English clergyman, born in Windsor, England, in 1588; educated at Eton and at King’s College, Cambridge; studied law for three years in one of the Inns of Court; took orders in the Church of England, and, having puritanical tendencies and being interested in the colonization of Massachusetts, he emigrated with Winthrop’s colony in 1630, landing at Salem and shortly afterward moving to Charlestown; there founded what was later the First Church of Boston. He visited England in 1631 and in 1634, returning in 1635 with his wife and Hugh Peters in time to ally himself with Governor Winthrop against Wheelwright and Mrs. Hutchinson in the Antinomian controversy. He was chosen chaplain to the forces sent against the Pequots in Connecticut in 1636, later receiving a grant of 1,000 acres of land in Quincy, MA, for this service; assisted John Eliot in his missionary labors among the Indians, and was especially distinguished for his benevolence and zeal in all good works. Besides a number of occasional productions, he published a theological treatise, Some Helps to Faith (1625); and a poem, Famous Deliverances of the English Nation (1626), in England; and in America a Latin poem to the memory of John Howard, and a tract, The Day Breaking, if Not the Sun Rising, of the Gospel with the Indians in New England (1647, 1665); and a new edition of the poem, Famous Deliverances. He outlived his colleagues in the ministry, John Cotton and John Norton, and died in Boston on the 7th of August 1667.
