Samuel Nightingale (1715-1786)

He is the founder of the Nightingale family in Providence, Rhode Island. He grew up at Braintree, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard in 1734. For several years he was a clergyman at Pomfret in Connecticut. He left the church and came to Providence in 1751, purchasing a house for $2,500. There, he ran a rum distillery and invested in various business ventures that included slave-trading. He was a Justice of the Peace from 1752 to 1761 and afterwards served three terms as Associate Justice of the State Supreme Court, until 1768. For much of the Revolution (1778 to 1781) he returned to Pomfret. He came back to Providence when peace was declared, but was not Lieutenant-Governor of Rhode Island as is sometimes stated on other websites. He had six children.