The first known authentic record of the Spalding family in America appears in a Virginia state document (senate report) entitled Virginia Colonial Records, 1619-1680, published by authority of the state of Virginia. The documents there presented were printed from copies obtained from the public record office of Great Britain and include an account of the history of the Virginia colony. It was in the year 1607 that the first emigrants to successfully form a permanent colony landed in Virginia. The colony was ruled during the earlier years by laws written in blood, and the colonists suffered an extremity of distress too horrible to be described. Of the thousands of emigrants who had been sent to Virginia at great cost, not one in twenty remained alive in April, 1619, when Sir George Yeardley arrived with commissions and instructions "for the better establishment of a commonwealth heere." The first meeting was held July 30, 1619, more than a year before the "Mayflower," with the Pilgrims on board, sailed on her historic voyage.
Conclusive evidence proves that Edward Spalding came over from England with Sir George Yeardley in 1619 or about that time. There is documentary evidence that Edward Spalding and his family were fully established in the Virginia colony in 1623, as his name appears in these "Virginia colony records" in "Lists of the Living and the Dead in Virginia February 16, 1623"; under the caption "All James Citie" in list of the living is "Edward Spalding, uxor (wife) Spalding, puer (boy) Spalding, puella (girl) Spalding." The supposition is that Edward and Edmund Spalding, whose names also appear on same lists later, emigrated together from England about 1619; that some years later Edward went to the Massachusetts colony, while Edmund joined the Maryland colony under Lord Baltimore and was the progenitor of the "Maryland branch."
Powhatan, the friend of the English, died and on March 22, 1622, the Indians fell upon the settlement and in one hour three hundred and forty-seven persons were massacred. A census was ordered after the massacre and it is in this list that the name of Edward Spalding and his family appear. Prior to emigrating to Massachusetts, Edward may have lived a number of years in the Bermuda Islands (then called the Summer Islands), as there seems to be some evidence. The date of his settlement in Braintree, Massachusetts, was about 1634. Here his first wife, Margaret, and his child, Grace, died, and one of his children, Benjamin, was born. He was made a freeman, May 13, 1640, and is named in a petition, October 1, 1645. He is next of mention as one of the first proprietors of the town of Chelmsford, as is his son Edward, Junior, and John Spalding. He removed there in 1653, and at the first town meeting held November 22, 1654, was chosen selectman and again in 1656-60-67. He held other offices of trust in the town, and is recorded as one of the proprietors of "Newford," March 12, 1667.
