The Family › Temple–Catchings › Arnold
Anthony Arnold
1635–1677
✦ direct ancestor — Owen's 8×-great-grandfather · Temple line
✦ A story has been written about this person: The Hanged Man and the Counterfeit Parson — The rebel the records prove, and the English father they refute.
✎ This person appears in a case file: № 4 — The real rebel and the invented ancestor — A man hanged in 1677 is over-documented. The English clergyman placed above him never existed in this family at all.
Life
- Born
- 1 Oct 1635 · Clarisbrooke Parish, , Isle Wright, England
- Died
- 15 Mar 1677 · West Point, New Kent, Virginia, United States
Marriage & children
Margaret Arnold (1650–1758)
Thomas Arnold (1651–1726)
Ann Arnold (1652–)
Catherine ARNOLD (1654–)
Anthony Arnold (1659–1774)
Anthony Arnold (1663–1747)
John Arnold (1671–)
Edward Arnold (1677–1752)
Timeline
- —MarriedJoanna — Virginia, United States
Records behind this page
Great Britain, Public Record Office. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1677-1680 (London: HMSO)
Entry no. 143 [Col. Papers, Vol. XL., No. 1]
read the transcript
Under entry 143, "The personal grievances of divers inhabitants of Virginia to His Majesty's Commissioners, as follows, viz.:-- Petition of the four poor distressed orphans of Anthony Arnold to the Commissioners for Virginia. For restitution of their father's small estate, who was executed for being concerned in Bacon's rebellion. 1 p. [Col. Papers, Vol. XL., No. 1.]" -- Read personally 3 Aug 2026, archive.org item sim_great-britain-public-record-america-and-the-west-indies_1677-1680. NOTE THE LIMITS: entry 143 is a COMPOSITE heading covering several petitions; the petition NAMES NO CHILD, so it evidences the execution and the existence of four orphans, NOT the identity of any of them. The printed page is NOT recorded here because it could not be confirmed. The same volume separately shows Benedict and Benjamin Arnold of RHODE ISLAND, a different family indexed under the same surname.
Research notes
Working notes from the research, kept verbatim — what was read, what it proved, what stays open. Many open with a line grading the parentage; what the grades mean.
Research note · 4 Aug 2026
AUDITED 4 Aug 2026 - PARENTS DELETED AS A GRAFT, approved by Owen ('delete the island'). [3322] 'Rev Thomas Anthony Arnold; arrived 1658 Virginia' (b. 1599 Westbury-on-Severn, d. Sep 1674 Providence, Rhode Island) and his wife [3323] Mary Izod, family F774, were removed. CONTROLS AT DELETION: both carried ZERO citations of any kind; F774's only child was this person; neither had parents in the tree; no media. WHY: the pair stitched the separate RHODE ISLAND Arnold family onto the Virginia rebel line - a 'Virginia arrival' dying at Providence in 1674 is the RI family's territory, and the CSP Colonial 1677-1680 volume's own index shows the Virginia rebel Arnolds and the Rhode Island Arnolds as plainly separate families (see the 3 Aug 2026 audit corrections in agent-report-virginia-gentry-audit-2026-07-27.md). The Somerby-fabrication attribution was tested and WITHDRAWN (his pedigree ran via Cheselbourne, Dorset) - the graft falls on its own incoherence and zero sourcing, not on Somerby. THIS PERSON'S OWN PARENTS ARE NOW UNKNOWN; his identification as father of [525] Benjamin Arnold remains STRONG INFERENCE, not proven (CSP no. 143 = C6993). His own birth '1 Oct 1635 Clarisbrooke Parish, Isle of Wight' is UNCITED and inherited from the same import - treat with suspicion.
Elsewhere
This person on Ancestry (sign-in required)