Eleventh Generation

1866. Thomas CORNELL was born in 1595 in Fairstead Manor, Essex, England. He was born about 1595 in Essex, England. He died in 1655 at the age of 60 in Portsmouth, Newport Co., RI. Thomas died on 8 February 1656 at the age of 61 in Portsmouth, Newport Co., RI. He was buried in Burial plot on the Cornell homestead, Portsmouth, RI. "Thomas Cornell came to America about 1638, with his wife and most, if not all, of his children. He is first found in Boston, where by a vote of the Town Meeeting, Aug. 20, 1638, he is permitted to buy 'William Baulstone's house, yard, and garden, backside of Mr. Coddington, and to become an inhabitant,' This property was situated in Washington Street, between Summer and Milk Streets. He sold it in 1643 to Edward Tyng, who had a warehouse, and brew house, and constrcuted a dial there. Sept. 6, 1638, 'Thomas Cornhill was licensed upon tryal to keepe an inn in the room of Will Baulstone till the next General Court.' June 4, 1639, he 'was fined £30 for several offences selling wine without license and beare at 2d. a quart.' Two days later he was abated £10 of his fine, and allowed a month'to sell off his ware which is upon his hand, and then to cease from keeping intertainment, and the town to furnish another.'"9

[See TAG 35 (1959), 107 for baptisms and burials of children in Safron Walden, Essex, Eng.]

ca 1620 Thomas married Rebecca Briggs (33) , daughter of Henry Briggs (6) (-Aug 1625) & Mary Hinckes. Born ca 1600 in London, England. Rebecca was baptized in St James, Clerkenwell, London on 25 Oct 1600.5 Rebecca died on 8 Feb 1673 in Portsmouth, RI.9
Rebecca BRIGGS and Thomas CORNELL were married in 1620 in Saffron Walden, Essex, England.

1867. Rebecca BRIGGS was born about 1600 in London, England. She was born on 25 October 1600 in London, Middlesex, England. She died on 8 February 1673 at the age of 72 in Portsmouth, Newport Co., RI. Rebecca died on 8 February 1673 at the age of 72 in Portsmouth, Newport Co., RI. She was buried on 10 February 1673 in Burial plot on the Cornell homestead, Portsmouth, RI. On 8 Feb 1673 Friend's Records state 'Rebecca Cornell, widow, was killed strangely at Portsmouth in her own dwelling house, and twice viewed by the Coroner's Inquest, digged up and buried again by her husband's grave in their own land.' On May 23 her son Thomas was charged with murder. John Cornell, in his Genealogy of the Cornell Family, wrote that the trial "reads like a farce. It appears that the old lady having been sitting by the fire smoking a pipe, a coal had fallen from the fire or her pipe, and that she was burned to death. But on the strength of a vision which her brother John Briggs had, in which she appeared to him after her death and said: 'See how I was burned with fire.' It was inferred that she was set fire to, and that her son who was last with her did it, and principally on this evidence Thomas Cornell was tried, convicted and hung for her murder. Durfee in his Legal Tracts of Rhode Island, comments on the strangeness of this trial and the injustice of the execution. The writer of this remarked to a leading lawyer of Newport (who knows much of the history of Rhode Island), that there seemed very little evidence to convict this Thomas Cornell, the lawyer's answer was simply: 'There was no evidence.'"9

Rebecca Cornell's will, dated 2 Sep 1664, proved 1673, from the RI Town Records Scrapbook 1639-, as widow to the late Thomas Cornell of Portsmouth, mentions sons Thomas eldest, Richard second, William third, John fourth, Samuell fifth, and Joshua sixth; daughters Sarah eldest, Ann second whose husband is Thomas, Rebecca third, Elizabeth fourth, and Mary fifth. No surnames for spouses of children.10

Her death and the subsequent murder trial of her son, Thomas, are treated in a book by Elaine Forman Crane, "Killed Strangely: The Death of Rebecca Cornell," Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2002.

Children were: