Please mail questions or corrections to Barbara T. Petty
Richard Waite is said to have arrived in 1630 with the Winthrop Fleet and was one of the first settlers of Watertown where he received grants of land, in Volume 1 of The Abridged Compendium by Frederick Virkus. The Compendium is not, however, considered a most reliable resource. It goes on to state that he was a commissary in the Pequot War, an early war fought against the Pequot Indians in Connecticut, and was a special commissary to the Narragansetts in 1664, but this has not been independently verified by this compiler.
Since there was another Richard Waite, a tailor of Boston, who held some positions of responsibility in the early history of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and who was contemporaneous with our Richard1 Waite of Watertown, and has sometimes been confused with this man, it would need further research to confirm this statement. In fact in most instances that have been discovered so far, events surrounding the other Richard Waite of Boston seem to be attributed in error to our ancestor by some researchers.
There were several of another family of Waite who came early on to the colony. There was Richard (probably the Boston man), a cousin of Thomas Wait (1601-1677) of Portsmouth Rhode Island (who spelled his name Wait without the "e." There was Gamaliel Waite in Boston, 1637 who died 9 December 1685, who had sons Samuel, and John. A Return Waite was a member of the Artillery Company, and then the other Richard of Boston, a tailor and member of the Boston church in 1633, who was also a marshall. A Thomas Wayte was a member of Parliament under Cromwell and signed the warrant for the exectuion of Charles I, 29 January 1648. Some earlier genealogists claim some relationship to that man and our Waites but that is not proven by this compiler.
Of our Richard1, we consult Charles H. Pope's Pioneers of Massachusetts and he tells us:
WAIT, WAITE, WAYTE, WEIGHT, or WADE, Richard, Watertown in 1637. His wife was Mary. Children: Stephen2 buried 8 (1) 1638, age 9 days, John2 born 6 (3)1639, Thomas2 born 3 (1) 1641. Richard Waite died January 16, 1668, aged about 60 years. Administration was granted to his widow Mary, February 16, following, on request of her 3 sons John, Thomas and Joseph. The widow died January 21, 1678/9, aged 72 years. Administration then granted to eldest son John, April 2, 1679.
©Copyright Barbara T. Petty 1996
Also see Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the Early Settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts, by Henry Bond, M.D., Volume I, pages 617-618..