode Island with Roger Williams at the helm, and Portsmouth likewise wanted to preserve its independence from the mainland.
Beddard and his fellows may therefore have sought the protection of a nation-state and legal title to their land, as guaranteed in a patent. Accustomed to religious freedom in Rhode Island, it made sense for him to resettle in another colony with a reputation for tolerance, and to join with his fellow patentees (including other former Rhode Islanders) in insisting on a explicit “liberty of conscience” clause in their new town charter. Indeed, back in 1638 the signers of the Portsmouth Compact had originally considered founding their new community in New Netherland, before Roger Williams persuaded them to join him near his Providence Plantations.
After 1645 the name Beddard (in all its forms) abruptly vanishes from the historical record. Either he died shortly after signing the Charter, or he soon moved to a different community from which no early records have survived. The surname does not resurface in any of its forms in readily accessible genealogical records for over a century. However, we hope that this project will bring to light new information on all the Signers. If you are, or think you might be, a descendant of Thomas Beddard, or if you have information to share regarding him, please contact the Bowne House at office@bownehouse.org.