| Notes |
- A “Godly & Well Esteemed Deacon”
Deacon John Dunham (1589-1668)
The earliest Dunham ancestor to come to North America was John Dunham, a Separatist who fled religious persecution in England by first emigrating to Leiden, Holland, and then to Plymouth Colony.
He was born about 1589; a record exists that year of his baptism at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Henlow, Bedfordshire. His father was most likely Richard Dunham, who is recorded as being buried in Langford, Bedfordshire, on 19 November 1624, “an old man.” In his will, Richard left his estate to his son John “at his retourne,” for John was then living in Leiden. But John would never return to collect his inheritance.
On 17 August 1612 John had married Susana Kaino in the Church of St. Mary in Clophill, Bedfordshire. It is likely that by this time he was already a Separatist. Today we tend to think of the terms Separatist, Puritan and Pilgrim as practically synonymous. But Deacon John Dunham, while a Pilgrim, was no Puritan; the heirs of the Separatist tradition are today’s Congregationalists.
William Brewster of Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, was bailiff to the Archbishop of York 1595-1606. He was influenced by the Separatist leader Richard Clyfton, parson of All Saints Church in Babworth, Nottinghamshire, from 1586 to 1605. Separatists believed the Church of England was so corrupt that they would have nothing to do with its worship, teachings or structure. Puritans, by contrast, believed in reforming, or “purifying,” the Church of England from within. For Separatists to hold their own worship services was against the law; the 1559 Act of Uniformity required all citizens to attend Church of England services, with fines imposed for every Sunday and holy day they were absent from services. To attend an unofficial service was to risk even larger fines and possible imprisonment.
When Clyfton was removed from his post, Brewster invited him to live with him in Scrooby. There they began a small Separatist congregation, with John Robinson as the third leader. A member of the Scrooby congregation, William Bradford, who would later become governor of Plymouth Colony, recorded that the persecutions of Separatists (and Catholics, by the way) became unbearable:"But after these things they could not long continue in any peaceable condition, but were hunted & persecuted on every side, so as their former afflictions were but as flea-bitings in comparison of these which now came upon them. For some were taken & clapt up in prison, others had their houses besett & watcht night and day, & hardly escaped their hands; and ye most were faine to flie & leave their howses & habitations, and the means of their livelehood."
The Separatists decided to emigrate to the tolerant city of Leiden, where Brewster had previously served in a diplomatic post. After a number of aborted attempts to flee England, that included bribes, sting operations and imprisonment, a contingent of the Separatists finally arrived in Leiden in 1609.
John and Susanna Dunham were not a part of this original contingent, as their first child, John, was baptized at Henlow on 19 February 1614. It is likely that by the time their second child, Humility, was born in 1617 they were already living in Leiden; their third child, Thomas, was born there in 1619. In Leiden John earned his living as a weaver, and they would attend services conducted by John Robinson, first at Robinson’s house and later in the historic Pieterskerk (Church of St. Peter), which the city of Leiden gave to the Separatist community.
Although many of the Separatists thrived in Leiden, many still felt as foreigners in a foreign land, and yearned to strike out someplace on their own where they could keep their English language and customs. Susanna, however, would not see that day; she died sometime before 1622, when John married Abigail Billiou on 22 October. Their first child together, Samuel, was born about 1623.
By 1620 it was decided that the first contingent of the Separatists would leave Leiden for New England under the leadership of Brewster, with the majority staying with Robinson in Leiden until preparations could be made for their emigration. The first group left in July 1620 from Delftshaven on the Speedwell, meeting up with the Mayflower in Southampton. The Speedwell was, however, sabotaged, so only 102 of the passengers boarded the Mayflower for the Atlantic crossing. They arrived in New England on November 20, 1620.
