The seventeenth-century settlers of Rhode Island came from different regions of the British Isles and from diverse backgrounds. There was a wide range of literacy among them and no uniformity of spelling. In addition, the legibility of the penmanship on documents of this era varies, all of which often resulted in one hard-to-read document.
Another factor that complicated writing in the seventeenth century was the wide range of accents and dialects that colonists brought to America. Many documents were dictated to clerks who phonetically spelled what they had heard from a speaker. This resulted in recorded names and places that barely resemble their modern spellings, such as COXALL for COGGESHALL and SLACKCOMBE for SLOCUM.
Above: A detail from 1676 testimonial by Edward Wanton from the NHS collection. This document includes the spelling of “Studson” instead of Stetson and “kittel” rather than kettle. Click the image to view the complete document.