William Rodney (or Rodeney) came to Philadelphia soon after William Penn and having settled at St. Jones Hundred, near what later became Dover, Delaware, was foreman of a Kent County jury in December 1681. The eldest of six children, he was baptized in Bristol, England, on December 14, 1660. His father worked as a royal prosecutor and surveyor of customs in New York, dying on Long Island Sound in 1679, while returning from the West Indies.