Origin of Peter Spicer who died at New London, CT

Research note by Wesley Johnston, begun 30 Jul 2023, last updated 30 Jul 2023

https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/12001386/person/420014692831/media/8d5d764f-32f6-4c93-aa9b-8c3dd4378e59?_phsrc=zpo2800

Context

Published sources give conflicting accounts of the origin of Peter SPICER who died at New London, Connecticut. None of them that I have found thus far have definitive evidence of his origin. So, I am gathering the different published sources and their conflicting origins so that the context of those conflicts is clear.

Peter as son of Thomas SPICER of Rhode Island and Long Island

SOURCE: Colonial Families of the United States of America, Vol. 5, page 34 (edited by George Norbury Mackenzie, 1915)
https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/59304:61175

"Thomas, bapt. Exeter 22nd October, 1591, who came to America about 1635, and signed a contract with Nicholas EASTON of Newport, Rhode Island, in 1638.  In 1642 he was Treasurer of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and in 1643 removed to Gravesend, Long Island, under the settlement of Lady MOODY.  His son Peter came to New London, Connecticut, in 1666.

 "Peter SPICER came to New London, Connecticut, in one the vessels trading with the Long Island ports.  He bought property in New London in 1666, and m. in Warwick, Rhode Island, 15th December, 1670, Mary BUESCOT, dau. Of Capt. Peter and Mary BUESCOT.  He d. New London, 1694."

CONTRARY EVIDENCE: Peter did not name any of his children Thomas.

Peter from Jamestown, Virginia, son of Edward Spicer

SOURCE: A Modern History of New London County, Connecticut, Vol II (Biographical), p 10 (editor in chief Benjamin Tinkham Marshall, 1922)
https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/14754/images/dvm_LocHist003810-00365-0?pId=650

"Peter is believed to have come to Connecticut from Virginia and to have been a son of Edward SPICER who came from England to Virginia in 1635."

SOURCE: A Supplement to the Descendants of Peter Spicer, p. 38 (compiled by Susan Billings Meech, 1923)
https://ia800309.us.archive.org/2/items/supplementtodesc00meec/supplementtodesc00meec.pdf

"Family tradition has told us that Peter SPICER came from Virginia to New England and this we have always believed to be the case. ... We conclude then, that takling family tradition as fact in this case, that beween 1656 and 1666 our ancestor, Peter SPICER, came from Virginia to New London, that he must have been a very young man when he came to Virginia ..."

CONFLICT WITHIN THESE SOURCES: The first has Peter born in Virginia while the second has him coming to Virginia ("induced to come to Virginia by Thomas BUSBY") as a young man.