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- In the Visitation of York 1585, a pedigree of the Rawsons of Nidd Hall, County of York, is given beginning with Richard Rawson, Esq. of Fryston (temp Richard II). To that family is claimed to belong Edward Rawson, Secretary of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1651-1686, who came over from Gillingham, County Dorset, England 1636/7.
Secretary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He settled in Newbury, Massachusetts, about 1636, was graduated from Harvard College in 1653 and represented Newbury in the General Court of which he was clerk. For many years he was Secretary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was chosen steward or agent for the receiving and disposing of such goods and commodities as should be sent to the United Colonies from England with the purpose of Christianizing the Indians. He is believed to have been one of the authors of a small book published in 1691 entitled "The Revolution in New England Justified." and signed "E. R." and "S. S." He published "The General Laws and Liberties Concerning the Inhabitants of Massachusetts" (1660). On June 20, 1676 he proclaimed in a formal statement for the first time from the steps of the Council House in Boston the American tradition of thanksgiving. His son was the Reverend Grindall Rawson, who preached to the Indians in their own language. His daughter, Rebecca, was the heroine of a romantic episode in the history of the colony, commemorated by John G. Whittier in "Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal" (1849). Her portrait and that of her father are in the possession of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. (bio by: Lewis Clark)
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1615 - 1693 (78 years)
