Background
John Brierton was born in 1572 in Norwich, Norfolk, England, the son of Cuthbert Brierton, a dealer in textile fabrics, and Joan Howse. He was a grandson of Sir Randle Brereton of Malpas, Cheshire, was a farmer of small estate.
His fourth son, Cuthbert, settled at Norwich where he prospered as a mercer, attaining in 1576 the civic honor of the shrievalty. By his marriage to Joan Howse of the same city he made a family of several children in which John Brierton was his third son.
Education
John attended Norwich Grammar School and at seventeen was admitted to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, as a pensioner. He took a bachelor's degree in 1592-93 and proceeded M. A. in 1596.
Career
Having taken deacon's orders a few months before, Brierton entered the priesthood at Norwich June 24, 1598. His first charge was the curacy of Lawshall, Suffolk, a parish not far from Hessett. Here resided the family of Bacon, cousins of Bartholomew Gosnold.
With this navigator Brierton and thirty others embarked in a small vessel, the Concord, sailing from Falmouth March 26, 1602. That Brierton sailed with Gosnold has been denied but new evidence destroys the objection. Setting a western course Gosnold crossed the Atlantic and made a landfall on the southern coast of Maine.
He touched at Cape Cod where with Brierton and three others he spent an afternoon on shore. The leaders of the expedition selected Elizabeth's Isle, now Cuttyhunk, as a base, and remained there about three weeks, busying themselves with trade and undertaking a hasty reconnaissance of the country. Brierton afterward wrote of the New England coast with enthusiasm. The party sailed from Cuttyhunk on June 17 and dropped anchor before Exmouth, Devon, July 23, 1602.
On October 29, 1602, a stationer of London, George Bishop, who had already brought out Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, and who was in 1605 to stand sponsor for Rosier's narrative of the Waymouth voyage, entered at Stationers' Hall the pamphlet published under the title of A Briefe and True Relation of the Discouerie of the North Part of Virginia.
Brierton's pamphlet furnishes an optimistic account of the natural advantages of the region which was to become New England, and tells the story of Gosnold's voyage. Some trace of the influence of Verrazano's Letter, lately published by Hakluyt, can be detected in it. The pamphlet was well received and a second, augmented impression was called for within the year. It is to-day a work of extreme rarity; a copy of the later issue sold in 1926 for $2, 200. The writing of this short discourse is Brierton's only significant connection with American affairs. In 1604 he was again at Lawshall.
In 1619 he was rector of Brightwell, Suffolk, a parish but a few miles from Grundisburgh, the home of Bartholomew Gosnold. The date of his death has not been ascertained.
