William Arnold, in his attempt to drive Samuel Gorton and his followers from the colonies, turned the Pawtuxet lands over to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1644. As a result, Massachusetts claimed rights over both Pawtuxet and Shawomet. She gave the land of Shawomet to 32 petitioners on the condition that 10 families occupy the area within a year. Fortunately, this did not occur. During this period, Massachusetts specifically stated that it would protect Arnold, William Carpenter, Socononaco and Pomham from Gorton and his followers.

According to a letter from Governor Winthrop (June 23, 1644), 10 men were sent from Massachusetts to help Pomham build a fort on Warwick Neck. This aid from the Bay Colony enabled Pomham to continually flaunt authority of the General Court held at Warwick. From his fort on Warwick Neck he continued to be a thorn in the side of the Shawomet settlers until his death during King Philip’s War in 1676.

Thanks to the good offices of Robert Rich, the English Earl of Warwick, Gorton was allowed to return to Shawomet, and in gratitude to Rich renamed his settlement “Warwick.” In 1650 Plymouth and Massachusetts began to see the futility of making inroads in Narragansett Bay via Pawtuxet and Shawomet, and both were ready to give up jurisdiction.

By 1657 a series of events helped to bring the Pawtuxet men to sever their ties with Massachusetts. On May 19, 1657, Benedict Arnold, who had moved from Pawtuxet to Newport, was elected president of the colony and renounced his allegiance to Massachusetts. His action was soon followed by that of Arnold, Carpenter, Zachary Rhodes and Stephen Arnold, all of whom petitioned to leave the authority of the Bay Colony. This petition was granted by the Massachusetts Court on Oct. 23, 1658 and Massachusetts relinquished their 1643 claim to Pawtuxet and Shawomet.

Arnold and William Harris, once the Massachusetts allegiance was severed, became key figures in an attempt to extend the boundaries of the “Pawtuxet Purchase.” This attempt has caused historians to charge Arnold and Harris with documentary mutilation, forgery, conspiracy and swindling.

Once Pawtuxet severed its bonds with Massachusetts, the key question that emerged concerned the actual boundaries of the Pawtuxet Purchase. Controversy began almost as soon as Arnold exhibited his copy of the “original deed” on Feb. 7, 1659-9. The confirmatory deed, written in 1638, was not displayed until 1659, allegedly because, before that time, Arnold had placed his allegiance with the Massachusetts Bay Colony and felt it would not be to his best interest to produce the deed. Now, shortly after Massachusetts relinquished jurisdiction over Pawtuxet, Arnold saw the advantages of producing a legal claim to the land. Both later historians and Arnold’s contemporaries have been severe in judging Arnold’s actions and the validity of the deed as he presented it.

A number of noted historians, including Samuel Greene Arnold, O.P. Fuller, Sidney S. Rider, George T. Paine and Howard Chapin have attempted to gather the facts from early colonial records in order to explain the controversy and to evaluate the significance of the events. One of the major historians at the turn of the century, Rider, in 1904, noted, “It is strange indeed that the original Deed was never printed, in any book in Rhode Island, until 1886, when Charles W. Hopkins printed it in ‘facsimile’ in his ‘Home Lots in Providence.’ From this ‘facsimile’ the writer [Rider] first discovered the Forgeries.”

The story of William Arnold, the defaced deed and the impact on Warwick and Cranston will be continued.