John Davenport was an English clergyman. Having been unable to preach neither in England, nor in Holland for his judgements, he set sail to America and became one of the first founders of the American colony of New Haven.
Background
John Davenport was born in 1597 at Coventry, England was baptized there in the Church of the Holy Trinity, April 9, 1597, presumably a few days after his birth, the exact date of which is unknown; the fifth son of Henry Davenport who was mayor of Coventry, Warwickshire, in 1613, after having been chamberlain and sheriff, and who had married, as his first wife, Winifred, daughter of Richard Barnabit. The American compiler of the Davenport genealogy traces the family back in the direct line to Ormus de Dauneporte who was born in 1086. In any case the line was an ancient and honorable one.
Education
As a boy Davenport attended the Free Grammar School of Coventry, at the age of sixteen going up to Oxford, where he apparently became a member of Merton College in 1613.
After two years he transferred to Magdalen but left without taking his degree because he did not have sufficient money to continue.
Career
In 1615 Davenport was preaching in the private chapel of Hilton Castle, near Durham, probably as chaplain to the Hilton family. He was there until at least March 1616 but after that the record is blank until June 1619 when we find him chosen curate of the Church of St. Lawrence Jewry in London. Here he became acquainted with members of the growing Puritan party and with some noble families, notably the Veres.
In 1624 he was elected to the vicarage of St. Stephen’s in Coleman Street, the adjoining parish, and one of the rare ones in which the parishioners had the right of electing their own vicar.
The election met with much ecclesiastical opposition, and in a series of letters Davenport disclaimed any Puritan leanings and professed complete confortuity.
He was finally allowed to enter upon his work and in 1625 returned to Magdalen for a short time where he took his degree as Bachelor of Divinity. He appears to have been a faithful vicar to his flock, rendering particularly notable service when he remained at his post in London throughout the great plague of 1625. It is impossible to say how early Davenport may have turned to the Puritan wing of the church but about this time we find him becoming closely associated with it. He appears to have become the spiritual adviser of that stanch Puritan, Lady Mary Vere, and in 1629 he was deeply interested in the procuring of the charter for the Massachusetts Company. Although not named as an incorporator, he contributed £50 and attended several meetings of the corporation.
He became an object of suspicion to Laud from having been one of a group who had formed a plan of buying up certain lay impropriations in order to elect and provide ministers for such parts of England as most needed them.
Innocent and even admirable as the plan was, its possibilities of erecting a sort of minor ecclesiastical organization within the larger one of the Church of England were obvious and it was impossible that it should escape the condemnation of the higher powers.
The leaders were proceeded against, and the considerable amount of money already spent in the purchase of the impropriations was confiscated to the Crown, although personal criminal proceedings were dropped.
By 1632 Davenport seems to have definitely become a non-conformist, though still hoping that he might continue within the Church. He entertained John Cotton while in London on his flight to America, and talked over the problems of the times with him, but it was not until it was definitely known that Laud was to become archbishop that Davenport himself decided to flee the country.
He resigned his cure and on August 5, 1633 escaped from London into the country, crossing to Holland about three months later. Arrived at Haarlem he was invited to become the assistant in the Reverend John Paget’s English church; but he objected to the baptism of children whose parents were not themselves leading Christian lives, came into conflict with the Dutch Classis, and was obliged to stop preaching within six months of his arrival.
As usual, a printed controversy started, and Davenport, who had entered the lists before leaving England, published several pamphlets. Since he was unable to preach either in England or Holland, his thoughts now naturally turned to New England. His friend John Cotton had written to him of conditions there. Moreover the closest friend of his entire life from boyhood on, Thcophilus Eaton the London merchant, had also been much interested in the founding of the Massachusetts colony.
Davenport therefore returned to England, probably early in 1637, for the purpose of emigrating to America. Eaton decided to go also and as joint leaders of a new expedition the two set sail with their company, arriving at Boston in the Hector and another vessel, June 26, 1637.
On arrival, the party remained in Boston about nine months, having reached the little town in the midst of the exciting Antinomian controversy, in which Davenport took part.
