Rev. Peter Prudden and Jane Thomas
Husband Rev. Peter Prudden
Born: 1601 - Kings Walden, Herfordshire, England Christened: Died: Jul 1656 - Milford, New Haven, Connecticut Buried:
Father: Robert Prudden (1561-1617) Mother: Mildred (Abt 1565- )
Marriage: Bef 1633
Other Spouse: Johanna Boyce ( -1683) - 2 Jul 1637
Wife Jane Thomas
Born: Christened: Died: Buried:
Children
General Notes (Husband)
Peter was the first pastor of Milford and ordained 11 Apr 1640 in New Haven where he lived in the Hertfordshire quarters. He had lot #40 in Milford, which is on the present Prospect St. His garden served as teh first burial ground of Milford.
The "First Congregational Society" was the first organized church raised up in Milford, in the year 1639, and Rev. Peter Prudden is thought to have been the first preacher in the town. He had come to the new settlement from Wethersfield. He, along with six others have been called "the seven pillars" of the church. The other six were namely, William Fowler, Thomas WELCH, Thomas BUCKINGHAM, E. Tapp, Zachariah Whitman and John Atwood.
An article in The Connecticut Magazine Vol. V. No. 3 March, 1899 titled "Early Milford" by M. Louise Greene says,
"The Milford men came in two bodies, those of 1639 and those of 1645. Most of them were from the English counties of Essex, Hereford and York. There were fifty-four heads of families or approximately two hundred settlers. Some came from New Haven, others from Wethersfield, following Rev. Peter Prudden who had ministered there between the formation of his own church at New Haven, August 22, 1639, and his ordination as pastor of the Milford church, April 18, 1640, after which Mr. Prudden took up his residence in Milford."
From History of New Haven Colony, it appears that Rev. Peter Prudden, clergyman of Hereford, was well known to people who joined the association that founded New Haven. After two years, a number separated themselves from New Haven and joined Peter Prudden in founding Milford, apparently by themselves. "The Herefordshire people" "can be with more certainty distinguished from their fellow-passengers, and grouped together, than those from Kent or those from London."
en. 8: Rev. Peter PRUDDEN and Johanna BOYSE
P. 25: "REV. PETER PRUDDEN, born Dec. 1601. Merchant Taylors' School, London, 1616-7; Emmanuel College, Cambridge 1620; m. Jane Thomas, dau. of William Thomas, gent., of Abergavenny, co. Monmouth, Wales, before 1633. Preached Herefordshire, England. At Boston, Mass., June 26, 1637; New Haven and Wethersfield, Conn., 1638; m. secondly in New England, Joanna Boyse, of Roxbury, Mass., dau. of Rev. John Boyse, of Halifax, co. York, England. Pastor of Milford, Conn., Church 1640-1656. Died July 1656. For further particulars, and an account of his nine children by his second wife, see the book, Peter Prudden ; New England Register, vol. 84, pp. 62-68 ; and Families of Old Fairfield, vol. 1, pp. 494-495."
P. 1: "In 1702, the first biographical account of the life of Rev. Peter Prudden, of Milford, Conn., was published by Rev. Cotton Mather in his Magnalia, Book III, Chap. VI. Mr. Mather says of Mr. Prudden in his history of the Church and its leaders in New England that "God had marvellously blessed his ministry in England, unto many about Herefordshire, and near Wales; from whence when he came into New England, there came therefore many considerable persons with him," and the "He continued an able, and faithful servant of the churches, until about the fifty-sixth year of his own age, and the fifty-sixth of the present age; when his death was felt by the colony as the fall of a pillar, which made the whole fabrick to shake." Mr. Mather, who was undoubtedly in a position to learn the truth about our subject, living as he did in the same century as Mr. Prudden, hands down in his work to posterity the welcome crumbs of information regarding his life in England that Mr. Prudden preached in county Hereford, England, which adjoins Wales, and that he was born about 1600."
P. 6: "Prior to his departure in the spring of 1637 for the New World, in the company of John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton, Rev. Peter Prudden had apparently had under consideration some plan to cross over to the realms of the crown of England beyond the seas. For, in 1635, English State papers record that a committee for the settlement of Providence Island (one of the Bahamas) entertained hope of Mr. Prudden, a minister, consenting to go over. Two years later the formulation of his plans for a transmaritime migration had taken definite shape, the execution of which saw his arrival at Boston June 26, 1637. Under that date, the Journal 1630-1644 of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts, mention, "There arrived two ships from London, The Hector, and the (blank). In these came Mr. Davenport and another minister, and Mr. Eaton and Mr. Hopkins, two merchants of London, men of fair estate and of great eseteem for religion, and wisdom in outward affairs." Instead of there being but one minister, tradition has maintained that there were actually two: Rev. Peter Prudden and Rev. Samuel Eaton, brother of the merchant, both of whom certainly were partners of Rev. John Davenport in his later exploits and so presumably were from the start. The proof of the correctness of this date of arrival of the Hector and her sister ship in the Journal is to be found in a letter from John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton to the governor, bearing the date of Mar. 12 (1638), stating that their group had then been deliberating almost nine months about their choice of a location for their permanent abode. The nine months' period would have been completed on Mar. 26th, fourteen days from the date of the dispatch of the letter."
P. 7: "Disregarding an offer made in August 1637 to locate at Dedham, Mass. (Town Records of Dedham, vol. 1, p. 41), Mr. Prudden and his band of followers moved with Mr. Davenport and Mr. Eaton's brother to Quinnipiac on Long Island Sound, the site of the future city of New Haven, in April, 1638. Gov. Winthrop says in his Journal, with the date March 30th prefixed, Mr. Davenport and Mr. Prudden, and a brother of Mr. Eaton (being ministers also) went by water to Quinepiack, and with them many families removed out of this jurisdiction to plant in those parts." Associated in the ministry of the new colony at its inception, Mr. Prudden was in the summer of 1639 to share in the foundation of a new community under his own pastorship at Wepawoge, about ten miles southwest of New Haven on the Sound, afterwards known as Milford, Conn. The first deed to the land was received from the Indians on Feb. 12, 1638/9 in the name of William Fowler, Edmund Tapp, Zachariah Whitman, Benjamin Fenn, and Alexander Bryan in trust for the body of planters. The church of the new settlement was organized at New Haven on Aug. 22, 1639. Mr. Peter Prudden appears in the list of Free Planters, Nov. 29, 1639 (Milford Records, vol. 1, p. 1). It was not, however, until Apr. 18, 1640, that Mr. Prudden was ordained pastor of the Milford church. His flock at Milford was composed of many of his original followers. And several of those whom he had impressed during his preaching at Wethersfield, Conn., in the summer of 1638 when the population of that place was in a state of flux and flow, and there was no regularly instituted minister there, joined him in the new enterprise."
P. 8: "During the first two years of his sojourn in New England, Mr. Prudden had married for the second known time with his espousal of Joanna Boyse. their first child was born in Milford, Conn., in August, 1640, and consequently their marriage undoubtedly occurred before that year, and after his landing at Boston, June 26, 1637. His present wife had been a member of the Church at Roxbury, Mass. (now part of Boston). Her name is entered as "Johana Boyse a maide" in the Rev. John Eliot's Record of the members of this church (Boston Record Commissioner's 6th Report, p. 83)."
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