Rev. Valentine Wightman, our ancestor, was born 16 April 1681 in Quidnessett, situated in that part of Kingstowne which is now called North Kingstown, in Washington Co., RI. He died 7 June 1747 in Groton, New London Co., Connecticut. He married Susannah Holmes (see Holmes section) on 10 February 1702/3, born about 1682, in Newport, RI. She died between 7 April 1726 and 1728 in Groton, CT. Her parents were John and Mary (Sayles) Holmes. Valentine married a second time about 1728, Joanna ???, who survived her husband. There is a record that she was living in Groton, CT as of 28 June 1754.
 

    As a young man, Valentine Wightman took an interest in public affairs in Kingstowne. It is even recorded that he was one of fourteen who became involved in a political riot on 22 April 1700. His brother John and several cousins were also involved. The penalty, a fine, was suspended as the offenders had spread, and it was voted "unjust to impose sentence in their absence".
 

    He was already, at the time of his marriage, an outstanding member of the Free Will Baptist Church in Kingstowne as shown by the following: On 12 August 1703, Capt. Alexander Huling, his brother-in-law, deeded "for love and goodwill to my loving friends Jeremiah Wilkie and Valentine Wightman of the Baptist Church in the Narragansett Country, land to make use for building a meeting house for the worship and service of God".
 

    His interest in religious work, thus early apparent, was soon to find its course definitely established in the work of the Christian ministry. His father (George Wightman) was of strong Baptist faith -- both parents, doubtless, being members of Quidnessett Baptist Church, although his mother's kindred were tending toward the Anglican communion, and his oldest brother, Daniel, living in Newport, during the next year (1704), was ordained and installed as co-pastor of the Second Baptist Church of that town. His first wife, Susannah Holmes, was reared in the Baptist traditions, being the granddaughter of Rev. Obadiah Holmes, second Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Newport; and, through her mother, Mary Sayles, she was the great-granddaughter of Roger Williams, that dauntless apostle of freedom of conscience. Susannah's older half sister, Catherine Holmes, in later years, when the widow of Dea. Joseph Gardiner of Newport, became the third wife of Rev. Daniel Wightman of Newport.