Does my Amy Waterman take me to R.I.’s founder?

Getting through this brick wall will give me the Rhode Island bingo ­– Roger Williams. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

At issue are the parents of Amy/Amey Waterman, who was born about 1788 in Cranston, R.I., and died before 1833. She was the first wife of Jeremiah Knight (1789-1859). Jeremiah had a second wife, Sarah/Sally Fulton, and he is found living with her, their two sons and his father, Darius, in the 1850 Federal Census. They were in Scituate, R.I.

According to notes written around the turn of the 19^th century by my 2^nd great uncle, Dr. John A. Remington, Amy is the daughter of John Waterman and Mary Pitcher, and she had three siblings – John, William and Mary. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing what Dr. Remington's sources were. He clearly had a keen interest in the family history, but some of his notes have been found to be erroneous.

Lois Remington Sorensen, who has done extensive research on the Remington lines, says Mary Pitcher was the wife of Olney Waterman, not John, and that they did in fact have children named John, William and Mary. She has found no source putting Amy into this family, but she believed the circumstantial evidence was strong enough to put this in her tree as a working model.

Dr. Remington wrote these notes on his prescription pad. On this page he has Amy Waterman's parents as Mary Pitcher and John Waterman (from France?). Mary Pitcher married OLNEY Waterman, and they did have children named John, William and Mary. As yet I'm unable to find a source showing that they had a daughter named Amy. The Mary listed as a sibling did name one of her daughters Amy.

Dr. Remington’s notes say Mary (Amy’s alleged sister) married a Brown. According to DAR records, Mary married Christopher Whipple Brown. They had a daughter named “Amy.”

In her research, Lois found that it was reported to the Town Council of Cranston on April 25, 1794,  that “Olney Waterman is absent and left his wife and children, so they are likely to be a public charge.” (The Waterman Family, Vol. 3, Page 117) That book also notes that Olney’s sons, John and William, were apprenticed at an early age ­– John at age 9 to William Sprague, and William at age 3.

If I can prove that Amy was in fact the daughter of Olney Waterman, this is her descent from Roger Williams.

Roger Williams>Joseph Williams>Joseph Williams Jr.>Meribah Williams>Mercy Brown>Olney Waterman> Amey/Amy Waterman

The line of descent from Amey/Amy Waterman to my grandmother, Mazelle Remington Slocum Comery, which has been fully sourced, is:

Amy/Amey Waterman>Alfred Waterman Knight>Caroline Maria Knight>Edna Agnes Remington>Mazelle Remington Slocum.

[Note: Several trees on Ancestry show Amy’s parents to be John Waterman (1768-1854) and Phoebe Weaver (1772-1849) but no sources are given to support that. These trees give Amy’s birth as 1793 in Cranston, R.I., (again, no sources) and her death as 10 Jun 1852 in Warwick, R.I. If that birth date is correct, she would have been just 14 at the birth of her son, Alfred Waterman Knight, in 1807.]

Alfred Waterman Knight was the son of Amy/Amey Waterman and Jeremiah Knight. He was born 18 Aug 1807 in Coventry, R.I. He died in 1881 in Willington, Tolland County, Conn., where he is buried with his wife, Susan Carr Johnson Knight.