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- Rebecca Briggs. Born ca 1600 in London, England. Rebecca was baptized in St James, Clerkenwell, London on 25 Oct 1600.5 Rebecca died on 8 Feb 1673 in Portsmouth, RI.9
On 8 Feb 1673 Friend's Records state 'Rebecca Cornell, widow, was killed strangely at Portsmouth in her own dwelling house, and twice viewed by the Coroner's Inquest, digged up and buried again by her husband's grave in their own land.' On May 23 her son Thomas was charged with murder. John Cornell, in his Genealogy of the Cornell Family, wrote that the trial "reads like a farce. It appears that the old lady having been sitting by the fire smoking a pipe, a coal had fallen from the fire or her pipe, and that she was burned to death. But on the strength of a vision which her brother John Briggs had, in which she appeared to him after her death and said: 'See how I was burned with fire.' It was inferred that she was set fire to, and that her son who was last with her did it, and principally on this evidence Thomas Cornell was tried, convicted and hung for her murder. Durfee in his Legal Tracts of Rhode Island, comments on the strangeness of this trial and the injustice of the execution. The writer of this remarked to a leading lawyer of Newport (who knows much of the history of Rhode Island), that there seemed very little evidence to convict this Thomas Cornell, the lawyer's answer was simply: 'There was no evidence.'"9
Rebecca Cornell's will, dated 2 Sep 1664, proved 1673, from the RI Town Records Scrapbook 1639-, as widow to the late Thomas Cornell of Portsmouth, mentions sons Thomas eldest, Richard second, William third, John fourth, Samuel fifth, and Joshua sixth; daughters Sarah eldest, Ann second whose husband is Thomas, Rebecca third, Elizabeth fourth, and Mary fifth. No surnames for spouses of children.10
ca 1620 Rebecca married Thomas Cornell (31) . Born ca 1595 in Essex, England.9 Thomas died ca 1655 in Portsmouth, RI.9
(Portsmouth Genealogy)
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The Back Rhodes of Our Genealogy
1600 - 1673 (73 years)
