- John Oldham
:"For the poet, see
John Oldham (poet) . For the baseball player seeJohn Oldham (baseball) "John Oldham (1592–1636) was an early
Puritan settler inMassachusetts . He was a captain, merchant, and Indian trader. His death at the hands of the Indians was one of the causes of thePequot War of 1636-37. [Bremer, Francis J., and Webster, Tom (eds.) (2006). "Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America", p. 477. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1576076784.]Oldham was born in
Derbyshire , England in 1592, and was baptized at the Church of All Saints inDerby onJuly 14 , 1592. A follower of the Puritans from an early age, he emigrated toPlymouth Colony with his wife, children, and sister in July 1623 aboard the "Anne". Captain John Oldham was the brother of Lucretia Oldham Brewster, who married Jonathan Brewster, son of William Brewster, a signer of theMayflower Compact . Oldham grew rich in coastal trade and trading with the Indians. After being exiled for plotting against the government at Plymouth, Oldham became a representative to the General Court of Massachusetts from 1632 to 1634. He was the overseer of shot and powder forMassachusetts Bay Colony . Oldham's company granted ten acres in assignment of lands in 1623 presumably for each person in Oldham's family and for the following: Conant, Roger, Penn, and Christian. ["Saints and Strangers ",George F. Willison , published by Renal & Hitchcock , NY p.449.)]As a trader, Captain Oldham sailed to Virginia and England, but by 1630 he was back in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
He took up residence on an island in the
Charles River and was a member of the church at Watertown. Oldham represented Watertown in the colony's first General Court or assembly in 1634. He continued in the Indian trade, sailing the coast fromMaine toNew Amsterdam .In 1633 or 1634, Oldham led a group of ten men (which included Captain
Robert Seeley ), along theOld Connecticut Path to establishWethersfield, Connecticut , the first English settlement on theConnecticut River .In July 1636 he was on a voyage to trade with Indians on
Block Island . OnJuly 20 he was boarded by hostile Indians, presumed to bePequot s. He and five of his crew were killed, and two young boys with him were captured. The ship's cargo was looted. A fishing vessel rescued the boys and tried to tow his sloop to port. When adverse winds affected them, they scuttled the ship but brought the two boys home.The Bay Colony was outraged at this latest incident, and sent
John Endicott to Block Island with a force to retaliate.References
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