Francis Colegrove
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Francis Colegrove Sr. (c. 1667 – c. 1759) was an English colonial immigrant, born most likely in Oxfordshire or London, England, although others have suggested Glamorgan, Wales, who settled in Warwick, Rhode Island, in about 1688. He is the first known Colegrove in America. His immigration is important in the fact that most people that bear the surname Colegrove in the United States can be traced back to him.
The earliest records of people with the name Colegrove in Britain can be traced to the 16th century and were found in the Oxfordshire area of England. The surname is thought to have originated from a grove along the little River Cole, in Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, a tributary to the River Thames, or the River Cole, West Midlands, a tributary of the River Tame, near Coleshill/Birmingham.
Records can be scantly put together that seem to imply that Francis Colegrove Sr. came to America from England between 1680 and 1688. He had a daughter named Elizabeth around 1688. Francis married a woman named Ann in Rhode Island. A likely reason Francis moved to Rhode Island from Britain, was that many separatists and Baptists from the Swansea area of Wales were moving to the American colonies for religious and political freedom.
Francis, who was a farmer, and his wife joined the Newport Sabbatarian Baptist Church of Newport, Rhode Island, which was the first Seventh Day Baptist group in North America in August 1698, being baptized as adults. Stephen Mumford came to the colonies in 1665, and formed the Newport Church, where Francis and Ann attended, in 1671. During the 17th century, many Baptists, as well as many non-conformists and separatists, found refuge from persecution in Britain and other colonies such as Massachusetts, in the colony of Rhode Island, which had been set up by Baptists Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson in the 1630s and 1640s.
Family
Francis and Ann Colegrove had at least five children, in addition to Elizabeth: their eldest, Jeremiah Colegrove, followed by Eli Colegrove (in 1689), Stephen Colegrove (1694), Francis Colegrove, Jr. (about 1697), and John Colegrove (1714). Jeremiah, their first son, died in 1710 at Port Royal, Nova Scotia during Queen Anne's War.