Philip ROUNSEVELL

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Philip Rounsevell was born in Honiton, England, whence he came to America before 1704 and settled in Freetown, Massachusetts. He was employed in the cloth dressing mills of Captain Josiah Winslow. Subsequently he purchased a large tract of land at Furnace Village, East Freetown, where he erected a dam and a mill, in which he conducted for many years the business of cloth dressing. (A cloth dresser assembled yarns on a beam and applied a paste to the wrap to smooth down the filaments of yarn and increase stiffness before weaving.) (Gen. & Fam. Hist. of the State of NH, Ezra Stearns, v. 2 p. 904)

Sailing from either Torquay or Topsham in 1698 or 1700, Philip Rounsevell left Honiton, Devonshire, England to live in East Freetown (Assonet Village) Bristol County, Massachusetts. His personality emerges from the historical material as a shrewd businessman, a stubborn, independent thinker and a devoted grandfather. (Avis J. Kirsch, A Rounseville Chronicle)

Philip was by trade a clothier or cloth dresser, remarkably possessed with the faculty of "taking time by the forelock." He gained an enormous estate, completely disproportionate to that of any of his neighbors. His intuitive foresight taught him to go into the wild woods and select just the sites and tracts that became most valuable. One of his favorite plans was to purchase lands which others discarded as worthless. But when mill sites became wanted, Philip Rounsevell was found to hold the key to almost every stream, brook, or rivulet having an available water power, for miles around. Neighbors had laughed at his land that "would starve a grasshopper." In derision, they called his land "Skunk's Misery", and "Beaver's Paradise." But now this same land controlled mighty water supplies. (Ebenezer W. Pierce, The Peirce Family, p. 93-94)

He is the son of William, and a "clothier" or cloth dresser by occupation, came to New England prior to Dec. 25, 1704, the date of a letter from Philip to his father. He later, it is said, removed to the site of the later Malachi Howland house to go into business for himself and built the dam of the "Howland mill." He removed from Freetown about 1721 to near Hunting House Brook in Middleboro and thence to that part of Tiverton which later became East Freetown. He purchased there a large tract of land and built the mill dam at Freetown village, where on the site of the old cloth mill his children erected a blast furnace, a sawmill and gristmill and still later a sash, door and blind factory. (Representative Men and Old Families of Southeastern Massachusetts, p. 201.)

Family/Spouse: Mary HOWLAND. Mary (daughter of Samuel HOWLAND and Mary SAMPSON) was born in 1673; died on 8 May 1744 in Freetown, Bristol Co., Massachusetts; was buried in Rounsevell Cemetery, Freetown, Bristol Co., Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Rachel PARKER. Rachel was born in 1679 in Freetown, Bristol Co., Massachusetts; died on 15 Sep 1745 in Freetown, Bristol Co., Massachusetts; was buried in Rounsevell Cemetery, Freetown, Bristol Co., Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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William Rounseville
Massachusetts, Deaths and Burials
Name: William Rounseville
Gender: Male
Death Date: 31 Jan 1744
Death Place: Freetown, Bristol, Massachusetts
Father's Name: Philip Rounseville
Mother's Name: Mary Rounseville
Indexing Project (Batch) Number: B03765-4 , System Origin: Massachusetts-EASy, GS Film number: 1993524 , Reference ID: P 291
Citing this Record
"Massachusetts, Deaths and Burials, 1795-1910," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FH9N-V8Q : accessed 07 Oct 2014), William Rounseville, 31 Jan 1744; citing Freetown, Bristol, Massachusetts, reference P 291; FHL microfilm 1993524.

William married Elizabeth MACOMBER about 1735. Elizabeth (daughter of John MACOMBER and Elizabeth WILLIAMS) was born on 15 Mar 1715 in Taunton, Bristol, Massachusetts, USA; died on 3 Jan 1815 in Freetown, Bristol Co., Massachusetts. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]