Married:     

Children:   Elizabeth, Samuel, Mary (Helmes), Thomas, James, John, Daniel

    Scores, perhaps hundreds of researchers have tried to identify Samuel’s origins, with no success.¹ He is probably from Norfolk; certainly his ancestors were, because until the late-16th century almost all Eldreds lived in a small area of southern Norfolk- with a few spilling over into northern Suffolk.  According to his own testimony, Samuel was born about 1620. When he emigrated to New England is not known, but it was before 1641, when he was recorded to be in Cambridge MA.  It has been stated that he was a shoemaker, but a curious often-repeated statement claims that Roger Toothaker, a folk doctor who died in prison during the Salem Witch Trials, had been an apprentice of Samuel. The last name of his wife Elizabeth is also not known, nor is it know if they were married in England or Massachusetts.

     In about 1660 Samuel and Elizabeth moved with their family to Rhode Island, settling in Wickford, a village of North Kingston. He was one of the two English signers of the 1660 document reaffirming the earlier agreement purchasing the North Kingston land from the Narragansett Indians.

    Samuel and his sons were caught up in King Phillip’s War. Unlike the Connecticut and Massachussets Puritans, the Rhode Island settlers dealt fairly with the Narragansetts and other natives tribes, and had good relations with them. When King Phillip’s War broke out, both the Narraganetts and the settlers tried to remain neutral, but were soon swept up into the conflict. Two of Samuel’s sons, one of whom was James, were the only two survivors of an Indian massacre at Bull’s Garrison House, south of Wickford, on Dec 15, 1675. How the other son escaped is not known, but James ran from the house, being pursed by a band of Narragansetts. One warrior threw his tomahawk at James but missed, then caught up with James and attacked him with a knife. In the fight which followed, the warrior was killed. With other Narragansetts closing in, James hid in the boulders of a nearby creek, until the next day when he was able to make it back to Wickford to warn the settlers of the attack.

    In revenge for the massacre, the settlers attacked the Narragansett’s fort in the Great Swamp, west of Wickford. Samuel and his sons took part in the Great Swamp Fight, which left hundreds of Narragansetts and settlers dead.

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¹- Records have been found of three Samuel Eldreds who were born in England at about the right time: two in London and one in Lincolnshire. One of the two London Samuels can be ruled out, as he is almost certainly the grandson of the very rich London merchant, John Eldred. It is unlikely that the grandson of a rich London merchant would be an illiterate shoemaker, as our Samuel was.