Edward RISHWORTH
Misc

True Stories of New England Captives Carried to Canada During the Old French and Indian Wars By Charlotte Alice Baker


"...In the prolonged resistance of the Province of Maine to the jurisdiction of Massachusetts,Rishworth was prominent His commanding intelligence and his personal influence in the province is shown in the humble petition of the leading men of Wells, in 1668, to be restored to the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, with apologies for their former disobedience, the petitioners assigning as the cause of their dereliction, the influence of Mr Edward Rishworth, "they having been well affected with said Rishworth, and confiding in him."

Rishworth was appointed Recorder for the province, in October, 1651, and held the office continuously except in 1668 and 9, for thirty-three years. In June, 1686, Rishworth wrote his last official line, being then an old man.

The name of his wife Susannah appears on a legal paper for the last time in 1675. So far, I have found but two children of Edward and Susannah Rishworth, daughters Mary and Susannah. Her grandfather Wheelwright, in his will dated Nov. 15, 1679, names my son in law Edward Rishworth and my grandchild, Mary White, daughter of ye said Rishworth. This proves that Mary Rishworth then about eighteen was at this date the wife of one White..."
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"..By these three legal papers we learn that John Sayword millwright of York was living in October 1682 as the husband of Rishworth's daughter Mary and that on the death of her father either in 1689 or 1690 [see ante] this daughter as Mrs Mary Hull attests the truth of the inventory of her father's estate. I as yet find no record of John Sayword's birth and parentage. He may have been the son of Henry Sayword a prominent man in the annals of Wells and York. Millwright is a common appendage to the names of Maine men of that period for men must eat and be sheltered..."



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