| Notes |
- The Great Migration Begins
Sketches
PRESERVED PURITAN
JOHN WALKER
ORIGIN: Unknown
MIGRATION: 1633
FIRST RESIDENCE: Roxbury
REMOVES: Boston by 1637, Portsmouth 1638
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: Admitted to Roxbury church as member #71 [RChR 78], among group who arrived in New England in 1633.
FREEMAN: 14 May 1634 [MBCR 1:368]. Freeman at incorporation of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, 7 March 1637/8 [RICR 1:52]. Admitted as a member of the combined government of Portsmouth and Newport, 12 March 1639/40 [RICR 1:100].
EDUCATION: Signed his will by mark.
OFFICES: Portsmouth town council, 30 April 1639 (entry damaged, and rendered in print as "John Wall" [PoTR 3; RICR 1:71]). Portsmouth jury, 1640 [PoTR 18].
ESTATE: Granted one hundred acres at Portsmouth, 10 February 1639/40 [PoTR 9; RICR 1:73].
In his will, dated 18 March 1647[/8] but not recorded until 16 December 1671, John Walker of Portsmouth named "my wife Kathrine Walker" as sole executor and bequeathed to "my daughter Mary Walker twenty acres of land at the upper end of my lot"; to "my daughter Sands twenty acres of land beginning next to Mr. Browning's at the seaside and from thence up to the mill path, and there to butt against my daughter Mary's twenty acres" and if she die "childless then ... this twenty acres shall fall unto her husband James Sands & his heirs forever"; "the work my son-in-law James Sands is now doing he shall have the benefit of it as we have formerly agreed"; "my house with the land that is left shall be my wife's for her lifetime and after her decease to fall to my two daughters to be equally divided between them"; "my daughter Mary's land shall fall unto her at her marriage or at twenty years of age if she marry not before" [PoTR 421-22].
In her undated will (drawn before 2 April 1654 [PoLE 1:23]), recorded 16 December 1671, "Kathrin Walker of Portsmouth" bequeathed moveables to "my daughter Sarah Sands," to "James Sands," and to "my daughter Mary"; to "Goodman Freeborne" a green jacket; to "Allce [Alice]" one jacket; William Freeborne and Adam Mott Sr. to be overseers; "my two daughters Sarah and Mary to be my executors" [PoTR 422-23].
On 2 April 1654 William Earle of Portsmouth, planter, sold to James Sands of Portsmouth fourteen acres "which was possessed by the late deceased the widow Walker"; on the same day Mary Earle noted that "the land and houses or my husband's right & title into them came to him by right of my marriage with me Mary Earle and daughter to the late deceased widow Walker," and gave her consent to the sale [PoLE 1:23]
On 3 December 1656 the proprietors of Portsmouth ordered that "William Earl and James Sands shall have 50 acres of land it being an old grant to John Walker deceased" [PoLE 1:530].
BIRTH: By about 1603 based on estimated date of marriage.
DEATH: Portsmouth after 18 March 1647[/8] (date of will).
MARRIAGE: By about 1628 Katherine _____. "_____ Walker the wife of John Walker" was admitted to Roxbury church as member #101 [RChR 80], which would be late in 1633 or early in 1634. She died after 18 March 1647[/8] and before 2 April 1654.
CHILDREN:
i SARAH, b. say 1628; m. by 1648 James Sands.
ii MARY, b. say 1634; m. by 1654 William Earle.
ASSOCIATIONS: As noted below, John Walker and William Freeborne followed the same migration sequence in New England, from Roxbury to Boston to Portsmouth. William Freeborne witnessed the will of both John and Katherine Walker, was a minor legatee in the will of the latter, and witnessed the deed between the sons-in-law of John and Katherine. As passengers in 1634 on the Francis of Ipswich [Hotten 278-79], the Freebornes were probably from Essex or Suffolk. If the association noted here derives from a prior relationship in England, then the origin of the Walkers should be sought in the same two counties.
COMMENTS: John Walker was in the list of men to be disarmed 20 November 1637 as adherents of Anne Hutchinson [MBCR 1:212]. That this is the same as the Roxbury man is suggested by his placement near the end of the list, not far from John Compton and William Freeborn, who had arrived at Roxbury in 1634. None of these three men appears in Boston records, giving rise to speculation that they had been recently drawn to Boston by the teachings of Anne Hutchinson, but had not had time to join the church, acquire land, or otherwise take part in town activities. Many of these men and their families, of course, including also William Freeborn, went on to found Portsmouth, Rhode Island, in the following year.