Meanwhile, back in Leiden, John and Abigail had two more children; Abigail, born about 1626, and Persis, born about 1628. They appear to have come over with the second group of Leiden Separatists in 1629 (their daughter Humility died about this time at the age of 12). Governor Bradford writes: "In Anno 1629 a Considerable Number of the bretheren of the Church which were le[ft] in holland were Transported over to us that were of the Church in New England which although it was att About 500lb charge yett it was bourne Chearfully by the poor bretheren heer Concerned in it."
If the Dunhams were not in the 1629 group, they came shortly thereafter, for their son Jonathan was born about 1631 in Plymouth (In 1694 Jonathan will be ordained a minister in Edgarton, Martha’s Vineyard). Their eighth child, Hannah, was born in 1633. The first official record of John being in Plymouth is a reference in the 1633 will of Peter Brown that John Dunham is owed four shillings from Brown’s estate. Sometime after 1634, John is appointed a deacon of the Plymouth congregation, a post he will hold until his death. Deacon John continues to ply his trade as a weaver, but also acquires a herd of sheep and some cattle.
The ninth child of Deacon John was Joseph Dunham (b. 18 November 1636 in Plymouth, d. March 1703 in Plymouth), from whom I am directly descended. Another son, Benajah, follows about 1638 and the final child, Daniel, was born about 1640.
In 1639, John is elected by the colonists to serve as deputy of the General Court of Plymouth. He must have done a good job, for he was annually re-elected for the next 25 years.
Consider poor Deacon John and Abigail; the deacon has grown prosperous and respectable, but his sons are always getting into trouble. Married clergy with children today can no doubt sympathize with him. Apparently in those days no one warned young people about indiscretions appearing on their “permanent record,” for all the records of their misdeeds are now available to their descendants!
In 1644, Thomas is fined 10 shillings for challenging another colonist to a fight. Two years later John Jr. is accused of poisoning a neighbor’s dog (In 1665 John Jr. would be flogged for beating his wife and then drawing a sword upon himself in a dramatic gesture of remorse). In what was perhaps the first case of stalking in New England, Thomas is again in trouble in 1648; he is the subject of an early restraining order to “abstaine from coming att or sending vnto Martha Knote of Sandwidge.” Thomas and Martha were engaged, but Martha-wisely, it seems-cut off the engagement. And in 1656 Benajah was arraigned “for foolish and provoking carriages, in drawing his knife vpon sundry persons att Taunton.” Benajah, Dude, chill.
In 1660, Joseph Dunham, my eighth-great-grandfather, “complained against Hester, the wife of John Rickard, in an action of slaunder and defamation, to the damage of an hundred pounds, for saying that hee, the said Josepth Dunham, did offer her money to bee naught with her.” This Hannah would be his sister-in-law. Not always the victim, the next year Joseph was sentenced to public humiliation “for diuerse laciuiouse carriages, was sentanced by the Court to sitt in the stockes, with a paper on his hatt on which his fact was written in capitall letters, and likewise to find surties for his good behavior.”
Joseph was in his early 20s when these things happened; he had already married Mercy Morton (abt 1638-19 February 1667) on 18 November 1657 and had one son, my seventh-great-grandfather Eleazer (abt. 1659-abt 1702). Mercy was the daughter of Nathaniel Morton, secretary of the colony who had been born in Leiden in 1613. Secretary Morton, my ninth great-grandfather, had been raised in the household of his uncle Governor Bradford; he was the historian of the colony and is responsible for transmitting all of the written records of Plymouth down to us, much of them in the book New Englands Memorial, the first colonial history. His father, George, was the purported author of Mourt’s Relation, a book published in London to promote emigration to Plymouth, which was actually largely written by Bradford and Edward Winslow.
Joseph would have another son with Mercy, Nathaniel (abt 1662-aft 1734). When Mercy died, Joseph married Hester Wormall (abt 1648-aft 1715); they had six children together.
On March 1, 1668, Deacon John Dunham died. The record of his death notes that he was “an approved servant of God, and a usefull man in his place.” The Plymouth church records note his passing: “on the first day of march dyed, John Dunham, the godly & well esteemed Deacon of the chh, one of 80 yeares old.”
