Married:     1650’s  Ditton, Lancashire

Children:     John, Thomas, Sarah (George), William, Margaret (Mitchell), Joseph, Elizabeth, Samuel

 John Rathbone was baptized March 18, 1629, at Farnworth Chapel , Parish of Prescott, County of Lancashire, England . His father was Thomas Rathbone, a shoemaker in the town of Ditton, 11 miles east of Liverpool on the Mersey River. The family was poor, and young John was probably put to work as a small boy either in his father's shoe shop or as an apprentice to a neighboring tradesman. He received little , if any , schooling , and remained illiterate until his death. In the early 1650s, he married Margaret Acres , the daughter of Thomas Acres, a neighbor in Ditton. 

In 1654, Thomas Rathbone, the shoemaker, died. He left a small sum of money to his youngest son, John , who apparently used the money to take his bride to America. They first settled in Dorchester, Mass., where a number of Lancashire immigrants were already living. Unfortunately, the Dorchester town records for this period were destroyed by fire, and we have no records of his early days there. John Rathbone's name first appears in American records on August 17, 1660, when he was listed among 12 Massachusetts men who met at the Roxbury home of Dr. John Alcock to consider the purchase of Block Island, 12 miles off the coast of what is now Rhode Island. Alcock proposed that 16 families could share in the purchase and establish a " plantation" on the island. 

The 12 men at the meeting agreed to the purchase, and to send a surveyor to the island. The group, expanded to 16, later re-assembled and made plans to divide the 6,720- acre island. Drawings were held to assign each of the proprietors a "great lot" in both the northern and southern sections of the island. Most of the proprietors agreed to purchase a full one-sixteenth share, two took double shares, and several , less affluent, pooled their funds and bought half-shares. Among the latter were John Rathbone and Edward Vose. Their land in the southern section lay along the southeastern coast, encompassing what is now known as Mohican Bluff. That , together with their lot in the northern tract, gave them, they thought, a total of 420 acres of land. 

Within a few years , Rathbone realized that the original survey had been inaccurate. He obtained a second survey, which established that he and Vose had been shorted by 130 acres in their "great lot" in the southeastern corner. He appealed to the attorneys for the Alcock estate-John Alcock having died- and they agreed in 1671 to give him " what land shall be found wantinge . . . in some convenient place in the commonland." To make up for the shortage, Rathbone was given 60 acres near the center of the island, from near what is now the town center to the ocean on the east side. That surveying error proved to be a bonanza, for the correction gave him a strategically located piece of land in what became the most valuable part of the island. 

Rathbone must have been a man of foresight. For the next few years he steadily increased his holdings on the island . In 1674, he purchased 42 acres and in 1680, he bought 122 adjoining acres. John Rathbone apparently main-tained a second home in Newport for a number of years. The birth of his youngest son, Samuel, on Aug. 3, 1672, is recorded in early Quaker records at Newport. In 1674, he was living in Hammersmith, in southwest Newport. In 1681, he was elected to represent Block Island as deputy to the Rhode Island General Assembly, a position he held for the next five years. He apparently remained in Newport during this time and his name appears on a Freemen's List there in 1683. 

In 1685, John Rathbone was a member of the Crown Party, which supported King James' order vacating the Rhode Island colonial charter, and uniting the colony with Massachusetts Bay, New Plymouth, New Hampshire and Maine. A majority of the General Assembly voted to defy the King and continue operations under the old charter. Rathbone and 12 other delegates sent a petition to King James pledging their allegiance to the crown. Sir Edmond Andros, appointed by King James as Royal Governor for the United Colonies, did "take notice" of the signers in the new government. All were rewarded for their loyalty by appointments. Rathbone was named in 1688 as a Grand Juryman on the General Quarter Sessions Court, which replaced the General Assembly as the governing body of the colony. That same year, however, saw the overthrow of King James in the Glorious Revolution. The Crown Party was out of favor, and Rathbone returned to Block Island, his political career cut short. 

