From Bulkeley to Bulkley to Buckley: The Ancestors and Descendants of Moses Bulkley (1727-1812)

By Thomas Taylor

Drawing from a wide range of sources, this work is a continuation of one line of the Bulkeley family, focusing on the ancestors and descendants of Moses Bulkley (1727-1812) last presented in The Bulkeley Genealogy by Donald Lines Jacobus in 1933. The relationship between the earliest American ancestors on this line, Reverend Peter Bulkeley and Reverend John Jones, founders of the First Parish Church in Concord, Massachusetts in 1636, is re-examined. New evidence revealing critical errors made by Concord historians since 1835 will re-characterize the essential clerical friendship the two men shared and show the true reasons for John Jones's removal to Fairfield, Connecticut in 1644. Using census records, rare newspaper articles, obituaries, wills, surrogate court records, and family stories, this line of the Bulkeleys of Concord and Fairfield is chronicled in a new family history covering the mid-18th century to the present. The Bulkeley/Bulkley/Buckley genealogy is supplemented with genealogies of several families these Bulkeley/Bulkley/Buckleys married with in the 19th and 20th centuries. This work evolved into a "search and rescue mission," and offers a comprehensive on-paper reunion of families that have been documented to the beginning of the 20th century, and a few who have never been documented in a genealogy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 9, 2008
• ISBN: 9781469120317

Thomas Taylor

The translator of this work, Thomas Taylor, is known for his authoritative translations of the Platonists; he was practically the sole source of Neo-Platonic thought in the transcendentalist movement of New England. Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras was a constant source of inspiration to the transcendentalists and a major influence on their writings throughout the Nineteenth Century. Taylor's work was enthusiastically acclaimed by Emerson, who referred to the translator as "a Greek born out of his time, and dropped on the ridicule of a blind and frivolous age."

Book preview

   From    Bulkeley

   to    Bulkley

   to    Buckley

The Ancestors and Descendants

of Moses Bulkley (1727-1812)

image%201.jpg

Thomas Taylor

Copyright © 2008 by Thomas Taylor.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2007908648

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

THE STURGES FAMILY CONNECTION

THE FROST FAMILY CONNECTION

THE BUTTON FAMILY CONNECTION

THE BURTCH/BIRCH FAMILY CONNECTION

THE TALLMADGE FAMILY CONNECTION

THE GIFFORD FAMILY CONNECTION

THE BRUNDIDGE FAMILY CONNECTION

THE MARTYN FAMILY CONNECTION

THE BYXBEE FAMILY CONNECTION

THE TAYLOR FAMILY CONNECTION

Chapter Five

Bibliography

References

Introduction

In 1992, my aunt, Lurana Martyn Pokines, told me a story she had heard from her father, Howard Martyn. He claimed that the family was of Indian descent with a little bit of French. With several years of research behind me, I have to state that Grandpa was wrong. The French part is definitely true, and actually more substantial than he may have known, but there is no Indian heritage in our family history. The Martyns were a hard family to find at first, and so I began to search for the ancestors of my Grandmother, Marion Buckley. There were some brick walls on that side too, but my persistence paid off, and a history I knew nothing about slowly began to unfold.

Somewhere along the way I realized that this project had evolved into a search and rescue mission. I was searching for ancestors of the past who would remain in obscurity forever unless someone found them and recorded their names in an unprecedented on-paper multi-family reunion. As a result, I have spent considerable time reading about Puritan ministers and theories of the covenants of grace and good works, about a Magna Carta baron, Saher De Quincy, of farmers who became agricultural businessmen, and a fisherman from France whose family worked its way from Chatham, Massachusetts, to Boston, and then to the famed Great Banks as Gloucester fishermen.

This volume is a continuation of one family line from Donald Lines Jacobus’s The Bulkeley Genealogy published in 1933. The ancestor who is the starting point for this work is Moses Bulkley who was born in Fairfield, Connecticut in 1727. By bringing together nearly all branches of Moses Bulkley’s extended family from his death in 1812 to the early 21st century, it should be possible for anyone related to this line and not yet included in this volume to work with this research and make valid connections to the Bulkeley/Bulkley/Buckley family.

