Holbrook line: Philip Phetteplace 1621-March 22, 1698 Immigrant

I'm writing this blog post on the theory that writing even one paragraph about an ancestor is better than ignoring him completely  I don't put the odds of finding more information very high, since the distinguished genealogist Donald Lines Jacobus tried in 1969, and found only a couple of comments in the records about Philip.  We know more about his family background than we do about other of our ancestors, but less about his life.  That dash between 1621 and 1698 is just not very full.

Philip was born or baptized April 14, 1621 in Ringwood, Hampshire, England, to Walter and Parnell Cole Phetteplace (Fetteplace, and other spellings, of course).  Jacobus traces this family back to about ..1210 A.D., and others have said the family came over from Normandy with William the Conqueror.  Regardless, the family had been in the area of Ringwood for probably 200 years before Philip was born.  Ringwood is located just north of the south coast of England, on the border with Dorset county.  It has a currently population of about 14,000 people but was probably smaller when Philip was a child.

We don't know when Philip married but speculation is that it was later in life.  We also don't know when he came to the Colonies, or when he arrived in Rhode Island.  We don't even know when he married.  We know that he asked for admittance as a freeman to the town of Portsmouth, Rhode Island on September 22, 1671, and he was granted that status on October 14.  In 161, he witnessed the will of Philip Sherman, and acknowledged his signature when the will was admitted to probate in 1687.

His four known children, who may have been born in Rhode Island, were Sarah, Walter, Philip, and Samuel.  His namesake, Philip, was a Quaker but we have no indication of our subject's religion.   Portsmouth was the home of Anne Hutchinson for a time, and was later referred to as a town full of New Light Baptists.  Perhaps he was some kind of religious dissident, and perhaps not.  The other observation we can make is that he was able to sign his name, based on the will testimony.  Whether he had more education that that, we don't know.

Philip died at Portsmouth March 22, 1698 but I haven't located a will or inventory. 

It's frustrating to know so little about a man.  He had dreams, he had a vision of a better life in America, he had values he would have wanted to implant in his children.  What were they?   What were his views on slavery?  How did King Philip's War affect him, if at all?  This dash, the one between 1621 and 1698, if just frustratingly thin.

The line of descent is:

Philip Phetteplace-unknown
Walter Phetteplace-Joanna Mowry
Sarah Phetteplace-Elisha Eddy
Enos Eddy-Sarah Brown
Enos Eddy-Deborah Paine
Joseph Eddy-Susan Lamphire
Susan Eddy-Hiram Stanard
Louis Stanard-Mary Alice Hetrick
Etta Stanard-Loren Holbrook
Gladys Holbrook-Richard Allen
Their descendants