First found in Yorkshire where they held a family seat for many centuries and were recorded in the Domesday Book, a census taken by King William, Duke of Normandy in 1086 A.D.

For many English families, the political and religious disarray that shrouded England made the far away New World an attractive prospect. On cramped disease-ridden ships, thousands migrated to those British colonies that would eventually become Canada and the United States. Those hardy settlers that survived the journey often went on to make important contributions to the emerging nations in which they landed. Analysis of immigration records indicates that some of the first North American immigrants bore the name Arnold or a variant listed above: William and Thomas Arnold of Nottingham, England, who settled in Higham Mass, and Watertown New York in May 1635. William later moved to Providence, R.I. He was allegedly the richest man in the colony, and he was the ancestor of Benedict Arnold. In Newfoundland, Joseph from Sherborne, Dorset, was an apprentice of Henry Brooks in Bay Bulls in 1752.

Motto Translated: Watch that you may live.

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