Nicholas Easton was in Portsmouth for about a year when he and eight others signed an agreement to create a plantation elsewhere on the island, establishing the town of Newport.
16 Facts About Nicholas Easton
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In Newport, Nicholas Easton became active in civil affairs, serving as assistant to the governor for several years, and in 1650 was elected President of the four towns of the colony.
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In 1654 the four towns were reunited, and Nicholas Easton was elected president, presiding for another year over the united colony.
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Nicholas Easton was a tanner by trade, and a minister of sorts, being criticized by Massachusetts magistrate John Winthrop for his theological opinions.
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Nicholas Easton became a Quaker, and after a long life was buried in a Friends' Cemetery, the Coddington Cemetery in Newport next to his second of three wives.
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Nicholas Easton's father died when he was very young, after which his mother married John Burrard.
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Nicholas Easton's stay there was short, for in the spring of 1635 he was among the founding settlers of Agawam, later called Newbury, Massachusetts.
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Nicholas Easton then went to Hampton where he built the town's first house on the north bank of the Merrimack River.
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Once settled in Newport, Nicholas Easton became active in civil affairs.
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Nicholas Easton brought a letter from the former Massachusetts governor, Sir Harry Vane, always a staunch friend of the Rhode Island colonists, beseeching the people of the colony to reconcile their feuds.
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The four towns of the Rhode Island Colony did reunite, so that in his second term, as in his first, Nicholas Easton was at the helm of all four towns of the Rhode Island colony.
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Nicholas Easton appeared on a list of Newport freemen in 1655, was a commissioner in 1660, and then for the last ten years of his life became seriously involved in the leadership of the colony beginning in 1665.
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However, for the Rhode Island colony came a very positive development in the form of the Royal Charter of 1663, and Nicholas Easton was one of several prominent citizens named in the document.
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Nicholas Easton served as Deputy in the General Assembly from Newport from 1665 to 1666, then became the Deputy Governor of the entire colony from 1666 to 1672.
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Nicholas Easton had two sons who reached adulthood, both of whom came with him to New England.
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Nicholas Easton was active in colonial affairs as sergeant, commissioner, assistant, treasurer and Attorney General.