Rev. John White

1575 - 1674  (99 years)

• Name	John White  [1]
  Prefix	Rev.
  Born	6 Jan 1575	Stanton St. John, Oxfordshire, England   [2]
  Gender	Male
  Died	21 Jul 1674	Dorchester, Dorset, England   [2]
  Siblings	1 sibling
  + 1. Mary White ,   b. Abt 1570,   d. 1637, Dorchester, Dorset, England  (Age ~ 67 years)   2. Rev. John White ,   b. 6 Jan 1575, Stanton St. John, Oxfordshire, England ,   d. 21 Jul 1674, Dorchester, Dorset, England  (Age 99 years)
  Person ID	I35694	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others
  Last Modified	3 Sep 2021

  
  

  Father	John White,   b. of Stanton St. John, Oxfordshire, England ,   d. Between 30 Sep 1616 and 26 Sep 1618
  Mother	Isabel Bawle,   d. Aft 1600
  Family ID	F11166	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  "White was associated with Dorchester for over forty years and if his remaining sermons display a distinct Calvinistic streak he none the less remained a conforming minister of the Church of England, holding traditional views on the nature of divinely appointed authority. Even though he attempted to conduct his religious services within the letter of the law and continued to wear a surplice into the 1640s White became an important figure in the puritan transatlantic network which opposed the religious reforms of Archbishop Laud. His successful attempt to reform Dorchester, a sleepy backwater with something of an unsavoury reputation, eventually won him the title of the Patriarch of Dorchester." [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography] From Wikipedia (accessed 1 Sep 2021): White himself never sailed to America. About 1623 he interested himself in sending out a colony of Dorset men to settle in Massachusetts, allowing nonconformists to enjoy liberty of conscience. The attempt by the Dorchester Company to plant a colony at Cape Ann with Thomas Gardner as Overseer, at what would become Gloucester, Massachusetts, did not prove at first successful; in the previous decade, only about 500 English colonists had established a foothold, and this Company was wound up by 1625. White then recruited emigrants from the western counties of Dorset, Somerset and Devon, who set sail a few years later as a better-supported expedition and organised church aboard the ship Mary and John. White made many trips to London from Dorchester, working to obtain a patent in 1628 for lands between the parallel lines 3 miles (5 km) south of the Charles River to 3 miles (5 km) north of the Merrimack River. He obtained the sponsorship of London merchants for a new colony in the New World. Concerned about conflicting claims to land given to several companies active in the north-east of the New World, the New England Company sought and was granted a Royal Charter on 4 March 1629, becoming the Massachusetts Bay Company. The Massachusetts Company had Richard Saltonstall as a chief shareholder. White was a member of the company, and on 30 Nov. he was nominated one of the committee to value the joint stock. John Endecott was sent out as governor. Francis Higginson and Samuel Skelton were chosen and approved by White as ministers, and sailed for the Dorchester colony on 4 May 1629 aboard the George Bonaventura. The charter enabled John Winthrop to hire a fleet of what would eventually comprise eleven ships, later called the Winthrop Fleet, to bring a new wave of emigrants across the Atlantic. John Winthrop sailed in the Arbella, White holding a service on board before she sailed. The Mary and John was the first, carrying 140 people recruited by White. In June 1630 they landed and founded the settlement of Dorchester, Massachusetts. The eleven ships transported about 700 colonists to the New World. In 1632 and 1636 White was corresponding with John Winthrop (who urged White to visit the colony) about cod-lines and hooks to be sent, as well as flax of a suitable growth for Rhode Island. From 1630 to 1640 ships carried about 10,000 English colonists to the New World in what has been called the Great Migration. Later in the 1630s White was under suspicion for his financial dealings. About 1635 or 1636 White was examined before Sir John Lambe about some papers seized in his study, and relating to a considerable sum of money sent by White to Dr. John Stoughton. This turned out to be in part a legacy from one Philippa Pitt, bequeathed to White for good causes, and in part disbursements for the colonists in New England. White produced particulars of these in his note-books, and after six months' attendance before the court of high commission, he was discharged and the informant against him reprimanded.

  
  

• Sources

  [S5931] Robert Charles Anderson, "The Mary & John: Developing Objective Criteria for a Synthetic Passenger List." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 147:148, 1993. [S76] The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2004-ongoing.