Exeter Town Records

Records, 1740-1869 (bulk 1780-1840)

Size: 12 ft.

Catalog number: MSS 197

Processed by: Desiree Kenny, August 1995

©Rhode Island Historical Society

Manuscripts Division

The town of Exeter was founded in 1742/3, when it was set off from North Kingstown. It was part of King's County, which became Washington County in 1782. Exeter was primarily an agricultural town. There were also several textile mills in Exeter in the nineteenth century.

These papers include an assortment of records from the town of Exeter dating from 1740 until 1869; the bulk are from 1790 through 1840. They are of potential interest to both the historian and the genealogist. Both should be aware, however, that related records from the same period can still be found at the Exeter town clerk, and in the records of the Washington County courts at the state Judicial Records Center.

The largest series of records in this collection are the Justice Court papers. The Justice Court papers include writs, executions, summoning of witnesses, justice court minutes, judgements, and appeal bonds. The justice court papers are arranged first by decade, then by record type, and then somewhat alphabetically by defendant. Unfortunately, all of the cases were not kept together, so in order to research a given case, it is necessary to look through each of the individual folders for the proper time period.

Another series is the town council and probate records. Probate was originally handled by the Town Council, and it appears that around 1800 the Probate Court was established. This series includes miscellaneous probate bonds, treasurer bills, town accounts, voting rights. Within the town council series, one box is primarily devoted to information dealing with last wills and testaments. There are also individual records for some of the townsmen.

The tax series contains a nearly complete run of tax lists from 1761 through 1825. These lists generally give only the names of property owners, property values, and tax paid. The tax records include one particularly detailed book, covering from 1767-1778, which is oversized and stored separately. This breaks taxable property into 24 categories, including slaves, woodlands, number of buildings, grain, and others. A similar list exists for 1796.

Other series include the town meeting papers, promissory notes, treasurer bills and the records of the overseer of the poor. Also within this last series are two folders which includes information on the bastard children in the town. These records often include the names of both parents, and their child, including their date of birth.

The construction of the town roads and highways was very extensive, therefore it falls into its own series. The miscellaneous series includes everything else. They are miscellaneous papers that includes several things from the militia, to pest bounty certificates. All of the non-justice court information are arranged by decades.

These records were apparently disposed of by the Town of Exeter, and then purchased by John Nicholas Brown, who donated them to the Rhode Island Historical Society in 1896. According to the cabinet keeper's report of 1896, "The package or rather bag, of papers now under consideration, consists of hundreds if not thousands of papers and weighs probably two hundred pounds". It is described the following year as a "three-bushel bag". The bulk of the papers were apparently records of the town's Justices of the Peace, left in the Town Clerk's office over the years.

Over the years, some papers from this original donation have undoubtedly been removed to other collections at the library. Other scattered papers relating to the town of Exeter have also been added. In 1998, three documents were purchased from Phillip Parsons and added to the collection: an 1828 petition to the school committee with accompanying map, and an 1844 list of town council voters (accessions #1998.21.1-3). However, the collection is still to a great extent the same in scope as it was in 1896.

The cabinet keeper reported in 1896 that "this collection...must prove of great value provided sufficient clerical force is provided to assort, classify, arrange and index the papers." By 1898, some of the preliminary work had been done. Some of the more obviously valuable papers had been pulled out and arranged in 19 categories. However, the largest was undoubtedly "A Mass of Miscellaneous Papers"; the bulk of the collection remained in tightly folded bundles without any order.

This arrangement lasted until around 1980, when some of these miscellaneous papers were unfolded. Also, the papers of Smithfield merchant Jonathan Arnold, mentioned in the 1898 report, were probably removed at this time, having no obvious connection to the town of Exeter.

It was not until 1994 and 1995 that the majority of these papers were unfolded and organized. Several individuals worked on this project, including Heather Paxton, Rebecca Ferris and Rick Stattler. All of this work was completed and integrated by Desiree Kenny in the summer of 1995, just under a full century after the papers were donated.

The unprocessed papers were in no apparent order. Most were tied into bundles, but these bundles did not pertain to the same case, defendant, or even time period. They were unfolded and sorted into categories. In instances where several documents related to the same justice court case, an effort was made to keep these documents together. Otherwise, they were sorted first by decade, then by record type, then by first letter of the defendant's last name. The papers have been housed in archival boxes and folders.