- There is an Edmund Rice (1638) Association..See: www.edmund-rice.org
His first wife was Thomasine (Frost) Rice.
His second wife was Mercy Hurd Brigham Rice, widow of Thomas Brigham. She later married William Hunt.
His parents are unknown, but he was a brother of Henry Rice, who married Thomasine Frost's sister Elizabeth.
He was of Berkhempstead, Co.Hertfordshire, England, and he married Thomasine Frost Oct 15, 1618 at Bury St.Edmund's, Co.Suffolk.
Children(by first marriage): Henry Rice, Edward Rice, Lydia (Rice) Drury, Matthew Rice, Samuel Rice, Joseph Rice, Benjamin Rice, Edmund Rice Jr, and Daniel Rice.
Children(by second marriage):
Ruth (Rice) Welles, Ann Rice, and Mary Rice.
From Ken Smith #46985536:
"Edmund Rice was born in England. According to a deposition he made in 1656, at which date he claimed to be about 62 years old, he was probably born about 1594. Edmund married Thomasine Frost in St. Mary's Church at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk on October 15, 1618.
They had four children who were baptized at Stanstead, Suffolk by 1626. About that time, they must have moved to Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire. Five more children were born to the couple there.
Around 1638 they left England and sailed for America. The settled for a short time in Watertown, then moved to Sudbury, Massachusetts in 1639. That place is where Edmund is first mentioned in the records of the records of New England. At that time he had a wife and seven children, two of their children having died young. Edmund and Thomasine had one more child born in Sudbury.
Edmund shared in all three division of land there. His home in Sudbury was on the east side of the river, in the southerly part of what is now Wayland. He build up a large farm by renting, buying and selling land near Dudley Pond in present Wayland. In fact, that part of Sudbury came to be known as Rice's End.
He was a selectman in 1644, deacon of the church in 1648.
Thomasine died in Sudbury on June 13, 1654, and Edmund married second, Mercy, widow of Thomas Brigham of Cambridge on March 1, 1655. Mercy also bore Edmund two children.
Although he was one of the largest landholders in Sudbury, Edmund was one of the petitioners of 1656, asking the General Court to grant a new plantation to the west. The petition was granted, and the new town was incorporated with the name of Marlborough in 1660. Edmund immediately moved to Marlborough, received a house lot of fifty acres on the west side of the town, north of the pond and became a leader in his new town.
Edmund died in Marlborough on May 3, 1663 and was buried at North Cemetery in Wayland. The grave is marked by a monument designed by Arthur Wallace Rice of Boston, Massachusetts. It was dedicated by the Rice Association on August 29, 1914. A boulder with a bronze tablet was also erected by the Association which marks Edmund's homestead, on the Old Connecticut Path in Wayland.
Edmund's burial is recorded in Marlborough vital records as "At Sudbury".
The value of his estate in both Sudbury and Marlborough was 566 pounds in addition to 170 Pounds for his home and land in Marlborough. Edmund died intestate, and a petition for the division of his estate was brought to the court on June 16, 1663. She later returned to the court and asked that the division be suspended, pending clarification of the portion of the estate given to son Benjamin. Mercy married, for her third husband, William Hunt of Marlborough in 1664." [3]
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