John Davenport

English and colonial American clergyman

• Born: April 1, 1597
• Birthplace: Coventry, Warwickshire, England
• Died: March 15, 1670
• Place of death: Boston, Massachusetts

A controversial clergyman who embraced Calvinism and Puritanism, John Davenport immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. He helped to establish the New Haven Colony in what became Connecticut.

Early Life

The fifth son of Henry Davenport and Winifred Barnabit Davenport, John Davenport came from a socially conscious, politically involved family. His father was chamberlain and sheriff of Coventry before becoming its mayor in 1613, the year in which sixteen-year-old John enrolled as a student at Merton College, Oxford. Two years later, the young man moved from Merton to Magdalen College, but lacking funds to continue his studies, in 1615 he left school and began preaching in the private chapel of Hilton Castle.

In 1619, he became a curate in London’s Church of Saint Lawrence Jewry, where he was first attracted to the tenets of Puritanism and Calvinism. Davenport was reputed to be a riveting preacher, although the highly controversial ideas he expressed often raised hackles within his congregation.

In 1624, when he was a candidate for the vicarage of Saint Stephen’s Church, several church leaders opposed his appointment because they considered his Puritan views dangerously extreme. He was appointed vicar, however, after writing persuasive letters to the congregation in which he denied having Puritan leanings. He gained the support and confidence of his congregation, especially after he chose to remain in London to minister to his parishioners during the plague of 1625, the same year in which he completed a bachelor’s degree in divinity at Magdalen College.

Life’s Work

Still wrestling to formulate his religious philosophy, Davenport fell under the influence of Lady Mary Vere and John Cotton, both discontented with what they considered England’s religious oppression. In 1629, they convinced him to contribute money to the movement petitioning the king to obtain a charter for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Many supporters of this movement had Puritan leanings. They felt compelled to leave England, which was then suffering the dire consequences of the Thirty Years’ War that raged from 1618 to 1638, virtually destroying the economically crucial English textile industry. This situation, combined with a series of crop failures, resulted in famine and crippling poverty throughout much of England.

The anti-Puritan William Laud, who became archbishop of Canterbury in 1629, used his powerful office to discriminate against clergymen with Puritan leanings and went so far as to have some of them imprisoned. The following year, when the Massachusetts Bay Colony was granted its charter, some twenty thousand people fled from the religious persecution of England to the New England colony. John Davenport, however, was not among them.

Davenport continued preaching in London until August, 1633, when, pressured by Archbishop Laud’s disapproval, he finally fled to the Netherlands, where he remained until 1637. Because his radical religious views were shunned by the Dutch, Davenport could not preach in the Netherlands. Therefore, after almost three years in Amsterdam, he and his wife, Elizabeth, set sail for the New England colony, accompanied by John’s friend from his childhood, Theophilus Eaton, and a group of his followers whose passage was subsidized by Eaton. This group arrived in Boston in June, 1637.

The new arrivals quickly discerned that the Massachusetts Bay Colony was being torn apart, both by internal strife and by disputes with its neighbors. More liberal groups within the colony complained that the religious strictures placed upon them were too severe and sought to have them relaxed. Davenport, Eaton, and their followers, on the other hand, were convinced that the colony’s rules and regulations were too lax and needed to be intensified.

Finally, in April, 1638, Davenport and Eaton, realizing that they were fighting a losing battle in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, defected. They traveled south to modern-day Connecticut, where they established the New Haven Colony on the Quinnipiac River. The new colony, a strict theocracy based upon Puritan and Calvinist principles, was well situated for trade with New Amsterdam to the south and Massachusetts to the north, yet it was sufficiently isolated geographically that its inhabitants could function independently.

The New Haven Fundamental Principles of 1639, made it clear that the new colony was Bible-based and that secular laws were considered secondary to biblical laws. Only church members, freemen, were permitted to vote. Church membership was extended only to a select few. Jury trials were banned as antibiblical.

Davenport was the most influential clergyman in the new colony and Eaton was elected governor by the freemen, most of whom were prosperous traders and merchants. Davenport and Eaton based their fledgling colony on John Cotton’s strict, Calvinist legal system, as outlined in his Model of Moses His Judicials (1636), which the Massachusetts Bay Colony had declined to use, considering it too repressive. Because church and state were virtually one in the new colony, Davenport’s role as a leading clergyman was highly political. He and Eaton ran the colony for the next twenty-four years.

Davenport was a prolific writer. Notable among his publications were such pamphlets as An Answer of the Elders of the Severall Churches in New England (1643) and Another Essay for Investigation of the Truth (1663). The former sought to systematize the religious principles by which Davenport thought his church should be guided. The latter was a strong protest against the “Half-Way Covenant” that, after its approval by the synod in 1662, permitted children of members of the congregation who had not professed their faith to be baptized nevertheless.

In 1662, John Winthrop, Jr., asked King Charles II to grant him a charter to establish a new colony that would include the whole of Connecticut, including the New Haven Colony. Contending that the New Haven Colony was an autonomous entity that could not be annexed legally, Davenport protested vehemently against granting the charter for which Winthrop had petitioned. He coauthored a detailed, carefully reasoned protest entitled New Haven’s Case Stated (1662).

In the previous year, however, Davenport had provided refuge to two regicide judges, Edward Davenport and William Goffe, who had served during the reign of King Charles I. The two fled to the New Haven Colony seeking asylum. Davenport’s willingness to allow them sanctuary presumably did not pass unnoticed when Charles II reviewed and approved Winthrop’s petition for a charter.

Distressed by the king’s decision, Davenport vowed to leave Connecticut. In 1667, he decided to accept a call to become the minister of Boston’s First Church. It was, however, incumbent on ministers making such a move to be formally released by their former church. When Davenport’s congregation in New Haven declined to grant him the release he sought, he arranged to have letters from his Connecticut congregation suppressed, so that church leaders in Boston could not take them into account.

Davenport was duly appointed to the ministry in Boston. Late in 1669, however, his deception was revealed, bringing considerable calumny upon him. As this scandal unfolded, Davenport fell into a depression. He died in Boston in March of the following year.

Significance

Davenport’s was a life of service, but it was lived within such narrow religious confines that in time it became a life that was clouded by shame. A breathtaking preacher and persuasive apologist for his religious and political beliefs, Davenport could function effectively only with people who shared his dogma and who were willing to lead the austere life that his Puritan and Calvinist religious philosophy mandated.

Davenport was, however, instrumental, along with Theophilus Eaton, in establishing a thriving colony in southern Connecticut. Under their guidance, the colony was constructed rapidly and encouraged the prosperity of its members. Considerable effort went into structuring this community both physically and morally. Davenport was the chief impetus behind creating the New Haven Colony, which in time became the city of New Haven, Connecticut. He deserves credit for his efforts, but his life also emphasizes the futility of attempting to control stringently the religious lives of a diverse populace.

Bibliography

Dexter, Franklin B. Life and Writings of John Davenport. New Haven, Conn.: New Haven Colony Historical Society Papers, 1877. This compilation of Davenport’s most crucial writings is essential to serious Davenport scholars. Quite specialized. Not for the inexperienced.

Girod, Christina M. Connecticut. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2002. This book will provide useful background for adolescent readers. It offers a snapshot of John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton as founders of the New Haven Colony. Accurate, enticing, and accessible.

Johnson, Paul. A History of the American People. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. One of the best sources on life in colonial New England in the seventeenth century. The presentation is interesting and direct.

Sherrow, Victoria. Connecticut. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1998. This profusely illustrated book, although it does not mention Davenport directly, offers useful background information in an appealing format.