Peleg Sanford

Peleg Sanford (10 May 1639 – 1701) was an early governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, serving three consecutive terms from 1680 to 1683. Biography Family Sanford was the son of John Sanford by his second wife, Bridget Hutchinson. His father had been the cannoneer at the fort in Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but was forced to leave Boston in 1637 when Peleg's grandmother, the famed Anne Hutchinson, was evicted for her religious views, having, in the words of John Winthrop, "seduced and led into dangerous errors many of the people...in New England.". With Anne Hutchinson and her followers, the Sanfords established themselves in Portsmouth in the Rhode Island colony, and Peleg's father, John, was briefly the governor of the two towns of Newport and Portsmouth, which were separated from Providence and Warwick for a short time. Militia service Sanford grew up in Newport, and as a young man was appointed as the captain of the troop of horse there. Following the events of King Phillips War, he and Captain Goulding informed Captain Church of the hiding location of the Indian warrior King Phillip, and the following day the Indian was found and killed. In 1677 he and Richard Bailey were chosen as agents to go to England to deal with incursions made by the neighboring colony of Connecticut. In 1679 he was promoted to major in command of the Rhode Island Militia, and in 1687 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel.