The origin of John Peckham and his second wife Elinor

Question

John Peckham was a well-to-do man and an early settler of Rhode Island around 1638/9.  Was he the same person as the John Peckham, second son of Henry Peckham of Nyton manor, who was baptized 8 Apr. 1595 at Boxgrove, Sussex, England and who was chaplain to the Earl of Hertford in 1634?  When did John come to America?  When and where did he marry his first wife Mary Clarke (sister of Dr. -- and later Rev. -- John Clarke)?  When did he move to Rhode Island? 

For a summary of John Clarke and family, see http://www.bonevich.com/clarke/clarkegen4.php

John Peckham's second wife Elinor was admitted to the church in 1648.  She had children including Clement and Rebecca, leading to the general assumption that she was the daughter of Clement and Rebecca (Holbrook) Weaver.  Is there any further evidence supporting this assumption?

Stephen Farnum Peckham wrote of John Peckham  in NEHGR in 1903 (online at http://books.google.co.id/books?id=ZasL5T7AmxcC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=john+peckham+newport&source=bl&ots=Fsj5m69CCH&sig=qZnJsCfTiHpbZdR8hgfwPco0VtU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0I3DUuzWK-OgigeChYDIDA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=john%20peckham%20newport&f=false ) :

"He was a brother-in-law of John Clarke, and his lands were allotted along with those of William Freeborn, John Coggeshell, and others who were the first settlers of Aquidneck in 1638 where, on May 20th, his name was on a list of those who were admitted inhabitants of Newport." 

There's a problem here -- Newport wasn't founded until 27 Apr. 1639, by John Clarke, John Coggleshell, and six others who broke away from the Ann Hutchinson group.  The Hutchinson group established their settlement in Rhode Island in May 1638, with the help of Roger Williams, whose tiny group (12 families) settled in Rhode Island in 1636.  Was Stephen Farnum Peckham off by a year when he said 1638?  What is the nature of the document that he cited?  Was it a list of first settlers of Newport?  If so, then of course it implies that Peckham was in Rhode Island earlier, as part of the Hutchinson group, which suggests that he was in Boston before.

Was John Peckham already married to Mary Clarke when he settled in Newport?  If so, that could shed some light on the question of where he was before coming to Rhode Island.   Perhaps there are good approximate birth years for his children.  Is there any reason to suspect that he WASN'T in Boston before Rhode Island?

20 years after his 1903 article in NEHGR, Stephen Farnham Peckham published his genealogy of the Peckham family in England and America (scanned images available at ancestry.com).  In this book, (pp. 207-208) Peckham gives a speculative explanation of how John Peckham, Anglican priest and chaplain to an Earl in 1634, came to be a religious dissenter in Rhode Island in 1638.  How much of this, and in what form, should be included in the wikitree profile of John Peckham?  Here is the relevant quote:

"We left John Peckham in 1634, Chaplain to the Earl of Hertford, who at that time was William Seymour, later Duke of Somerset.  We next hear of John Peckham in Rhode Island in 1638.  We have no record of what occupied his attention in the years between the two dates.  We can, however, from what preceded and what followed these dates, conjecture with a large degree of probability the events of his life.

"William Seymore, Duke of Somerset, was one of the most powerful noblemen of the reign of Charles the First.  One of his most familiar country seats was Petworth, about twelve miles north of Chichester, in the neighborhood in which the Peckhams lived.  A chaplain of a nobleman of this character would be brought in contact with many of the leading spirits of that age.  The Duke enjoyed, during the whole of King Charles the First’s reign, the confidence of his King, with the exception of the episode of his marriage with Arabella Stuart, which proved more unfortunate for the lady than for him.  There is no doubt that as Chaplain to this nobleman, John Peckham made the acquaintance of Sir Henry Vane the younger.  Sir Henry Vane the elder was Comptroller of the Household of Charles the First, and consequently intimately associated with the King.  He lived on the old Peckham Manor which his great-grandfather had purchased or inherited from the heirs of William Peckham, who was cup bearer to Archbishop Thomas Bourchier.   This site was the home of the Vanes from the middle of the Fifteenth to the middle of the Eighteenth centuries.  Sir Henry Vane was born and reared there.

