I recognized the names of a number of those listed on the 1730 census. Some of them I have already researched, so I can give some information about them. So many of these families are inter-related.

John Butts

A son, John, was born to Zaccheus and Sarah in Little Compton in 1691. The family history is complicated, but John would have had his grandfather (Thomas Cornell, Jr.) hung for murder and his great grandmother (Alice Lake) hung for witchcraft. He moved to Portsmouth and is recorded to have had two wives. One of his wives was from the Wordell family and the other, Abigail, was from the Briggs Family. This Briggs connection is interesting because what we call Butts Hill was once called Briggs Hill. On January 15, 1725 John bought from Caleb Bennett a windmill and about one rood (about a quarter of an acre) of land on Windmill Hill (now called Butts Hill). He erected a house by the windmill. He must have owned other land in Portsmouth since he had been considered a freeman for some time. A 1726 map of the Newtown area of Portsmouth shows him having a small parcel of land on what would be the East Path (East Main Road today). John is recorded as being a tavern keeper. He was accused in 1747 of allowing card playing at his tavern and his future son-in-law Thomas Cook was called as a witness against him. John’s daughter Sarah married Cook in 1763. When John died in 1768 he left his daughter, Sarah Butts Cook, “my dwelling house and land, bounded southerly on land from my father-in-law Enoch Briggs, next to David Lake.” This is as far as I can trace the Butts presence on this Windmill Hill (Butts Hill). Some of Butts land was passed down through the Cook family. One Butts family genealogist wrote that the War for Independence had ruined the family fortunes. They lost their land and their business interests.

Joseph Cundall

In 1706 Joseph Cundall had left his native England to become an indentured servant in America. Becoming an indentured servant was a way a young person could learn a trade and get an education in exchange for working for seven years or more. Cundall seems to have learned his trade well and was in a good position to buy land as an adult. James Sisson sold his grist mill and 46 acres around the brook to Joseph Cundall. What we call “the Glen” becames commonly known as Cundall’s Mills. Water from the stream powered the carding and fulling mills to wash and pull woolen fibers. Joseph Cundall added almost a hundred more acres to his land around the Glen before he died in 1760.

A note: Joseph Cundall married Elizabeth Butts

“Plan of Rhode-Island / Surveyed and drawn by Edw: Fage, captn. Royal Artillery, in the years 1777, 78 & 79.”. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/w/wcl1ic/x-828/wcl000922. In the digital collection William L. Clements Library Image Bank. William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. March 10, 2025.