There have been some unexpected rewards from this research. In 2002, Jabez Bulkley, the oldest son of Moses Bulkley and his wife Abigail Sturges, was honored by the Sons of the American Revolution. Jabez served as a private in the Dutchess County Militia commanded by Colonel Henry Ludington from 1778 to 1780. Had this project never happened his service would never have been recognized nationally, and his grave would not have the marker of the SAR. Another highly valuable reward has been meeting the distant Bulkeley, Bulkley, and Buckley cousins around the country and around the world. This volume has benefited from the information and photographs from many newly found cousins, and friendships have been established. In 2002, I was happy to participate in a small but productive Bulkeley family reunion in Concord, Massachusetts. There is the promise of more to come.

I have carefully studied the The Bulkeley Genealogy and it does seem credible to claim that Moses and his brother David Bulkley were the first descendants of Reverend Peter Bulkeley to bring the Bulkley family name from New England to New York State. There were other Bulkeley descendants with other family surnames who arrived in New York before Moses and David in the 1770s, but there were no Bulkeley/Bulkleys who had established homesteads in New York before 1770. Ironically, the descendants of Moses, just two generations later, openly embraced the name change to Buckley.

Hence the title of this volume is From Bulkeley to Bulkley to Buckley. There has never been an official reason for the variations in spelling of the family name. However, one plausible reason stands out above others. Which ever way family members chose to spell the name, it seems to have always sounded closest to Buckley. I first started looking for Buckleys, and I was able to use Federal census records to find a William Henry Buckley (great-great-grandfather) and Ezra Buckley (great-great-great grandfather). Thanks for a tip from the Schaghticoke, New York historian Chris Kelly, the names Moses Buckley and Jabez Buckley came to my attention in 1995. Using the Mormon’s Family History Center’s files in Manhattan, I discovered, in the final minutes of one of my one-hour time periods on the computer, a Captain Moses Bulkley who married Abigail Sturges on August 29, 1758 in Fairfield, Connecticut. Bulkley was a new name to me, and at first I thought it was a typographical error.

The inconsistency of the family surname has been in effect almost since the Bulkeleys came to America in 1635. A family myth I soon learned about was that Jabez Bulkley became Jabez Buckley following his service in the Revolutionary War. A 1970 letter to Donald Buckley from Frances Brown claimed that all three sons of Moses Bulkley served in the Revolution, and that due to an error in spelling of the name on the deed to the land Jabez either bought or received as a result of his war service, the Bulkleys became Buckleys. This myth has little validity. Jabez was the only son of Moses Bulkley who served in the war. His two brothers, Sturgis and Moses, were just too young to serve, especially the youngest, Moses, who was born in 1769. As I will show in his biography, the truth is that Moses Bulkley, the father, served in the war. The claim that the deed may have had a spelling error is quite possible, but not unique for this family. This kind of error had been happening to the Bulkeley/Bulkleys for decades.

One of the very first spelling variations occurred in a book called Confessions (1645) by Reverend Thomas Shepherd. In Confessions, Alice Stedman gave a required testament of faith before Shepard’s Cambridge, Massachusetts congregation. She gave reference to a sermon by Peter Bulkeley on 17 Genesis. Peter Bulkeley’s name is written as Buckly, and a footnote indicates that the correct spelling of the name is Bulkeley (see George Selement and Bruce C. Woolley, Thomas Shepherd’s Confessions, Colonial Society of Massachusetts Collection, Volume LVIII, page 104).

Another example appears in a letter written by the distinguished commander of the American Armed Forces, George Washington. On June 30, 1781, Washington, writing from his headquarters in Peekskill, New York to David Waterbury, gave the following order. He asks Waterbury to collect as many men as possible and to meet a Colonel Sheldon at Clapp’s in King Street on July 2nd. The movement was to be kept secret. Washington concludes his letter by stating You will be pleased to inform me by return of Captain Buckley with the number of men which you think you shall probably collect. A footnote indicates that Captain Buckley is Captain Edward Bulkeley (Buckley) of the Third Connecticut regiment. He was made Brigadier Major from February to August 1782, and served to June 1783. This reference and five other Bulkley references can be found in The George Washington Papers at the Library of Congress, 1741-1799. The letter to David Waterbury can be found at this web address:

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammen/mgw:@field(DOCID+@lit(gw220326).

