By FRED MIKKELSEN

Johnston Historical Society

The Luther family in America springs from Captain John Luther, who was born about 1595, probably near Canford Magna in Dorset County, England. In 1630, when he was about 35 years of age, the conditions in his homeland were such as to make emigration attractive. The opportunity to escape the agricultural depression and the oppressive land tenure system of his time drew him to the colonies. Plymouth Colony was established in an attempt to guarantee religious freedom, but Massachusetts Bay Colony was professionally planted as an industrial enterprise in which the ideals of business, religion and education were dovetailed together. In these years the life of the Commonwealth was charged with the energy of change and conflicting opinions about all these ideas.

Although his first few years in the Commonwealth are a bit blurred, by 1635 he had made his way through Teticut (Taunton), then to Gloucester, part of the Cape Ann settlement. It was then that he became a partner in, and captain of, a pinnace (a small two-masted schooner-rigged vessel), sent out to Delaware to trade with the "Dutch and Swedes." Sadly, it would be his last voyage. He took with him his first-born, Samuel, an 8-year-old boy, and six others, one listed as "linkister" or interpreter. It was in the fall of 1644 that this sojourn began, and by March of 1645 they had gotten about 500 skins and were making ready to return home. A group of Indians came aboard as if to trade, but with some treachery, attributed to the linkister, they drew hatchets from under their blankets and set upon the Englishmen, killing the ship's master and three others. They kidnapped the boy and the linkister, and rifled the vessel of all goods and equipment. Five weeks later the governor of New Sweden, John Prinz, arranged for another group of Indians to fetch the boy and a "redman," who was wanted for his involvement in the murders, to the Governor's Fort. Travel plans were then made to return the boy to his mother and the "redman" to Massachusetts for trial. The journey home was by sailing vessel to New Haven, a major port at the time, and then by foot overland back to Boston. All this was quite an adventure for an 8-year-old boy!

We now jump to 1661. Samuel Luther is 25 years old and preparing to marry a Miss Mary Able. Upon his marriage in 1662 he applies for and is granted permission to "by ore hire" land in the town of Rehoboth. Townspeople so relied on one another that laws and penalties were put into place to prevent strangers, who could not be settled and taxed immediately, from settling in a community. Rehoboth is biblical for "roomy place" and it would seem as if a more tolerant attitude had taken hold in this town, growing so close to Roger Williams' Providence experiment. In 1667 a portion of the town is set off and named Swansea. (This occurred when Rev. John Myles, who had been removed for nonconformity from his pulpit in Swansea, Wales, and settled in Rehoboth, establishing a Baptist Church.) The growing numbers of Baptists in the area were allowed to go their own way. Rev. Myles' church was the first Baptist church in Massachusetts and the fourth in America. It occupied several locations in areas now part of Rhode Island and Massachusetts during this tumultuous time, which included the King Philip's War. We find Samuel is ordained to the ministry at the Baptist Church of Swansea in 1683, where he continued in that service until his death in 1716. Even though he was uneducated to the point that he could not write his name and he signed documents with his mark, his character nevertheless was such that he held positions as selectman and representative to the General Court. His imprint on the early life of Swansea is shown by the fact that the current congregation meets in what is known as "the Elder Luther's Church."

From Swansea to Johnston (A Wandering Journey)

Samuel Luther Jr., Rev. Luther's oldest son, had been born in Rehoboth in 1663. He had been involved with an expedition to take Canada from the French that was led by Capt. Samuel Gallup in 1690, and died in 1714 two years before his father. His widow remarried and relocated to North Rehoboth (now Attleboro and Cumberland) as she was left with nine children. Consider Luther was their fourth, born in 1698. Consider is a hard fellow to keep up with. We know he married Margaret Jewitt in 1719 at Swansea. Records show land transfers in Dighton in 1744 and Swansea in 1747 and a daughter's birth in Attleboro (where his mother lived) in 175-. The Rhode Island census of 1774 shows Consider as the head of a family, with one son over 16 years of age residing in Johnston. This son is Consider Jr., born in 1726. He married Deliverance (Dilly) Herendeen in 1751. They are buried in Johnston Historic Cemetery (JHC) #89 located north of Shun Pike on land now owned by the Macera family.

The family was probably drawn to the Johnston area because of the Great Northern Road (Plainfield Pike) which had been completed in 1714 and was the first major road to pass through Johnston. In the early 1800s the growth of the road system in the area continued to expand access to markets for products produced on the Luther farm. Although never becoming wealthy, the family seems to have been able to support their simple Baptist lifestyle. Consider Jr., was a delegate to the General Association held in Newport in 1772, representing the Six Principal Baptist Church of Scituate. He was very active in the "Old Batty" Meeting House Baptist Church in Scituate for 50 years. They are often described as "successful" farmers in census records taken during those years. In 1752 Consider Sr., granted his son, Consider Jr., 40 acres of the farm. This farm seems to have been operated by Consider Jr., and his sons, Benjamin and Calvin, through the end of the 18th century.

In 1847 Calvin Luther Jr. received title to a large portion of the Luther farm, which had grown a little with land purchases from the Angells and Kings. In 1854, Calvin Jr. bought 10 acres from his father and this deed is the first time Shun Pike is used as a boundary in describing Luther property. It was during these years that the family began to use JHC 88, and some burials were removed from JHC 89. Calvin Jr. joined the 5th Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers on May 27, 1863, and was assigned to the First Battalion. This Regiment was converted to the Fifth R.I. Heavy Artillery and Calvin was assigned to the last company (K) where he served as a private. This regiment spent the war fighting in North Carolina and he was detached due to sickness on June 26, 1865. The family story, handed down to our time, was that upon discharge at the end of the war he chose the option of taking an artillery horse in lieu of mustering out pay, and that large white horse was the talk of the Pippin Orchard/Peck Hill area. The census of 1870 shows his holdings valued as $2,000 in real estate and $800 in personal property. He was married to Mary Waterman and died in 1875 of typhoid and pneumonia. He died in testate and the homestead and land south of Shun Pike was set off for his widow. The land north of the pike was divided among his four children: Amy R. (Luther) Fenner, age 29; Nathan P. Luther, age 27; Asaph C. Luther, age 15; and James D. Luther, age 7. Amy and her husband, Henry Fenner, began to buy up the separated parcels in an effort to consolidate their holdings but were unable to carry the mortgage debt and the land was sold at auction. This ended Luther involvement with agriculture in this part of Johnston. Other Luther descendants remained in Johnston into modern times, but that is a story for another time.