Rev. John Crandall (?-1676) has been referred to casually in this article as the son-in-law of Samuel Gorton, "the Great Dissenter," but in his own right he deserves more detailed mention. He is believed to have come to this country from England with Samuel Gorton in 1636. The first public notice of his activities came in 1651 when he, John Clarke, and Obadiah Holmes were appointed by the so-called Newport John Clarke Baptist Church to visit William Witter in Lynn, Mass., to administer the Lord's Supper, the latter being physically unable to make the trip to Newport. During a service being held on First-day in Witter's house, two constables acting for the colony of Massachusetts did interrupt "with their clamorous tongues" Rev. John Clarke's discourse, and arrested all three, taking them to the ale-house or ordinary, from which place a day or two later they were sent to prison in Boston. Their offenses were alleged acts contrary to the Puritan religion.
In 1665 Rev. John Crandall moved to the new settlement at Misquamicut (Westerly) and there is every reason to believe he was the first minister of the Gospel to settle here. In any event it is an established fact that he was the first Seventh Day Baptist minister to be an inhabitant of the Narragansett coast. He was not an observer of the Sabbath upon his arrival, nor is it known just when he accepted that belief, but it is reasonable to suppose that since he was a preacher and elder in the John Clarke Church, thus knowing intimately the agitation on the Sabbath question there, he became a Seventh Day Baptist soon after settling in Misquamicut (Westerly), probably about 1669, the year that Misquamicut territory was incorporated as Westerly. At this time he was commissioned a conservator of the peace and in 1670-71 was a member of the Colonial Assembly. In 1670, he and Joseph Torry, Jr., were chosen to go to Connecticut to deliver a letter from the General Assembly of Rhode Island about the boundary dispute, which letter concluded by saying "These, "To our honored and beloved friends, the General Assembly of His Majesty's Colony of Coneticott, presented per John Crandall. "Ordered, that warrants shall be issued forth to press horses, boats, or any other things conducing to the comfortable accommodation and speedy dispatch of Mr. John Crandall and Joseph Torry, Jun., in the voyage to Coneticott."
This letter is an indication of the position of leadership he occupied in Rhode Island as well as in Westerly and the confidence reposed in his fearlessness and staunch loyalty to his beliefs. In 1671 he was imprisoned in Hartford jail with other residents of the Pawcatuck Valley as a result of the visit of Commissioners of Connecticut to the plantations east of the Pawcatuck River at which time they had demanded the submission and obedience of the people to the authority and laws of Connecticut, the jurisdiction of which was questioned by the liberty loving residents of the area. In the ten years from 1666 to 1676 when he died, Rev. John Crandall was greatly influential in spreading the Sabbath truth around Westerly and New London and added a number of members to the Newport Seventh Day Baptist Church from those settlements.
Rev. John Crandall typified the true idea of civil and religious liberty and is recognized as one of the originators of that conception. Further than that, he reduced this discovery to a practical reality. Others had claimed the right to worship God according to their beliefs, but it remained for Rev. John Crandall and his associates to guarantee such rights to friend and foe alike by steadfastly defending such practices in spite of persecution and imprisonment. His descendants are very numerous and have already been mentioned.
Source:
Pawcatuck Seventh Day Baptist Church,
Interallied Families
Westerly, Rhode Island. 1840-1940
By Karl G. Stillman
The Utter Company, Publishers Westerly,
Rhode Island University Library
[Transcribed by Dave Swerdfeger]