Donald Jacobus’s brief biography of Edward Bulkeley can be found on pages 267 and 268 in The Bulkeley Genealogy. He was a great-great grandson of Reverend Peter Bulkeley.

Another Revolutionary War era example of Bulkley becoming Buckly involves Moses Bulkley directly. An army map from 1778-1780 of the area around Fredericksburg, New York features the locations of homesteads in the region. This map provides the location of Moses Bulkley’s home as well as that of all of his neighbors. The Bulkley farm is just a couple of miles southeast of the town center and almost directly south of the home of Colonel Henry Ludington. On the map, the name of the head of the Bulkley household is written as Moses Buckly. (The map appears on page 61.)

The spelling of the surname is very inconsistent on census records for New York. More than any other indicator, it appears that the Bulkleys pronounced the name as Buckley. Unless they told the census taker to enter Bulkley, the name most often found on the census records for these ancestors is Buckley. One census record may have the spelling as Bulkley, then on the next census the family is Buckley. To find people, it became necessary to try all the spelling variations.

Knowing that the spelling of the surname did vary proved to be very helpful in locating the grave of Jabez’s younger brother Sturgis. After the 1830 Federal census, Sturgis seemed to vanish from all records. By chance, I thought of looking for a Sturgis Buckley on the 1840 Federal census which resulted in my finding him and his family in western New York State. Inspired by the surge of opportunity the opening of the Erie Canal brought to farmers in that region, Sturgis went west to the town of Port Gibson, Town of Manchester, in Ontario County in the early 1830s. There he lived until 1846 as a very successful farmer. Thanks to some excellent records in Ontario County, I have been able to make contact with some of his descendants. One piece of information I have been able to find is his actual birth date. The Jacobus book has christening dates, but Sturgis’s gravestone shows him keeping his surname as Bulkley at his death, and gives his actual date of birth which is a very unique detail to find on stones that old.

Beyond the fact that the name was pronounced Buckley, there are a few other possible reasons for the inconsistency of the spelling. One other family line I studied was the Bixby family in Connecticut. My branch of the Bixby’s lived in Norwalk for several generations. The Norwalk Bixbys spelt the name as Byxbee. Whether there was family feud or just a desire to differentiate oneself from another branch of the family, the result was that a particular branch of the family stood apart from the rest. If you spelt the name as Byxbee, you signified that your family came from Norwalk. Something similar may have happened with the dropping of the first e in Bulkeley. The switch seems to have started in Connecticut and may have been a way for the Connecticut Bulkeleys to distinguish themselves from the Massachusetts Bulkeleys. The way the name was pronounced made the first e a silent e. Americans not knowing the mysteries of British pronunciation have a tendency to try to pronounce all English words as they see them. Yet there are many words, especially place names in England, where letters and sometimes whole syllables may be written but are never pronounced. This seems to be the case with the pronunciation of Bulkeley. The l and the first e are silent.

I have come across two examples that show how mutually interchangeable Bulkley and Buckley have been for other Bulkleys in New York distantly connected to the Moses Bulkley line. The first is a newspaper entry from The Granville Sentinel in Granville, New York. The 19th century photograph shows the Alfred Bulkley store in Granville, while the caption below it mentions Alfred Buckley and Alfred Bulkley in the same short paragraph. The owner was a Bulkley but the store appears to have been known as Buckley.

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The second example concerns two versions of the obituary for a Moses M. Bulkley who died in 1901. The obituaries came from two undisclosed newspapers in the Thurston, New York area. The information is the same, but in one newspaper obituary the deceased is Moses M. Bulkley, the other newspaper obituary is for Moses M. Buckley. Bernice Snell of Dundee, New York sent these obituaries.

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As I discovered when I visited Ontario County searching for Sturgis Bulkley’s grave site, even the locals know who you are talking about when you mention either Bulkley or Buckley. I had asked to see the grave of Sturgis Buckley and was taken to the grave stone for Sturgis Bulkley. In Rensselaer County, New York, deed books and surrogate records clearly advise the researcher that when looking for Buckley to always also look at the entries for Bulkley and vice versa.

It was Joel Bulkley, son of Jabez Bulkley and Phebe Frost, grandson of Moses Bulkley and Abigail Sturges, who championed the switch from Bulkley to Buckley in upstate New York. According to Jane Betsey Welling, a Washington County historian, Joel preferred Buckley, since many important documents used the surname of Buckley. One example is the story of the land Jabez purchased with a deed made out to Jabez Buckley in 1785. Whether that is the sole reason for the spelling change we will never really know. When Jabez died in 1826, it was Joel who authorized the gravestone to be inscribed as Jabez Buckley and from that point on all the descendants of Jabez have been Buckleys. By that time, even Jabez Bulkley himself had succumbed to the use of Buckley. His last will and testament is signed Jabez Buckley. Had the Massachusetts and Connecticut Bulkeleys made an effort to standardize the spelling of the name, there may never have been any Buckleys on this family line at all. The convenience of pronunciation and spelling appears to have won out over maintaining the historical accuracy of how the name was to be spelt.

The first two chapters in this volume are devoted to two important Puritan ancestors, Peter Bulkeley and John Jones. Why so much emphasis on a Jones in a Bulkeley family history? One part of the answer is that he is an important relation. His daughter Sarah married Thomas Bulkeley and, when Jones left Concord, Thomas Bulkeley and Sarah came to Fairfield so she could be with her father. Another key reason is that my extensive reading on everything I could find about both Bulkeley and Jones revealed that a major error has been made in the writing of the history of early Concord. I felt it was necessary to critically re-examine the relationship between Concord’s first ministers. Errors had been made concerning the reasons for Jones’s removal to Fairfield, Connecticut. It became important to write their history with all the facts and evidence I could find, placing particularly emphasis on dates of correspondence between Peter Bulkeley and John Cotton to prove that John Jones left Concord because the fledgling village was in financial trouble, not because of an argument with Peter Bulkeley.

This volume also looks at other families that married into the Bulkeley/Bulkley/Buckley family. It was particularly fascinating to learn that so many of these families were colonial families as well, and all had roots in New England. The only family line studied that was not here when the United States became a country was the Martyn family whose ancestral roots are in France. The Martyn family’s original ancestor, Henry Martyn, arrived in America sometime before 1840, the date of the earliest known record for the family. Yet, like the other families presented here, the Martyns were New Englanders first before moving to New York and Florida.

These families are united with the Bulkeley/Bulkley/Buckleys also by a common migration pattern into New York State. All have New England as the first home in America. Most can claim Massachusetts as the first colony they lived in prior to moving to Connecticut, and then from Connecticut into Dutchess County, New York. Old Dutchess, as it is often called in family histories, experienced a huge influx of settlers in early 1770s mainly because the land was relatively inexpensive. Many of these families can claim a member who served in the Dutchess County Militia during the Revolution, and that veteran then moved to Rensselear and Washington counties in upstate New York. These families include the Frosts, Giffords, Burtchs, Buttons, Brundiges, and Tallmadges.

Census records show that there was a similar pattern of expansion to western New York, as well as to Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, and eventually to the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states for several of these families. Once again the compelling reason to move was the possibility of owning more land.

Another important detail to emerge from the census data is that women did not join the work force until quite late in the 19th century. When they do, the types of jobs they take seem to vary with the region they live in. In the northeast, the Bulkley/Buckley women who work outside the home take either dressmaking positions in shops or they work in mills. In contrast, young women in the Midwest and plains states are often employed as teachers or librarians.

As for the men, the process of leaving the farm began in the early 20th century for those in the northeast. Yet, in the Midwest, men were primarily farmers until the mid-20th century, with a few still continuing farming today. After the mid-20th century, the Bulkley/Buckley family and other connected families knew about their agricultural/pastoral past, but almost all had left the farms for good, pursuing diverse occupations requiring mechanical, technical, informational, and salesmanship skills.

Acknowledgements

There have been many helpers who have made this volume possible. Among the very first was my sister, Sandra O’Brien. Her letter to Schaghticoke historian Chris Kelly paved the way for finding the Buckleys who turned out to be Bulkleys and Bulkeleys. From there I went to the Mormon’s Family History Center in New York, and after a few weeks I found my first American ancestor, Reverend Peter Bulkeley. At that time I had no idea he was a man of importance, but I soon learned that my Reverend Bulkeley was no ordinary minister. I am grateful for the extensive resources the Mormons have put together for genealogical research.

