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MYTHS AND CONTROVERSIES

Walter, Jr.  (b 1645?) of Little Compton -- did such a person exist?

SUMMARY CONCLUSION:  No.  A Walter b 1645 never existed. The Rootsweb Woodworth genealogy group members have researched, analyzed, and concluded that there was never a Walter Woodworth b 1645 or a Walter Woodworth Jr in Little Compton, despite Little Compton records indicating such. 
(1)The will of Walter Woodworth of Scituate did not show a son Walter. 
(2) Past Woodworth genealogists William Atwater Woodworth and Maurice Woodworth also concluded there was never a Walter Woodworth in Little Compton. 
(3) The records of Little Compton were not entered concurrent with events, and were rather reconstructed from faulty family lore for belatedly created records. 
(4) Documentation from other records proves the belated reconstruction of Little Compton records are in error.

WHY IT MATTERS: 
(1)  Some individuals' genealogy records and some web sites show a "Walter, jr", and need a convenient, authoritative source for correction, and
(2) The discovery that Walter of Scituate could be the same Walter Woodworth born in 1608 in Staffordshire, England, with an older brother Thomas born 1605 offers new new speculation for the mystery Walter of Little Compton.  The mystery Walter of Little Compton could be speculated to be the son of Walter's older brother Thomas of Staffordshire.  The DNA of the speculative nephew "Walter of Little Compton" would be identical to that of "uncle Walter of Scituate".  The existence of a nephew Walter in Little Compton could throw Woodworth genealogy into complete disarray.  It is therefore imperative that the "mystery Walter" of Little Compton be resolved with finality.
 

DISCUSSION:

From the will of Walter of Scituate, we know that there was no "Walter, Jr".

The myth started with the publication of the William Atwater Woodworth's (WAW) book which claimed there was a Walter Jr., and readers failed to read his addendum that stated he had changed his mind and had concluded that there was no Walter, Jr.  As a result, the internet still has many sites showing erroneously that there was a Walter, Jr.  WAW obtained the erroneous information from James N Arnold"s book showing records from Little Compton.

   Our man Keith Berry of Edmonton, AB, contributor of considerable Woodworth information for us, sent applicable extracted pages from James N Arnold's book Vital Records (VR) of LIttle Compton and Rhode Island.  (Open the links to the PDF files below):

Vital Records, Little Compton, page 78 shows a marriage date of 1669 for Walter Jr.
Vital Records, Little Compton, page 196 shows a "Walter Woodworth" being born in 1645 in Little Compton and lists his children.  These two pages form the basis of WAW's entry of Walter, Jr, in WAW's 1898 book.

Keith Berry has compiled a spreadsheet of data extracted from the above two pages of Woodworths from James N Arnold's VR book of Little Compton/Rhode Island records.  In Table 1, Keith shows RI records for Walter Jr and other Woodworths from the Little Compton pages.   Table 2 shows matches of RI Woodworths to Woodworths in Jeanette (Woodworth) Behan's (JWB) book.

In Table 2, the red area shows explicitly the two Little Compton record entries that directly conflict with the thoroughly documented records of Jeanette (Woodworth) Behan's book.   On the left side, the "Joseph, of Walter" has identical birth and death dates of third generation Joseph(3) of Joseph(2) of Walter(1) (on the right).  Then, again, on the left side, we see that "Walter" (on the left side) has the same birth and death dates of (on the right) second generation Joseph(2) of Walter(1).  Clearly, someone messed up in Little Compton on those two entries.  The Little Compton entries on the left obviously should have matched the records shown on the right (from Jeanette Behan's book).  So, what happened, and why?  Keith Berry, on Oct 3, 2014, provided this narrative as to what, with a very high degree of probability, occurred:

" ... in order to understand the existence of an error, one must understand the root cause of the error or in this case, the likely root cause.  It should also be noted that the term "Jr" does not appear in any record; it is only a method we have been using to keep two records separate.

"Let's remember that at this time, Rhode Island was actually controlled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony under the Laws of England.  There was a time when the requirement to document births, marriages and deaths was exclusively the responsibility of the Parish.  Some time prior to 1750 the requirement fell to the Township government, likely in the early  1700's.  Specific dates, I am not certain.  It was also customary for the Township to record earlier family events.   In my own case, my family settled in Nova Scotia in 1760 but the Cornwallis Township Books record the birth of several children in Tolland, CT.in the 1750's.  This is obviously hearsay documentation.  The documentation that we are examining are Town or Township records.  Parish/Church records are in a different James N Arnold Volume and contain little of this information.  It becomes obvious that the dates for "Walter Jr" are also hearsay, but from where?

"It becomes important to note that all of the information that can be correctly assigned to Joseph (b: 1645) is listed in the Rhode Island document as Walter.

"My suspicion is that the records were not kept until a number of years after the settlement of Little Compton at the end of King Philip's War about 1677 and perhaps much longer.  I suggest that someone in the third, fourth or fifth generation attempted to include their family history back to the original land holder in the area - Walter (b: 1619). Not being genealogists, but farmers, they lost track of how many Joseph's  were in their lineage before Walter. To make this clear, let me use one of the children, Abner, born in 1724. His ancestry would be as follows:

Abner (self)
Joseph (father)
Joseph (grandfather)
Joseph (great grandfather)
Walter (great great grandfather)

"I think the person who gave the information originally forgot or never knew one Joseph and assigned the information for the eldest Joseph to Walter.

"So my conclusion is that the person who gave the information knew that there was a "Walter" in their history but did not know how many generations between were named Joseph."

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RECORDS OF LITTLE COMPTON WERE BELATEDLY RECONSTRUCTED

Although land sales were taking place between Indians of Little Compton and white settlers from about 1650 on, they were all absentee landowners. with the exception of Benjamin Church, until after the  King (Chief) Philips War (1676-1677).   Per Benjamin Church:
 
     "In the year 1675 I was building and beginning a plantation, at a place called by the Indians, Sagkonate, and since, by the English, Little Compton.  I was the first Englishman that built upon that neck, which was full of Indians.   Benjamin Church, 1716"
    
     The King (Chief) Philips War caused Benjamin Church to withdraw from Little Compton until 1677, and in 1677 the colonies resumed negotiations with Indians for Little Compton land purchases.   Therefore, no Woodworth could have been born in Little Compton until 1677, and would probably occur much later for those that did in fact move there or were born there.

CONCLUSION

   There was no "Walter born 1645" in Little Compton. 
 

RECOGNITION AND APPRECIATION:  Thanks go to the members of the Rootsweb Woodworth Genealogy Discussion Group, including Keith Berry of course, who provided excellent input into the resolution of the "Walter, JR"  issue.
 

TABLES:   The following tables were compiled and are provided by Keith Berry for our analysis regarding "Walter, Jr":

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