Hello Dick, Craig and All, Since sending out the query on a genealogy written by Fred S. Rich on Richard Rich of Dover Neck, I have received replies from several RFAs and thanks for your quick response. Mary Lighthall referred us to Barbara Baker, with whom we talked on the telephone this week, who tells us that Fred Rich's genealogy, in process at that writing (NEHGS Oct 1964, Vol 118), was never completed. Like all Rich's descended through Richard of Eastham, I have been researching our 17th c ancestor and examining the 17th c history to see when Richard came to the colony, what his business interests were in coming to the Dover settlement, his relationship with Thomas Roberts (other than marrying Roberts' daughter Sarah), and his apparently sudden move to Eastham. My wife Mary and I are beginning (continuing) to speculate on what else might have developed so that Richard left the Dover Neck area. We have come up with several possible theories, but the basis for all of them is that he was first and foremost a mariner whose business interests were not limited to Dover Neck or to Eastham, for that matter. Secondly, and very important to our guesswork, we think he was associated with other prominent businessmen, including Thomas Roberts, who had come from England to take advantage of the opportunities here, and to participate in the commercial trade between plantations along the New England coast, down to Virginia, and to the West Indies. As our estimate of Richard's participation in this trading activity widens beyond Dover Neck and Eastham, we can imagine that Eastham would have been a very convenient place for him to settle, and a safe place for his family to live, far from the dangers of Indian raids threatening the English settlements along the coast. The Laconia Company, consisting of a number of prominent English businessmen (including Thomas Roberts) had failed to develop a thriving trade of lumber, furs and other worthwhile goods between the colony and England. Starting about 1623 with a patent "to the Laconia Company," a number of ships started carrying trade goods between the Piscataqua (Rye, Newcastle, Portsmouth, and Berwick) region to England. By 1633, adventurers who had underwritten this commercial venture realized that the experiment was a failure, withdrew their support and moved on to other opportunities in New England, some of them as far south as Virginia. Shebnah Rich (Truro, Cape Cod or Landmarks and Sea Marks) believed that Richard (1) was a contemporary of Thomas Roberts and that it was his son Richard (2), the mariner, who married Roberts' daughter and settled in Eastham. If this is so, might this be the connection by which Richard (2) is associated with the coastal trade merchants? We have recently read that an R. Rich was aboard the Sea Venture with Stephen Hopkins in 1609 when it ran aground in Bermuda. After his arrival in Jamestown, Hopkins subsequently returned to England, sailing again for New England on the Mayflower in 1620. Did R. Rich also return to England? Could Richard Rich (1) have sailed to New England with the Laconia Company in 1623? And when his son removed to Eastham, did Richard (1) return to England or look for other opportunities? It's a mystery! I hope you will be interested in the state of our "research and guesswork." Sometimes guessing and then looking for clues will produce some amazing discoveries ~ and sometimes not! /fj Frank Rich Johnson (603) 898-5237 frichj@aol.com