Mills-Martin Family Records - Person Sheet
Mills-Martin Family Records - Person Sheet
NameRebecca BRIGGS 
Birth1600, England [17, p 183], [707, p 17]
Memodied aged about 73 years
Death8 Feb 1673, Portsmouth, Newport, Rhode Island [707, p 17; date only] Age: 73
BurialPortsmouth, Newport, Rhode Island [707, p 24]
FlagsEarliest Immigrant
Individual Notes
• 1773, Feb. 8, Friend’s Records state “Rebecca Cornell, widow, was killed strangely at Portsmouth in her own dwelling house, was twice viewed by the Coroner’s Inquest, digged up and buried again by her husband’s grave in their own land.” May 23, her son Thomas was charged with murder, and after a trial that now reads like a farce, was convicted and executed. 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 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. [707, p 24]
Spouses
Birthabt 1595, Essex County, England [17, p 183; date only], [707, p 17]
Removal1638, New England [707, p 17] Age: 43
RemovalFall 1642, New Amsterdam [707, p 18] Age: 47
Deathabt 1655, Portsmouth, Newport, Rhode Island [17, p 183; date only], [707, p 17 & p 22] Age: 60
BurialPortsmouth, Newport, Rhode Island [707, p 24]
FlagsEarliest Immigrant
Individual Notes
• Thomas Cornell came to America about 1638, with his wife and most, if not all, of his children. He is first found in Boston, where by a vote of the Town Meeting, Aug. 20, 1638, he is permitted to buy “William Baulstone’s house, yard, and garden, backside of Mr. Coddington, and to become an inhabitant.” [707, p 17]
Marriageabt 1624 [17, p 183]
ChildrenThomas (-1673)
Elizabeth (-1715)