Davenport, John

Davenport, John, 1597–1670, Puritan clergyman, one of the founders of New Haven, Conn., b. Coventry, England, educated at Merton and Magdalen colleges, Oxford. Starting as a Church of England cleric, Davenport turned more and more to nonconformity. As pastor of an influential London parish he fostered the Puritan cause and in 1633 had to flee to Holland. There he also got into theological troubles, and, after returning to England, he and Theophilus Eaton headed a party of Puritan colonists who sailed (1637) to New England. In 1638, Davenport led the colonists to a spot chosen by Eaton, and New Haven colony was founded. Davenport was minister in New Haven and a powerful figure in the colony until he lost (1665) the bitter fight to prevent the union of New Haven colony and Connecticut. In 1667 he accepted the call to the First Church in Boston, where new theological disputes caused many of his congregation to secede and form the Third or Old South Church.

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Davenport, John

(born April 1597, Coventry, Warwickshire, Eng.—died c. March 15, 1670, Boston, Mass.) British-American Puritan clergyman. A vicar in London, he moved to Amsterdam in 1633 and served there as co-pastor of the English Church. In 1637 he left for America with Theophilus Eaton (c. 1590–1658) and their followers. They founded a colony at Quinnipiac (New Haven) in 1638; Davenport became pastor of the New Haven church, and Eaton was chosen governor. After failing to prevent New Haven's union with the Connecticut colony, Davenport left in 1667 to lead the First Church in Boston.

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Davenport, John (1597–1670) clergyman, author, colonist; born in Coventry, England. He became an Anglican minister in 1625 but was attracted to the Puritan faith and became a full dissenter by 1632. He resigned his post and preached briefly in Holland before emigrating to Boston (1637). With his boyhood friend, Theophilus Eaton, he founded the New Haven Colony in 1638. He was the pastor of the church there (1638–67). He sheltered the English regicides, Edward Whalley and William Goffe, in 1661. He opposed the Half-Way Covenant and the merging of New Haven into the Connecticut colony. He left for Boston in 1667 and was briefly the pastor of the First Church there.