When I had the basics of the family tree in place, I just happened to mention to a colleague at Hunter College that I had found some ancestors who had lived in Fairfield, Connecticut which was where she lived. She told me that the historical society in Fairfield was very good. A huge thank you is due to Jan Bowes-Marek. The Fairfield Museum and Historical Society became a major resource for this project.

I think it is safe to say that I raided the National Archives, the New York Public Library, and the Fairfield Museum and Historical Society as I worked on this project. There are several helpful but nameless assistants at the National Archives branch in New York and the New York Public Library who I wish to thank. At Fairfield, I was given immeasurable resources and encouragement by Rod MacKenzie who not only showed me in 1995 where all the files were, but also maps showing where Moses Bulkley’s family’s land was located. Also at Fairfield, I have enjoyed the friendship of Betty Oderwald, a Bulkley cousin who has always been supportive and generous in suggesting ways to find more information.

A special thank you goes to Dutchess County historian, Mary Lou Davison who provided a Revolutionary War era map of Fredericksburg, and to Dennis Lowery, the Washington County Archivist, for copies of wills and other court papers on the Buckleys. Elaine Lundberg of Panora, Iowa provided valuable information on the family of Ann Eliza Buckley and Charles Mason who moved to Iowa in the late 1850s.

Enormous help came from Don and Clare Radz, of Rensselaer, New York who, along with the help of their daughter, Donna, provided copies of wills, obituaries, and an occasional newspaper clipping featuring the Buckleys in Rensselaer County. Don and Clare have been responsible for recording all the information on cemetery stones in every cemetery in Rensselaer County and putting this information on a database found on the USGEN Project section of the Rootsweb web site (www.rootsweb.com). It is a monumental job and a monumental achievement to have so much information of this kind available.

And special thanks to all the new-found cousins who have been very helpful in providing valuable data on other branches of the family. Without their help, I would not know anything at all about the Sturgis Bulkley line and the Joel Buckley line. Thank you to Robert Geiber of Des Moines, Iowa for sending the list of Sturgis’s descendants. I am so glad I found Sturgis’s grave for you in Ontario County. Thank you also to Deborah Barnes for the Joel Buckley information. Thank you to Greg Keeling of Manchester, Tennessee whose Buckley line is another branch of the line descended from Sturgis Bulkley. Thank you, Greg, for those wonderful photographs in chapter five.

Extra special thanks to Philip Bulkeley in North Wales, United Kingdom for providing, if only for a short while, a global network of Bulkeley descendants. Thanks to Philip, I met, via the internet, the ever encouraging Hazel Bulkley of Mesa, Arizona, who was so interested in what I was doing that I think this has been written partly because she wanted to see it as much I have.

Other members of this special Bulkeley/Bulkley/Buckley group include Christy Bulkeley of Sanford, North Carolina, Jess and Shirleen Bulkley of Redmond, Oregon, Chuckie Blaney of Sherborne, Massachusetts, Linda Bulkeley of San Leonord, California, Peter Bulkeley of West Palm Beach, Florida, Peter Bulkeley Brainard of Bloomfield, Connecticut, William Bulkeley of Roseburg, Oregon, Mrs. Towner Buckley (Dana Buckley) of San Diego, California, Barbara Cross of New York, N.Y., Mary Duvall of Hilton Head, South Carolina, John McEwen of Wingham, Ontario, Sharon Sturek of Lincoln, Nebraska, Roger Smith of Wilton, Connecticut, Verna Tuttle of Littleton, Massachusetts, who has been a valuable reader and guide for the first two chapters, Jean and Frank VanGelder of Columbus, New Jersey, and, last but not at all least, Marian Wheeler of Concord, Massachusetts who gave the First Parish of Concord a sneak preview of the first two chapters and has provided boundless support for this project.

Gulielma Henrickson of Shaftsbury, Vermont, has provided a treasure chest of valuable information, photographs and enthusiasm for this project. She introduced me to Jeanne Burns of Cambridge, New York and Nancy Bunting of Brandon, Vermont who have contributed important finishing touches to this project.

Donald and Olyve Buckley of Laconia, New Hampshire sent many valuable photos of Myron Buckley and Lydia Brundige. Most importantly, they sent a copy of a page from a letter sent to Donald by Frances B. Brown in 1970, which revealed the service of Jabez Bulkley/Buckley in the Revolutionary War. This letter eventually led to Jabez being honored with a certificate by the Sons of the American Revolution. Donald was very interested in his family history. I wish that he and several other family members could have lived to see this finished work.

