I am indebted to Mr. William D. Ely and Mr. Charles Gorton, of Providence, and Mr. Adelos Gorton, of Philadelphia, for valuable aid and suggestion in perfecting this revision. It is hoped that the publication may stimulate further research in the interesting field of our Colonial history. A native of Rhode Island, the writer traces his ancestry by two distinct lines to the Mayflower, while the first of his family name in America was one of the earliest settlers of the New Haven Colony. He is therefore able to approach the subject without undue bias of ancestral prejudice, and with the sole desire of vindicating the truth of impartial history. L. G. J. BROOKLYN, N. Y., May 25, 1896. SAMUELL GORTON: A FORGOTTEN FOUNDER OF OUR LIBERTIES FIRST SETTLER OF WARWICK, R. I. I WARWICK, NEW AND OLD The town of Warwick, R. I., is not to-day of remarkable interest to the antiquary or seeker after the venerable relics of bygone days. It has “come out into the newness” of our nineteenth century life. Its streams respond to the music of the flying shuttle and the turning wheel with a dash and hurry almost human in their restlessness. Half a score of flourishing manufacturing villages lend their potent aid to make it the sixth town, in population, in the State having a larger number of inhabitants to the square mile than any other in the American Union. The old Colonial and Revolutionary dwellings were largely, doubtless, of a humble sort, and have given place to the more prosperous farm-houses and pretentious mansions of a generation that knows not the ways of the fathers. The busy Pawtuxet and its tributary streams, partly excused from the drudgery of mill-turning by the more potent substitutes of the later day, are pumped away to quench the thirst of the distant city whose contentions a quarter of a millenium ago drove Samuell Gorton[1] and his colleagues to seek their homes in the Shawomet wilderness, there to become the founders of a State.