- http://www.stoltzfamily.us/?p=491
Deacon John Dunham was born in 1588-89 probably in Clophill, Bedfordshire, England. The following is from an article by Robert Leigh Ward in the July, 1996 edition of The American Genealogist:
No record of the baptism on John Dunham of Clophill has been found. The International Genealogical Index reveals Dunham, Donham, and Downham entries in the parish registers of nearby Bedfordshire parishes, and just across the border in Hertfordshire.
The probate record of Richard Dunham, the elder, poulter of Langford, some seven miles from Clophill, provides significant support for the conclusion that this is the correct family and that Richard Dunham was Deacon John Dunham's father. In his will, dated 5 October 1624, Richard Dunham left his body "to be buryed in such a place as my Executores shall think convenient." He mentioned son William, son William's son Richard, son John ("my best shirte and Twenty shillings in mony to be payd him at his retorne"), daughter Anne and her son Richard; daughter Elisabeth; residue to son Richard, who was to be executor. "Father Dunham, an old man" was buried at Langford on 19 November 1624, the only entry for that surname in the published parish register. The shirt and money to be paid to John Dunham "at his retorne" shows that the testator's son was away from home; the phrase probably means no more than that John would receive his legacy if he were to return, not that he was expected to do so. At the time, John was in Leyden.
Susan, daughter of Thomas "Cainehoe," was baptized in Clophill on 12 December 1586, and this appears to be the baptism of Deacon John Dunham's first wife. Thomas Caynehoe or Kaino was buried at Clophill on 15 April 1612, and an administration for the estate of Thomas "Keynoe" of Clophill was granted on 7 May 1612 to his widow Joanne; his inventory totaled 9 pounds, 10 shillings and 8 pence. Joanne is apparently the widow Joan Keno buried at Clophill on 7 February 1630. One could speculate that Deacon John's son Thomas Dunham might have been named for Susan's father Thomas Cainho.
These records establish the first marriage of Deacon John Dunham of Plymouth, identify his wife's likely parentage, and provide a strong possibility that Richard Dunham of Langford was his father.
Henlow, Bedfordshire was the home of the brothers John and Edward Tilley, and their brother-in-law Robert Cooper, who are also found at Leyden. The Tilleys came to Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the Mayflower with their wives, John's daughter Elizabeth Tilley, and Edward's nephew Henry Sampson and niece Humility Cooper. It is very tempting to speculate that John Dunham knew the Tilley family in Henlow, and that they removed together from there to Leyden. Note that the extremely unusual forename Humility was given to a daughter in both families at about the same time. Humility Cooper was born in Holland; we do not know where John Dunham's daughter Humility was born.
Possibly the reason John Dunham was not a passenger on the Mayflower in 1620 was due to the illness or death of his wife, Susan. It would make no sense for a single father to take small children on a dangerous ocean voyage to then face the hardships of the American wilderness. John's second marriage to Abigail Ballou occurred October 22, 1622 in Leyden, two years after the departure of the Mayflower. Abigail was a witness to the marriage of her sister Anne to Nathaniel Walker in Leyden in June 15, 1624.
More Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth on the Fortune in 1621, on the Anne and the Little James in 1623, and on a different Mayflower in 1629, but John Dunham was not listed among any of the passengers. In 1630, the Handmaid dropped anchor at Plymouth with 60 on board. The brethren described these arrivals as the "weakest and poorest", which may account for why none of their names were preserved. This was the last of the Pilgrim ships, although a few more brethren strayed in from time to time. At this point organized efforts to colonize Plymouth came to an end due to lack of funding. Emphasis shifted to the well financed Puritan migration farther up the coast at Massachusetts Bay.
The arrival date in Plymouth of John and Abigail Dunham and their children is unknown, but it was probably around 1629-30, possibly on the Handmaid or as independent travelers. In 1633, John was chosen a deacon of the Church of Plymouth under Elder William Brewster
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Abt 1589 - 1669 (~ 80 years)
