Colonial Settlement of Newport, Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, British Colonial America (North America)

Newport was founded in 1639 on Aquidneck Island, which was called Rhode Island at the time Its eight founders and first officers were Nicholas Easton, William Coddington, John Clarke, John Coggeshall, William Brenton, Jeremy Clark, Thomas Hazard, and Henry Bull. Many of these people had been part of the settlement at Portsmouth, along with Anne Hutchinson and her followers They separated within a year of that settlement, however, and Coddington and others began the settlement of Newport on the southern side of the island