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by Frank Bevc (Author)
On a cold, wintry March morning in 1638, fifteen men set out on a quest to find a new home. They had been banished from Boston and traveled in a small boat with a crew captained by William Cowley and manned by sailors Jeffrey Champlin and Richard Searle. Jeffrey was about eighteen at the time and had lived in the Boston area for a few years, working as a sailor and shipbuilder. He left that life to settle on Aquidneck Island and helped found Portsmouth and Newport. Over the next thirty years in Newport, Jeffrey married, had three sons and established the Champlin family in America. His sons moved to Rhode Island's unsettled frontier and worked to build their farms and families. They succeeded; and, as "landed gentry," their wealth and influence grew. By the time of the Revolutionary War, almost a hundred Champlin family members served in militias and the Continental Army. The Champlin family origin, Jeffrey's birth and his arrival in New England have not been proven. His descendants played a key role in Rhode Island's history; and, today are found throughout the continent.