In July 1689, Block Island was invaded by a French privateer, looking for plunder. The invaders asked some of the islanders who was most likely to have money, and were directed to John Rathbone. The Frenchmen went to the Rathbone home, and seized John Rathbone Jr., not realizing there were two men with the same name. The younger John, then about 35 years old, was tied, stripped to the waist, and whipped by the French in an effort to make him "confess" where he had hidden his money. By posing as his father, young John enabled his parents to escape capture and possible harm at the hands of the invaders. It is a matter of conjecture whether the elder Rathbone was really one of the richest men on the island, or whether his neighbors resented his recent association with the discredited Crown Party. He had, however, accumulated a considerable amount of property on the island; between 1679 and 1693, he gave 255 acres of land to his children. Family tradition relates that he did this in the hope that his descendants would remain on the island forever. 

In his will, dated Feb. 12, 1702, at Block Island, John Rathbone de-scribed himself as "yeoman, being sick in body but of perfect memory." He was not too sick, however, to attend the April 8 town meeting with all five of his sons. Presumably he died early that fall, for the will was formally proved before the town clerk on October 6.  Although he listed himself as of "Block Island," the inventory of his estate indicates that he considered Newport his principal home. The contents of his "Newport House" included beds, pewter, wearing apparel, a bible and a gun. His Block Island inventory consisted entirely of livestock-11 cattle and 70 sheep. He apparently conducted some sort of business in Newport, since his will refers to a "shop" there. A 1702 record lists him as one of  the proprietors of the Newport Town  Wharf.

The date of Margaret Rathbone's death is not known. She survived her husband for at least 14 years. In July 1707, she was listed as the owner of a lot in Newport- presumably the property left her in John's will. In March 1716, as the "widow and relick of John Rathbun, deceased," she made a deposition on Block Island regarding property she and her husband had deeded to their son, John Rathbun, Jr.  Of their five sons, three lived and died on the island-John Jr., Thomas and Samuel. The other two, William and Joseph, moved to the mainland. During the first quarter of the 18th Century, Rathbun (as it came to be spelled) must have been the island's most common name. The census of 1708 listed 208 residents, of whom at least 58 were Rathbuns. 

(Adapted from the Rathbun, Rathbone, Rathburn Family Historian, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1981)

Will of John Rathbone

"In the name of God, Amen. I, John Rathbone, Senior, of Block Island, a/so New Shoram, in the colony of Rhode Island and Providence plantation in New England, yeoman, being sick in body but of perfect memory, thanks be to Almighty God, and calling to remembrance the uncertain estate of this transitory life and that all flesh must yield unto death when it shall please God to call, do make, constitute, ordain, and declare this my last will and testament in manner and form following, revoking and an- nulling by these presents, all and every testament and test- aments, will or wills hereto- fore by me made and declared, either by word or by writing, and this is to be taken only, for my last will and testament and none other. . . . 

" First, I give and bequeath to my son, Samuel Rathbone, the table and cubbard which stand now in his house as for are lomes (heirlooms?) to the house, and I leave my wife, Margaret Rathbone, my executrix of all my moveable and household goods, houses and chattles, cattle, sheep and horsekind, and I leave the income of my house at Newport for her lifetime, and at her decease the westward of my house at Newport, and the leanto of that end so far as the post that the door hangs on, and the shop to be left to my son John Rathbone's son John and his heirs forever; and the eastward end of said house and the rest of the lean- to to be left for my son William Rathbone 's son John and his heirs forever, and the yard to be equally for their use. 

"And I leave to my wife for her lifetime the twenty acres of land which I bought of Henry Hall, and the running of two cows and a horse, and the end of the house which I now live in. 

"And I leave that my four sons shall pay to my wife during her lifetime, forty shillings a year, that is to say, John Rathbone, William Rathbone and Joseph Rathbone and Samuel Rathbone. 

" And I leave to my wife during her lifetime, my neager man, and at her disposing and at her decease to my son Thomas Rathbone for three years, and at the end of the three years to give him as good clothes as his mistress leaves him and then to set him free . 

"And at my wife's decease, what household goods are left are to be equally divided among my three daughters, Sarah, and Margaret and Elizabeth, and what cattle and sheep and horsekind are left are to be equally divided be- tween my five sons. 

"And I leave that my wife shall take up all bonds and debts due to me. 

"And I leave that my executrix shall see this my will performed. 

"In witness whereof I have hereinto set my hand and affixed my seal in Block Island aforesaid, the twelfth day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and two." 

His

John JR Rathbone 

Mark 

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