John Warham (1595- 1670) was the leader of a Puritan movement

John Warham (1595- 1670) was the leader of a Puritan movement

Rev. John Warham was the leader of a Puritan movement beginning in the County of Somerset, England, at the time of the Pilgrims, and ending with the settlement of Connecticut's first town ~ Windsor.

John Warham was baptised on October 9, 1595, in Crewkerne, the son of Richard Waring or Richard WARHAM and Agnes COOK alias HOWPER.. John graduated from Oxford University in 1618 and was ordained an Anglican minister on May 23, 1619 at Silverton, Devon. He then settled in Witheridge, Devon. He married Cecilia Hatch of Cullompton, Devon, on June 17, 1619.

Upon the death of his father in 1623, Warham returned to his childhood home of Crewkerne, in nearby Somerset. As the new Crewkerne rector, he preached Puritanism in defiance of the Church of England. In 1627, Bishop William Laud dismissed Warham for these Puritan views, but Warham just moved on to St. Sidwell's Church in Exeter, Devon, taking at least several of his congregation with him, including William Gaylord, Humphrey Pinney, William Phelps, George Hull, & Giles Gibbs ~ all of whom who would eventually follow Warham to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and thence to Windsor, CT.

In 1630, Warham led a group of his followers to New England, sailing from Plymouth, England, on the "William & Mary". They settled initially in the south corner of Boston Harbor, where they founded the town of Dorchester. Within a few years, however, Warham and his followers moved again, as part of the first settlement of the new Colony of Connecticut, founding a village they also named Dorchester. In 1637, this new village, located at the navigable headwaters of the Connecticut River just north of today's Hartford, was renamed Windsor.

In his will of 1623, John's father implies that John was then single with the phrase "in case he should marry." The purported will of Rev. John WARHAM was rejected by the court Nov. 23, 1670, and administration of his estate was granted to his threee sons-in-law. The estate had been inventoried on Apr. 30, 1670 at £1239.10.00. John was married first Jun. 8, 1625 at Stoke Abbott, Dorset to Susanna GOLLOPPE, who could have been the daughter of Gybbes GALLOP who married John's aunt Magdalen as her second husband. Susanna, who died in 1634 at Dorchester, MA, was the mother of his first five children. Married second in 1637, probably at Windsor, CT; and third Oct. 9, 1662 Abigail SEARLE (d. May 18, 1684, Windsor, CT), widow of John BRANKER.

Jane DABINOTT (second Wife , daughter Esther is our line) - b. about 1610, probably at Chardstock, Dorset, England; d. Apr. 23, 1645, Norwalk, CT. Widow of Thomas NEWBERRY (his second wife) and believed to be the daughter of John DABINOTT and Johane of Chardstock - if so, she was bap. Jun. 12, 1611. The first daughter of Jane and Thomas, Rebecca NEWBERRY (b. 1633; d. Nov. 21, 1688), married in 1652 Rev. John RUSSELL, Jr., as his second wife. The second daughter of Jane and Thomas, Hannah NEWBERRY (b. about 1634), married Thomas HANFORD. Jane became mother of the four youngest daughters of Rev. WARHAM.