Edmund Rice petitioned the General Courted Boston 1656 for the new plantation atBoston which was to become the town of Marlboro in 1660
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Edmund Rice came from Barkhamstead Hertshire and settled in Sudbury Mass in 1638 or 9; as he shared 3 divisions of land in Sudbury, the first which was made in 1639, h~ was no doubt residing there at the time. No record has been found of his embarkation for this country, or in which ship he came, or at what place he arrived. The first we find of him is at Sudbury with a wife and family of at least seven children that came over with him; that place called the "Plantation lying near Concord was incorporated in 1639, by the name of Sudbury. His residence was on the east side of Sudbury River, in the south~3rly part of what is now Wayland, near the border of the extensive meadows through which the river flows in a northeasterly course towards the Merrimac. He was a Selectman in 1644 and in subsequent years; Deacon of the Church in 1648 and in 1656, one of the thirteen petitioners belonging to Sudbury, who besought the Court for a new Plantation, saying, " Whereas you have lived diver years in Sudbury, and God has been pleased to increase our children, which are now the divers of them, grown to mans estate, and wee, many of us grown into years, so as wee bee glad to see them settled before the Lord takes us away from hence; as also God having given us some considerable cattle, so that wee are 'straightened', so that wee cannot comfortably subsist as could be desired, and some of us having taken pains to view the country, wee have found a place which lieth westward about 8 miles from Sudbury, for which wee conceive might bee comfortable for our substance" &c.Sudbury at the time contained less than seventy families and in a territory which included what is now Wayland. One would naturally think that they were 'straightened' for want of neighbors, rather than for want of room for themselves, or meadows where from to procure substance for their cattle; and so they found it, even twenty years later, when the town with an increased population was broken up and nearly destroyed by the Indians. The Petition was granted and the Plantation laid to them was incorporated by the name of Malboro in 1660, whereto he removed and a house lot of 50 acres granted to him by the proprietors of that town, with the rights appertaining thereto in after divisions. His house lot in Malboro on which he built and resided was in the westerly part of town, on the old country road leading from MaIboro to Northboro, and in the bend it passed round the northerly side of the pond a short distance northerly of the ancient 'Williams Tavern' He was entrusted with various important duties by the General Court, which he discharged with a fidelity that occasioned repeated calls for his service, while the records of Sudbury and Malboro contain evidence of his vigilant and fatherly care in promoting the welfare of those infant settlements, the destruction of which by the Indians a few years after, he was not permitted to see by reason of his death. He died at Malboro May 3rd 1663 and was buried in Sudbury.
The Rice Family - Andrew Henshaw Ward - C. Benjamin Richardson 1858
Edmund, Sudbury was from Barkhamsteadshire in County Hertshire and of the first settlers
1639 appointed to lay out the Plantation, Freeman 3 May 1640 and among the Proprietors is
a widow Rice, perhaps his mother, was Representative the year following and in 1643,
Deacon and selectman -----was among the early settlers of Malborough and he died 3 May
1663 all ten children having division of his estate.
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