The Earle family : Ralph Earle and his descendants

Gen.] GENEALOGY. 31
The children of William and Elizabeth Earl were :
76-1.
77-2.
Mary Earl ; m. Jonathan Borden.
Martha Earl; m. Thomas Shinn
had one son, Earl Shinn.
(6. Nov. 6, 1693) ; and
78-3.
79-4.
80-5.
Earl ; m. John Webb.
William Earl ; m. Mrs. Mary Sharpe.
Thomas Earl ; m. Mary Crispin.
1*3-3]" Ralph3 Earle ( William, 2 Ralfh 1
), son of William
and Mary (Walker) Earle, was b. in 1660 ; m. Mary
(Carr) Hicks, widow of John Hicks, and dau. of Robert
Carr, of Newport, R. I. : and d. in 1757, at Leicester,
Mass. His wife d. in the same year. Both were interred
in the Friends' burial-ground, at Leicester, where are the
graves of members of no less than six generations of
their descendants.
The earliest known record of Ralph is, that he had taken the free-
man's oath in Dartmouth prior to March 24, 1686. In 1688, his
father gave to him and his wife the land " adjoyning the Fall River"
at Pocasset, in Freetown. His removal to and occupancy of this
land must have occurred soon afterward. He lived there between
twenty-five and thirty years, the site of his house being on what is
now Bedford street, about ten rods northeast of the northeast corner
of the market which was standing in i860. The house had a gam-
brel roof, and was destroyed about fifty years ago.
" The yaer mark of Ralph Earll's Creatures is a half penie on the
hinder part of the right yaer and a Crop on the Left and his brandmark
RE. Enterd the 14: of february 169I by Sam 11 Gardner
Selectman."
He was surveyor of highways in 1690, '92 and '96, constable in
1699, and grand juryman in 1700 and 1715
An old letter addressed to him in 1 715, gives him the military title
Ensign. In that year he conveyed to his son John eight acres of
land, five of which was at Bristol Ferry, and came by gift from his
grandfather Ralph.
In 1716, he went through Providence, R. L, into the interior of
Massachusetts as far as Leicester. On the way, at Grafton, Mass.,
he hired an Indian, named Moses Printer, as a guide. Upon a por-
tion of their route there was no path, and they marked trees as guides
.