Nicholas Easton

Nicholas Easton (c. 1593–1675) was an early colonial President and Governor of Rhode Island. Born in Hampshire, England, he lived in the towns of Lymington and Romsey before immigrating to New England with his two sons in 1634. Once in the New World, he lived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony towns of Ipswich, Newbury, and Hampton. Easton supported the dissident ministers John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson during the Antinomian Controversy, and was disarmed in 1637, and then banished from the Massachusetts colony the following year. Along with many other Hutchinson supporters, he settled in Portsmouth on Aquidneck Island, later a part of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He was in Portsmouth for about a year when he and eight others signed an agreement to create a plantation elsewhere on the island, establishing the town of Newport.

In Newport, Easton became active in civil affairs, serving as assistant to the governor for several years, and in 1650 was elected President of the four towns of the colony. During this time the colony was very fragile, and its authority was frequently usurped by its much larger neighbors, the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Plymouth Colony. Following his first presidency, the colony was split in 1651 by William Coddington who wanted the two island towns to be under a separate government, and who went to England to get the authority to do this. In 1654 the four towns were reunited, and Easton was once again elected President, presiding for another year over the united colony.

During the last ten years of his life, Easton was very active in civil matters, serving as Deputy to the General Assembly, Deputy Governor, and then two years as Governor of the colony, which had been strengthened by the Royal Charter of 1663. Easton was a tanner by trade, and also a minister of sorts, being criticized by Massachusetts magistrate John Winthrop for his theological opinions. He became a Quaker, and after a long life was buried in a Friends' Cemetery, the Coddington Cemetery in Newport next to his second of three wives. Easton's Beach and Easton's Point in Newport are named for him. His younger son, John Easton, later became Governor of the colony.