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In one genealogy he did not come to America on the Lyon with Williams but may have arrived later. He also attempted to settle (1642) in Dutch territory about 12 miles east of Manhattan (it is called Throg’s Neck, which is supposedly a bastardization of Throckmorton); but that failed due to attacks by native Americans. And in 1665 he bought land in Monmouth County, New Jersey, but never lived there. His children did. And about 1683/1684 he was visiting there, died and was buried in what is called the Throckmorton-Lippit-Taylor burying ground in Middletown, New Jersey not in the Providence colony. But everything else you have about John Throckmorton is mostly true. Though genealogies even differ as to his wife’s name – was it Rebecca Co[l]vill or Rebecca Farrand.

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Additionally, one genealogy I have seen has John Throckmorton becoming a Quaker in 1672 after hearing the preaching of George Fox, who started the religion. I guess that may be taking the concept of ‘soul liberty’ to its logical religious conclusion?

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As to ‘soul liberty’ my recollection of the concept that Williams developed, had more to do with his viewpoint of Native Americans than anything else (this, for instance). He became something of a linguist concerning native languages and seemed to be more happy with them than with those in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. And when he declared that taking native land (under the Compact) was illegal, that more than anything got the Puritans going against him. Supposedly, when he started the Providence colony the currency with which he bought the land from the natives was ‘love.’ I doubt the same was accepted from John Throckmorton when he purchased the northern half of Prudence Island in Narragansett Bay in 1639 from Roger Williams.

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From the above link:

“Forcing of conscience is soul-rape,” Williams wrote, pointing out that even Jesus Christ “commands tolerance of anti-Christians.” After citing Christ, Williams added his observations of the Narragansetts, among whom the “civil commonwealth” and the “spiritual commonwealth . . . are independent the one of the other. . . . The very Indians abhor to disturb any conscience at worship.” Later in his life, Williams expanded on this theme:

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“God requirth not an uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil wars. . . . It is the will and command of God that . . . a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or Anti-Christian consciences and worships be granted to all men in all nations and countries.”

Further bibliography at that link. I like the way that author ended his article on Williams.

Williams died January 27/March 15, 1683 in Providence, with the pain of the world bowing his creaking shoulders, likely realizing just how out of step he was with the temper of his time. He was a peacemaker in time of war, a tolerant man in a world full of ideologues; a democrat in a time of ecclesiastical and secular sovereigns, a dissenter wherever self-interest masqueraded as divinity. Williams had planted seeds in American soil which would not fully flower for more than another century. He would have relished the company of Thomas Jefferson, for example, at a time when his ideas were the common currency of revolution.

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Williams also would have enjoyed meeting two Creek sachems who visited England in 1791, “where, as usual, they attracted great attention, and many flocked around them, as well to learn their ideas of certain things as to behold `the savages.'” Asked their opinion of European religion, one said that the Creeks had no priests, or established religion, and that people were not expected all to agree on mere matters of opinion. “It is best that everyone should paddle his own canoe in his own way,” the two Creeks told the assembled English — a simple American notion that had engaged the public hangman a century and a half earlier when he burned Williams’ The Bloudy Tenent.

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The ‘separation of Church (or indeed any religion) and State’ – de jure in the U.S., de facto, and perhaps in some ways more ‘real’, in the U.K. – is a precious idea. In my own little patch, I’ve recently been involved in a tiny ‘battle’* on this matter! But I won’t bore you all with that …

* RW involved in a ‘battle’??!! Perish the thought!!

@ Lynn David – Thanks for the info…

The ‘separation of Church (or indeed any religion) and State’ – de jure in the U.S., de facto, and perhaps in some ways more ‘real’, in the U.K. – is a precious idea. In my own little patch, I’ve recently been involved in a tiny ‘battle’* on this matter! But I won’t bore you all with that …

* RW involved in a ‘battle’??!! Perish the thought!!