A friend of many years, Ron Alexander, was very helpful scanning photos and documents, and particularly two images that were used in the Bulkeley reunion quilt which was given to the First Parish in 2002.

Finally, I have been lucky to have found excellent support and interest from the faculty members of the English Department of Hunter College where I work. First and foremost, I want to thank Irene Dash who constantly reminded me to write in shorter sentences and paragraphs, and to regain a leaner and clearer prose style. Renee Overholser and Lynne Greenberg have been most supportive and helpful. Crispin Larangeira should be thanked for his help and suggestion that there are elements in the stories you will find here that might be better told as a dramatic play, a belief I share. Anna Tomasino, Evelyn Melamed, Karen Greenberg, and Cristina Alfar I thank for their support and encouragement, and some great scans by Cristina. Robert Kaplan and Donna Kessler-Eng, like Irene Dash, were most helpful as they firmly made make me see that the critical first two chapters really needed more focus. Their suggestions paid off. An excerpt from chapter two was published in New England Ancestors, a magazine published by the New England Genealogical and Historic Society, in February 2007.

Perhaps the most satisfying result of this work is that I became a Bulkeley. It is equally satisfying to know that I may well be the best friend Reverend John Jones has had since John Winthrop, Junior.

My thanks and best wishes to all who have made this possible,

Thom Taylor

New York, New York

July 2007

Chapter One

The Clerical Friendship of

Peter Bulkeley and John Jones

In researching the lives of Concord’s first ministers, Peter Bulkeley and John Jones, I discovered key aspects of their lives that have previously eluded historians writing about early Concord, Massachusetts. First of all, the truth about their essential friendship has been overlooked, and, secondly, both men have been wrongfully accused by several Concord historians of having had a public dispute about an unspecified theological issue or idea in the early 1640s. This latter point is the focus of the following chapter. This chapter focuses on clerical friendship and the evidence, however brief, that Bulkeley and Jones were practitioners of this highly valued Puritan ideal.

John Jones has always been the other Puritan in the American Bulkeley family history, and, as such, has been a marginalized figure in the history of Concord’s beginning years. Yet, there were many qualities both men shared. Ruth Wheeler describes them as two stubborn, independent men, attaching great importance to the minutest details of doctrine.¹ Most importantly, friendship unified them. According to Francis Bremer, friendship was a bond valued by all Englishmen, but for the Puritans it was also a duty.² The fact that it was considered a duty does not mean that these friendships were not sincere or existed because it was required. On the contrary, many of these friendships lasted lifetimes, modeled as Francis Bremer suggests on the ideal male-to-male friendship of David and Jonathan.³

Neither Bulkeley nor Jones has ever been studied from this perspective before. Both were non-conformists in the eyes of the Archbishop of Canterbury (William Laud), Charles I and their allies, but within the Puritan world they were faithful conformists to the standards set forth by the Puritan leadership.

Family Backgrounds and Education

Where did Bulkeley and Jones learn the values of clerical friendship? It actually began in Cambridge where both men earned their degrees. Both held Master’s degrees from Cambridge, one of the most distinguished universities in England. Peter Bulkeley came from a family of great wealth and of aristocratic descent. Born on 31 January 1582 at Odell, County Bedford, he was the youngest son of Reverend Edward Bulkeley and Olive Irby. Peter Bulkeley received the degrees of B.A. from St. John’s, Cambridge, 1604/5; M.A., 1608; was ordained deacon and priest, June 1608; Canon of Lichfield, 1609; and University preacher, 1610.⁴

John Jones was born 22 November 1593, ten years after Bulkeley, in Northamptonshire, England. He was the son of the Reverend William Jones who came from Abergavenney, Monmouth County, England. Historians disagree as to exactly where John Jones received his degree. Donald Jacobus provides the clearest, most detailed record of Jones’s critical dates: matriculated sizar from Queens College, Cambridge, Michaelmas 1608, as John Johnes, B.A.1612/3; M.A.1616.⁵

At Cambridge, the bonds formed among students set the foundation for a friendship network that proved invaluable following graduation and especially during the years of Archbishop Laud’s efforts to make the Puritans conform to the new rules of the Anglican Church. Bulkeley and Jones didn’t attend their colleges at Cambridge at the same time, but both found fellowship with other students at Cambridge whose bonds of sociability continued during their years as heads of the churches at Odell and Abbots Ripton respectively.

