The line from William Arnold to Benedict Arnold

The Stephen Arnold lineage is one of the lines in My Lineage from the Roots Up, Volume 1, available from Aliconia Publishing, LLC.

This article was originally published on Medium in October 2020: The Arnold Family of Rhode Island and a Revolutionary Traitor

Colonel Benedict Arnold as illustrated by Thomas Hart in 1776. Source

In the early days of the state we now know as Rhode Island, the land was purchased from the local tribes to create the colony and the surrounding plantations. The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations would later form the towns now known as Warwick, Pawtucket, Coventry, Newport, and Providence, among others.

These purchases were not without controversy, even at the time, as the British Crown and colonists fought over the rights to these lands and the authority of each over the other. At the time, being a landowner granted rights and income. One of the few families with the money and privilege to be part of this tug of war were the Arnolds. The men in this family would spend generations building the new country, only to end up having one of their own betray it.