For a number of reasons, they decided not to remain but to establish an independent colony, and in April 1638 settled at the present New Haven in Connecticut. Eaton became governor and Davenport pastor of the church in the new colony.
Church and state were closely united and a New England clergyman was almost of necessity a politician, but, although never shirking his duties in that regard, Davenport seems to have been rather less aggressively political than most of the cloth.
Throughout his life his biography is largely that of the colony, but he found time also to publish many tracts and small volumes on religious topics.
In 1661 the somewhat even tenor of his life was punctuated by a dramatic incident—the coming to the colony of the regicide judges Whalley and Goffe.
Pursued by the vengeance of the returned Stuarts, the two proscribed men had landed at Boston and after a time, deeming it safer, had retreated farther into the wilderness. Davenport had generously paved the way for them at New Haven by a scries of sermons and there they found refuge temporarily while the royal officers searched for them. It is said that for a month they remained hid in Davenport’s own house. He, however, disclaimed all knowledge of their whereabouts in a letter which one of his Connecticut biographers says he wishes “for his sake were blotted out. ”
About this time he also took part in the controversy which was rending New England and which resulted in the adoption of the “Half Way Covenant” to which he was strenuously opposed.
When Connecticut was applying for a new charter and it became evident that New Haven might be absorbed by its largest neighbor, Davenport began to take a more active and leading part in politics.
He spoke a number of times in meetings of the New Haven Freemen, strongly denouncing the proposed union, denying that they could be legally annexed or that they should ever voluntarily give up their independence. With Nicholas Street he was appointed to draw up the pamphlet called New Haven’s Case Stated. When the union was finally consummated he felt that Christ’s interest was “miserably lost. ” This failure of his life’s work, as he felt it, was perhaps influential in his acceptance of a call which came to him, in 1667, to the pastorate of the First Church in Boston, following the death of John Wilson.
The church in New Haven was opposed to his dismission.
Whatever his reasons may have been, Davenport evidently wished to go to Boston.
The church there was divided on the question of the call, a considerable body opposing it, in part because of Davenport’s position on the Half Way Covenant.
Certain of the elders in favor of Davenport felt that the two letters sent him by his former congregation would not be considered adequate as dismission in Boston, and, with his knowledge, these were suppressed and a portion only of the second one was read to the Boston church.
The true state of affairs was finally revealed and resulted in a great scandal.
Davenport claimed, incorrectly, a certain amount of ignorance but defended the three elders and his own son, who he said had written the abstract of the letter. This episode was the most disastrous in Davenport’s life, which it probably shortened. It had, as all religious matters then had, its political repercussions and, combined with the feeling over the Half Way Covenant, resulted in a split in the First Church and the founding of the Third. It was an example, and not the first, in Davenport’s life, of his acceptance of the doctrine that the end justifies the means. The letters, however, from the New Flaven church indicated a deep love and reverence for their pastor.
He lived in Boston only a few months, dying on March, 15 or 16, according to varying accounts, in the year 1669/70. Leonard Bacon in his Thirteen Historical Discourses (1830) devotes considerable space to him in the naturally laudatory fashion of a fellow Congregational divine. A somewhat more scholarly account, with a bibliography, is given by Franklin B. Dexter in his “Life and Writings of John Davenport” in the Nezv Haven Colony Ilist Soc. Papers, vol. II (1877). The descent of the family has been worked out by A. B. Davenport in Hist, and Geneal of the Davenport Family (1851) and Supplement to the History (1876) which include a number of documents and letters. The letter written by Davenport and Eaton relative to planting the colony in New Haven, addressed to the Massachusetts General Court, has been reprinted many times.
Achievements
John Davenport was one of the ten signers of a letter to the General Court of Connecticut asking for delay and that New Haven might remain a distinct colony until more definite news came from Winthrop.
Connections
Davenport married Elizabeth Wolley and had had a son John, born, it is said without proof, in London in 1635. The child was left in England and did not arrive at New Haven until 1639.
