Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/249

BARRINGTON INCORPORATED. 197 religion's or conscience's sake, and have borne their burdens manfully and heroically. The romance of their real life was stranger than modern fiction. Their common toils, trials, and triumphs are the heritage of both Swansea and Barring- ton and can never be forgotten, but will become more con- spicuous in the future. We of this day are proud of our relations to the old town of Swansea and Barrington and can never be forgotten, but later generations will rise up to honor our ancestry in truer measure as we do not. We fancy that the name of John Myles and the historic church and town which he planted in this wilderness will become wonderfully luminous in the clear white light of Truth and Righteousness as they shall be revealed to the men and women of the twentieth and later centuries. We are at liberty to conjecture as to the origin of the name of the town. One theory is that the town was named in honor of Lord Barrington, an English nobleman, born in 1676, a distinguished theologian, who stood at the head of English dissenters, when Barrington was incorporated. On the accession of George I. he was a member of Parliament, and in 1720 was raised to the Irish Peerage, by the title of Viscount of Barrington. He was an advocate of religious toleration and died in 1734. His son, the second Viscount of Barrington, was born the same year that Barrington was set off from Swansea. Another and more reasonable theory is that the name Barrington was imported from England, as were the names of Swansea, Boston, Weymouth, Dorchester and other American towns, to commemorate the birthplace or home town of the settlers. If we turn to the map of the British' Isles, we find Swansea on the south of Wales on the sea or bay of the same name. Forty miles to the south, across the Bristol Channel, is the County of Somerset, from which many of the settlers of Plymouth County came. Note the familiar names of towns which here meet and welcome us. Here is Bristol and Taunton, there Somerset, Bridgevvater, Barnstable, Plymouth, Dorchester, Truro, Falmouth, and