Welcome Arnold

Arnold was born on March 24, 1745. He was one of twelve children born to Jonathan Arnold (1709–1796) and Abigail ({{nee}} Smith) Arnold (1714–1801). His sister, Elizabeth Arnold, married Samuel Arnold (son of Joseph Arnold), and another sister, Abigail Arnold, married Nathaniel Greene (son of Caleb Greene).

His maternal grandparents were Benjamin Smith and Mercy ({{nee}} Angell) Smith. His paternal grandparents were Arnold and Sarah ({{nee}} Parrish) Arnold. He was a descendant of William Arnold, one of the founding settlers of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

In 1772 he was elected a Deputy to the Rhode Island Assembly from Smithfield, at which time he was also appointed a justice of the peace. In 1778 he was again elected as a Representative to the Assembly from Providence and was reelected up until his death in 1798.{{cite book |title=Manual with Rules and Orders for the Use of the General Assembly of the State of Rhode Island |date=1873 |publisher=Providence Press Company |page=106 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Manual_with_Rules_and_Orders_for_the_Use/Mn1PAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA106 |access-date=21 December 2023 |language=en}}

Arnold, a member of the Sons of Liberty, was reportedly involved in the planning of the 1772 burning of the HMS Gaspee in Narragansett Bay, which later became known as the Gaspee affair. Occurring three years before the Boston Tea Party, it is considered the first act of civil disobedience against the Crown.{{cite book |last1=Bacon |first1=Edgar Mayhew |title=Narragansett Bay, Its Historic and Romantic Associations and Picturesque Setting |date=1904 |publisher=G. P. Putnam's Sons |page=170 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Narragansett_Bay_Its_Historic_and_Romant/uczrAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA170 |access-date=21 December 2023 |language=en}}

A prominent merchant in the New England-Caribbean trade, Arnold was "also a leader in the fight to end Rhode Island's involvement in the African slave trade." He served as a trustee of Brown University.

On February 11, 1773, Arnold was married to Patience Greene (1754–1809), a daughter of Patience ({{nee}} Cooke) Greene and Samuel Greene (grandson of John Greene Jr.). As her parents had died, Patience was raised, and married, in the Warwick house of her uncle, William Greene, the Governor of the colony of Rhode Island.{{cite book |last1=R.I |first1=General Nathanael Greene homestead association, Coventry |title=The Home of Gen. Nathanael Greene at Coventry, Rhode Island |date=1925 |publisher=General Nathanael Greene homestead ass'n. Incorporated |page=47 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Home_of_Gen_Nathanael_Greene_at_Cove/IA0oAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA47 |access-date=21 December 2023 |language=en}} The marriage was said to have "consolidated landed and mercantile power in colonial Rhode Island".{{cite book |last1=Museum |first1=Worcester Historical |title=Landscape of Industry: An Industrial History of the Blackstone Valley |date=2009 |publisher=UPNE |isbn=978-1-58465-777-4 |page=113 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Landscape_of_Industry/wsL-0rAjdUcC&pg=PA113 |access-date=21 December 2023 |language=en}} Together, they were the parents of fourteen children, only four of whom lived to maturity, including:{{cite book |last1=Greene |first1=George Sears |title=The Greenes of Rhode Island: With Historical Records of English Ancestry, 1534-1902 |date=1903 |publisher=Knickerbocker Press |page=289 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Greenes_of_Rhode_Island/jxdqSEfgK50C&pg=PA289 |access-date=21 December 2023 |language=en}}

• Mary "Polly" Arnold (1774–1851), who married U.S. Representative Tristam Burges in 1801.{{cite book|last1=Munro|first1=Wilfred Harold|title=Memorial Encyclopedia of the State of Rhode Island|date=1916|publisher=American Historical Society|location=New York, Boston, Chicago}}
• Samuel Greene Arnold (1778–1826), who married Frances Rogers, a daughter of Lt. John Rogers, in 1813.
• Eliza Harriet Arnold (1796–1873), who married industrialist Zachariah Allen, brother of Gov. and U.S. Senator Philip Allen, in 1817.
• Richard James Arnold (1796–1873), who invested in southern cotton manufacturing who married Louisa Caroline Gindrat.{{cite book |last1=Hoffmann |first1=Charles |last2=Hoffmann |first2=Tess |title=North by South: The Two Lives of Richard James Arnold |date=1 September 2009 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-3443-1 |page=274 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/North_by_South/-vjS8HxndY4C&pg=PA274 |access-date=21 December 2023 |language=en}}

In 1785, Arnold built a two and a half story Federal style home at the corner of South Main and Planet Street in Providence. He died in 1798 and was buried in the North Burial Ground.

Through his eldest son Samuel, he was posthumously a grandfather of Samuel G. Arnold, the Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island who served as a U.S. Senator from Rhode Island during the U.S. Civil War. Samuel married his first cousin, Louisa Gindrat Arnold, daughter Welcome's youngest son, Richard.

Through his daughter Eliza, he was posthumously grandfather of Anne Crawford Allen (wife of William Davis Ely), Mary Arnold Allen (wife of merchant Andrew Robeson Jr.) and Candace Allen.{{cite book |last1=Reynolds |first1=Cuyler |title=Hudson-Mohawk Genealogical and Family Memoirs: A Record of Achievements of the People of the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys in New York State, Included Within the Present Counties of Albany, Rensselaer, Washington, Saratoga, Montgomery, Fulton, Schenectady, Columbia and Greene |date=1911 |publisher=Lewis Historical Publishing Company |page=26 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b4k-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA24-IA6 |access-date=20 March 2023 |language=en}}

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Category:1745 births

Category:1798 deaths

Category:People from Smithfield, Rhode Island

Category:Politicians from Providence County, Rhode Island

Category:Greene family (Rhode Island)

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Category:Merchants from colonial Rhode Island

Category:18th-century American merchants

Category:People from colonial Rhode Island