Pope notes that a Dorcas Walker was buried at Roxbury on 17 April 1640, but as John Walker was already in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, by this date, and as Walker is not that rare a name, no relationship should be assumed.
The Portsmouth Compact
The following is quoted from the book Story of Dr. John Clarke; The Founder of The First Free Commonwealth of the World; on the Basis of "Full Liberty in Religious Concernments" by Thomas W. Bickness, published by the Author, Providence, R. I., 1915; third edition. Note: In the book is a picture of the compact which has been scanned in color for these pages. The transciption has been corrected to spell Phillip Shearman's name with two "L"s and to add the words "his mark" as they appear next to Henry Bull's name and under his mark "+".
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Prior to leaving Boston, a compact was drawn up, under date of March 7, 1638, by which a number of the leading men of the proposed Colony incorporated themselves into "A Bodie Politik" to the end that they might go to their new Plantation in a formal organization, under a chosen leader or Governor.
The compact is as follows:
The 7th Day of the First Month, 1638. 145 kb full image
We whose names are underwritten do hereby solemnly
in the presence of Jehovah incorporate ourselves
into a Bodie Politick and as He shall help, will sub-
mit our persons, lives and estates unto our Lord
Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords,
and to all those perfect and most absolute laws
of His given in His Holy Word of truth, to be
guided and judged thereby.
[150% image of above sections]
William Coddington [150% image of first 12 names]
John Clarke
William Hutchinson, Jr.
John Coggeshall
William Aspinwall
Samuel Wilbore
John Porter
John Sanford
Edward Hutchinson, Jr. Esq.
Thomas Savage
William Dyre
William Freeborne
Phillip Shearman [150% image of last 11 names]
John Walker
Richard Carder
William Baulston
Edward Hutchinson, Sr.
+
Henry Bull ["his mark" written next to name]
Randall Holden
[150% image of lower right corner] Exodus, 24c., 3:4.
II Cron., 11c., 3.
II Kings, 11:17.
This compact was signed originally by twenty-three persons. The original paper is in the keeping of the Secretary of State, at the State House, Providence, a photograph of which appears on the opposite page. Four names,? Thomas Clarke, brother of John, John Johnson, William Hall and John Bright-man, Esq.,? follow the nineteen that appear above. Erasure marks have been made over these names, the reason for which it is not easy to understand as the first three were among the first recorded settlers of Newport, and Mr. Brightman may have been.
Neither was a Constitution nor a Bill of Rights for a Colony. Boston called the compact an act of incorporation. Plymouth called theirs a covenant, Boston did the act in "the presence of Jehovah," Plymouth wrote "in the presence of God." Boston formed a "Bodie Politick," Plymouth called theirs a "Civill Bodie Politick." Boston submitted their "persons, lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ." * * * ** "And to all those perfect and most absolute lawes of His given us in His Holy word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby." Plymouth promised submission and obedience to such "just and equal lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices" as might be enacted, constituted and framed. Each compact had for its purpose the formation of a civil state under an orderly government. The Boston paper was probably written by Dr. John Clarke, whose piety and purpose lent a strongly religious sentiment to the document, so much so that some historians have called it theocratic. But Dr. Clarke did not classify The Christ as a theocrat, for all his writings make the great Teacher the interpreter of a new Democracy in which soul-liberty is established and enforced.
Samuel G. Arnold, our Rhode Island historian, has given a very clear and just interpretation of the Portsmouth Compact. He says, "So prominent indeed is the religious character of this instrument, that it has by some been considered, although erroneously, as being itself 'a church covenant, which also embodied a civil compact.' Their plans were more matured than those of the Providence settlers. To establish a Colony independent of every other was their avowed intention, and the organization of a regular government was their initial step. That their object was to lay the foundation of a Christian state, where all who bore the name might worship God according to the dictates of conscience, untrammelled by written articles of faith, and unawed by the civil power, is proved by their declarations and by their subsequent conduct." * * * *
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Picture of the plaque of the 1638 Portsmouth Compact Memori
in Founders Park, Portsmouth taken in May of 1997 by
Elliot J. Wilcox (98 kb)
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