Both Bulkeley and Jones secured their final positions in the Anglican Church at approximately the same age. Jones was 26 when he took the pulpit at Abbots Ripton. Bulkeley was about 27 when he began his tenure at Odell in Bedfordshire. The most important feature of this fact is how soon their appointments occurred after completing their degrees. As described by Francis Bremer, Tom Webster and other recent Puritan scholars, the existence of a clerical network helped promote the settlement of ministers in appropriate posts.⁶ Webster uses the term ministerial sociability to describe the way in which clerics encouraged and recommended their finest students for vacant lectureships throughout England. Peter Bulkeley, who received his M.A. degree in 1608, had the distinct honor of following his father, Edward Bulkeley, as the rector of the church at Odell in 1610, ten years before the Elder Bulkeley’s death.

John Jones appears to have benefited more from his connections with other important Puritan divines rather than his father as he earned his degrees. Supporting this claim are several vital facts. He came to Abbots Ripton in 1619, three years after he received his M.A. degree. Yet, upon his completion of his B.A. degree in 1612, he was ordained as the deacon at Petersboro, a town 21 miles north of Abbots Ripton. The Puritans worked to encourage the appointment of their graduates throughout England. As an example, Tom Webster notes that Emanuel College did not actively work to find positions in the Anglican Church for its graduates, stating that this was one reason the Puritans were so successful in getting their students into positions in various regions of England.⁷ John Jones was quickly placed at Petersboro while continuing his studies for the M.A. degree. Once established in a church, the newly installed clerics who worked well with their fellow clergy and the laity were soon able to move to another post when one became available.⁸ This appears to be the case with John Jones who after completing his M.A. degree in 1616 stayed at Petersboro until he was offered the position of pastor at Abbots Ripton in 1619.

The Silencing of John Jones and Peter Bulkeley by Archbishop Laud

William Laud’s appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1625 by Charles I marked the beginning of a powerful and oppressive attack against the Puritan movement in England, and led to the eventual migration to North America of some of England’s finest clergymen. The new policies directly affecting the Puritans were the Instructions of 1629. The four major recommendations that created great concern stated:

1.   That all afternoon sermons should be turned into catechizing by question and answer.

2.   That all lecturers should read divine service before their lectures in surplice and hood.

3.   That only combination lecturers, a company of grave and orthodox divines near adjoining, should preach in market-towns.

4.   That all lecturers maintained by corporation should take upon themselves as cure within the town, and, until one became available, undergo suspension.⁹

Peter Bulkley’s silencing and removal in 1634 from the pulpit at Odell came very late compared to John Jones’s removal from Abbots Ripton in 1630. What does this tell us about these two men? First, both men were opposed to the new Instructions and committed to keeping all symbols of the Catholic Church out of the Anglican Church. Secondly, the quickness of Jones’s removal reveals him as being very outspoken and passionate in his defiance of the Instructions. Of the two, he appears to have had more of a rebel spirit than Bulkeley.

Peter Bulkeley, coming from a family with a strong aristocratic, conservative background, may have been able to use extensive family connections as protection for a time. What turned the tide against Bulkeley was his refusal to attend the 1634 visit of Sir Nathaniel Brent, the Vicar-General and a Laud supporter. These visitations became the primary tool used by Laud’s allies to identify non-conforming Puritans within the Anglican Church and solicit as much evidence against them as could be found to justify the charges Laud made for their silencing.¹⁰ Peter Bulkeley’s refusal was seen as a public act of disobedience that led to his being questioned. His subsequent confession that he refused to wear a surplice (the white garment worn over a minister’s outer garments at religious services) or a cross during baptism became the major charge brought against him. He accounted them ceremonies, superstitions and dissentaneous to the holy Word of God.¹¹

