We are here to preserve history and thereby preserve our heritage of faith, duty, and honor. We do historical and genealogical research and present educational material. The Society is not connected with any religious denomination or political group and takes no political action.
Why, and what, we research and preserve.
BECAUSE: The colonists of the seventeen century who planted the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Colony were one of the most influential settlers of North America. William Bucklin and his descendants were a vital part of that group.
AND BECAUSE: Joseph Bucklin and his relatives were typical of the early Americans who rose in the American Revolution to start what became a new nation. The attack on the English Navy ship Gaspee, in 1772, was an outstanding event in the formation of the American Revolution. Joseph Bucklin, in the Gaspee attack, was the first American who deliberately shot an English military man, and thus can be honored as firing the first shot in the American Revolution.
NOW THEREFORE: The Joseph Bucklin Society is named for Joseph Bucklin. The Society is dedicated to researching and preserving the history of Massachusetts and Rhode Island colonists and transmitting their example of faith, duty, and honor.
We of the United States of America were not united as a people by ethnic heritage, language or geography. We were, and are now, united by adherence to a set of shared beliefs; and those beliefs are those formed mainly by the colonists of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
As we research and preserve the history of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, we find ourselves drawn into the events of the Revolutionary War, and the period preceding and after that war of revolution. The Gaspee affair is worthy of special study because it gives us a focus of attention that allows us to drill downward into the layers of culture and society that surrounded the event. The Bucklin family has been involved with events that have been of public interest or been of significance in American history, particularly in the period of 1630 to 1799. The Gaspee event is one of those in which the Bucklin family was involved.
Our scope of research, study, and education includes:
- the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Colony, in the period 1600— 1799; and England in the same time period (with particular reference to the Dorset area), and
- the Bucklin family in 1600-1899, and thereafter, and
- the Gaspee Affair of 1772 (including the legal and political background as it relates to the American Revolution).
Support the Society to preserve history and thereby preserve our heritage of faith, duty, and honor – including the coordinated research efforts of other Bucklins.