Individual Details

Emigrated with all four children in 1635. Was first at Hingham, MA, then came the following year to Providence. In 1639, he removed to Pawtuxet where he resided until his death.

Son Benedict stated that the family set sail from Dartmouth in old England on the first of May, a Friday, and arrived in New England, June 24, 1635. They came to Providence to dwell, 20 April 1636. They came from Providence to dwell at Newport in Rhode Island 19 Nov, a Thursday in the afternoon, arriving the same night, 1651.
Benedict was 19, Elizabeth 23, Joanna 18, and Stephen, 12. They had first settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, and in 1683 had gone to Pawtuxet before finally settling in Newport.


Posted, Ancestry family tree:
No Arnold Royal Line
Ancestry Daily News
9/19/2002

Editor's Note: The 10 September Ancestry Daily News, contained an article by Karen Frisch regarding a castle in Wales. In it, she referenced a previously published connection between an ancestor of hers and the historical residents of Abergavenny Castle. (www.ancestry.com/library/view/news/articles/6314.asp ).
As Kory explains below, that connection turned out to be inaccurate and his message serves as a reminder to us all of the need to be wary when using compiled lineages. Thanks much to Kory for sharing this!

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For most genealogists, the possibility of royal or noble ancestry is attractive. After all, if our interest is to trace a family as far back as possible, royal ancestry allows us to do that better and easier than most of our lines. Besides, it helps give us a solid connection to history. Hence, I can understand and share the interests of Karen Frisch in learning "about ancestors so ancient they exist more in the realm of imagination-before photographs or even surnames" (Ancestry Daily News, 10 September 2002).
Unfortunately, in her comments about our mutual ancestor, William Arnold of Rhode Island, and his descent from a Twelfth Century Welsh princess, she has fallen into a trap common to many American genealogists. That trap is ready acceptance of a long-disproved connection to royalty.
A royal line was apparently first suggested for William Arnold by Horatio G. Somerby in 1870. It was published in the October 1879 issue of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Unfortunately, Somerby was a very accommodating genealogist who was remarkable for providing his patrons what they wanted, even if documents had to be re-written or falsely cited to provide the links to royal lines. His work is routinely shunned by experienced genealogists today.
Without passing judgment on the earlier generations of this ancestry, the alleged lineage eventually descends to a Thomas Arnold, second son of Richard Arnold. Thomas is named as the father of William, who is what we often call the "gateway" ancestor, the immigrant who left Great Britain and settled in the colonies. Here, with the gateway ancestor, is where the lineage breaks down, as is the case with a large number of so-called royal lines.
The Rhode Island Arnold family kept a remarkable family record (begun by the immigrant William), which documents William (born 1587), his siblings, and his mother. It does not document his father. That record identified a younger half-brother of William as Thomas Arnold (born 1599) whom many early researchers wrongly believed to be the New England immigrant of that name who settled first at Watertown, Massachusetts, and 20 years later moved to Rhode Island.
A 1796 obituary of a descendant of this Thomas Arnold identified the immigrant Thomas as the son of a "Thomas Arnold, a native of England." Hence the faulty connection was made (and published as early as 1819) that William was the son of a Thomas. Armed with this information, Somerby found an early Arnold pedigree, adjusted generations 13 through 16 to fit in Thomas and his alleged father Richard. He then plugged in the immigrant "brothers" Thomas and William as sons of this Thomas Sr. and presto, a royal lineage was pasted onto another worthy American family's lineage.
The problem is, it just was not so! The January 1915 issue of the "New England Historical and Genealogical Register" has an article by Edson S. Jones, which explains this all quite clearly. It also shows that the immigrant Arnolds (Thomas and William) were not brothers, and that neither of them is connected to the royal line published earlier. It further reports accurate research in English parish registers regarding the parentage of William Arnold. In 1902, the author, Jones, had visited Northover parish in Somerset where he found two church register entries, which matched William Arnold's family record exactly. In a neighboring parish he found additional records, which matched information about the Rhode Island immigrant.
In 1921, Fred A. Arnold elaborated in-depth on these and other findings about the Arnold origins in the Rhode Island Historical Society Collections. His 24-page article explains exactly and clearly that William was the son of Nicholas Arnold, born about 1550 and who was buried 26 January 1622/23. His half-brother Thomas married and remained in England, as did all of his siblings. William is not related to the immigrant Thomas Arnold, and the ancestry of his father, Nicholas Arnold is unknown. His mother's parents are known, but no further. There is no known (or even suggested) royal ancestry for this Arnold family.
This same article was transcribed and included in the 1921 Arnold Memorial by Elisha S. Arnold and the original 1921 article was reprinted in 1983 in a collection by Genealogical Publishing Company, Genealogies of Rhode Island Families from Rhode Island Periodicals.
The true ancestry of William Arnold has been known now for a hundred years. It has been in print for 87 years, in at least four different publications. It is time to leave mythical royal ancestries behind us, not only for the Arnolds, but for the hundreds of other gateway ancestors who have been plugged into faulty, sometimes fraudulent, lineages.

Birth	24 Jun 1587	Cheselbourne, England
Marriage		Christian Peak

Spouse	Christian Peak ( - )
Child	Elizabeth Arnold (1611 - )
Child	Benedict Arnold (1615 - 1678)
Child	Joanna Arnold (1617 - )
Child	Stephen Arnold (1622 - 1699)