On 3 June 1630, John Jones was removed from his church at Abbots Ripton, Huntingdon County for refusing to adhere to rites and ceremonies in the book of public prayers.¹² Ruth Wheeler clearly implies that threats were issued against Jones’s exercising any ministerial function at all. She describes John Jones as a hapless cleric, who had been tried and found guilty of non-conformity after warnings from the High Court. She further describes his plight as he is driven from place to place, supporting a growing family by being dependent on the mercy, kindness, and financial support from a few courageous parishioners in town after town. This was how he was sheltered from the authorities for five years. Wheeler also provides us with a description of the charges against him:

Jones has both proven and confessed to have been uncontrollable, pugnacious, refractory, disobedient, stubborn and incorrigible to the ecclesiastical ordinances and constitutions . . . concerning the form and manner of celebration of the Divine Services of the Church. Nor had he, though warned frequently, earnestly, and lawfully to take his corporal oath to answer faithfully the articles against him, being willing to do so.¹³

All the words Wheeler uses to describe John Jones in his resistance to the Instructions portray him as a man totally defiant in his opposition to everything Laud and the King were doing to the Anglican Church.

As a result, John Jones lived the next five years of his life as a bootleg preacher, and it is during the years of 1630 to 1635 that John Jones benefited greatly from the network of clerical friends. Eva LaPlante uses the term bootleg preacher in American Jezebel (2004) to describe another Puritan, John Wheelwright, who was removed from his pulpit at Bilsby in 1632. LaPlante’s description of Wheelwright, who became an ally of Anne Hutchinson in Massachusetts, provides additional evidence of the hardships imposed on many Puritans living in shadow. Wheelwright went into hiding. He likely served Puritans privately, but his whereabouts were unknown until early 1636, when he sailed to Massachusetts with his wife, children, and mother-in-law, Susan Hutchinson, and moved temporarily into Anne and Will’s Boston house.¹⁴ Jones’s situation is very similar to John Wheelwright’s, but even more so to Thomas Shepard who was also silenced at nearly the same time as Jones and would leave for America on the Defense with Jones in 1635.

Deprived of a pulpit, John Jones became dependent on the Puritan community for assistance. It was the policy of this fraternity of Puritan friends to help each other. They attended conferences and held meetings frequently. As described by Francis Bremer in his book John Winthrop, America’s Forgotten Founding Father (2003), these conferences provided forums in which ministers could discuss and reach conclusions about issues that were troubling them and acted as authorizing mechanisms whereby the clergy could return to their parishes with the reputation of the group reinforcing the positions they would advance.¹⁵ Among other things, conferences provided a means to keep the clergy informed of the latest victims of Laud’s silencing. Living just 35 miles apart in a neighboring county, Peter Bulkeley certainly heard of the removal of John Jones from the Abbots Ripton pulpit, as well as of all others, and possibly met Jones at some point before the journey to America.

Conferencing among the Puritan clergy allowed the now illegal and silenced ministers opportunities to share the fellowship with other members of their community and to find sympathetic families who provided safe havens from the Laudian authorities. As John Wheelright, Thomas Shepard and John Jones show us, these silenced ministers lived for many years in an underground subculture serving parishioners privately, often in their homes. Francis Bremer provides this description of how this worked:

While private homes were often the places for such services, other venues, including ships in port, were also used. Joining this underground community was the course chosen by many who sought to continue the practice of their reformed faith while escaping both martyrdom and the option of exile.¹⁶

The clerical community also created ways to offer financial support for the silenced and unemployed ministers. In fact, during this period, financial contributions from 18 ministers provided support for their silenced brethren in 11 counties.¹⁷ There was also the help and shelter provided by the laity.

One important factor in the successful maintenance of the silenced ministers is the support they received from the laity. An often under emphasized fact is that the laity equally opposed the efforts of Laud and Charles I to make the Anglican Church conform more with the ways of the Catholic church. Avihi Zakai claims in his essay The Gospel of Reformation: the Origins of the Great Puritan Migration, that there was a growing need for the ministers of New England because huge numbers of the laity had opted to move there. Many laymen chose migration over living with Laud’s guidelines and forced changes.¹⁸

Almost immediately after he was silenced in 1634, Peter Bulkeley made a decision to move his family to America. Like many other Puritans considering the same move, he was highly influenced by the number of important Puritan friends who had already left England, in particular, John Cotton and Thomas Hooker. Unlike many of the ministers, he had the means to not only pay for his passage and that of his family, but also to pay for the building