"There can be little doubt that the extreme theological views which were formulated in the mind of Sir Henry Vane during his early years, became the convincing arguments that turned John Peckham from his allegiance to the Church of England.  These more or less extreme views may be described in the language of that day as those of a Baptist Lollard.  No doubt John Peckham came to Boston with Sir Henry Vane in 1634.  He probably met there Mary Clarke, who had accompanied her brother, Dr. John Clark, to Boston [p. 208] at about the same time.  Their acquaintance resulted in their marriage, of which no record can be found; probably in consequence of the fact that as Baptist Lollards, both families were outside the churches, which were then strictly Congregational and antagonistic to the Lollards.

"While there are no records to be found in Boston, all of the circumstances attending the subsequent lives of the Clarks and the Peckhams and their relations with each other, tend to make these suppositions almost certainties.  As a clergyman of the Church of England, having taken very strict vows of ordination, John Peckham would be reluctant to take an active part in theological acts or discussions which would openly ally him with the party who opposed the English Church.  We, therefore, reach this conclusion that John Peckham and Mary Clark were married some time during the administration of Sir Henry Vane as Governor of the Massachusetts colony, and, that having formed this connection with the Clark family, he did not return to England with Sir Henry, but stayed and followed the fortunes of the Clarks at Rhode Island.

"While his name does not appear on the list of those disarmed in Boston, nor among the followers of Wheelwright, nor was he one of the signers of the Portsmouth Covenant, yet he must have been one of the party known as the Ann Hutchinson party, who founded a settlement on the north end of Rhode Island, which became the town of Portsmouth.  His lands were allotted along with those of William Freeborn and John Coggeshall, who were among the first settlers of the Island of Aquidnick, or Rhode Island, where, on May 20^th, 1638, his name appears in a list of those who were admitted inhabitants of Newport.  In 1640 the bounds of his lands were established.  On March 16^th, 1641, he was admitted a Freeman.  In 1648 he was one of the 10 male members of the First Baptist Church of Newport in full communion.  This same year his second wife Eleanor Peckham, his second wife, was baptized."

 

Comments

I see you figured out how to add a question to a profile.  :-)

I would add to this SFP's point that the location of John Peckham's land allotment in Rhode Island relative to others' suggests he was not part of the first group of settlers. He does not consider that this may be due to john's age because he has already convinced himself that John was he born in 1595. I think SFP's assumptions/theory needs retesting. If it's accurate, I highly doubt that  Mary Clarke was his first wife. Age 40 (more or less) is exceedingly late for a first marriage.

Did SFP confirm that the JP, chaplain, disappeared from English records after 1634? If Mary Clarke was JP's first wife, then JP was much more likely to have been born closer to 1615-- almost a generation later than the chaplain JP. It would also explain the absence of a minor JP from both the Boston records as well as from the initial list of Rhode Island settlers and would suggest he married Mary after arrival in RI and around the time he was allotted land.  

Also ref to the John Clarke bible (which is discussed in the 1922 genealogy). We should check again but I don't recall it referenced sister Mary at all.  

In fact, Mary's identity as John Clarke's sister seems as worthy of re-analysis as all of the above...

---

Where to start...

"I think SFP's assumptions/theory needs retesting."

I agree completely, hence my hesitation to wade into the Peckham profile without airing the various issues; thank you for your feedback.

"If it's accurate, I highly doubt that  Mary Clarke was his first wife. Age 40 (more or less) is exceedingly late for a first marriage."

That makes sense in general, but genealogy is full of exceptions to the rule...  If SFP is correct, then John Peckham, a second son with no independent wealth, first was ordained as an Anglican priest and next became chaplain to the Earl of Hertford, and then (presumably secretly at first) became a religious dissenter.  How much of this situation (especially the last point) could have influenced his decision to marry or not?  During Peckham's marriageable years, his patron had the favor of a king who was increasingly autocratic and hostile to Puritanism in a political atmosphere that was becoming increasingly polarized.  Under such circumstances, with his conscience rebelling against his public identitiy, we can imagine Peckham despairing of finding a suitable wife, and perhaps this spurred his decision to emigrate to New England before it was indeed too late for him to rear a family.

However, with that said, there is no reason to assume that Peckham did NOT have a first wife in England.  There is no evidence that SFP did any research at all in England -- he simply relied on correspondence with an English Peckham who provided him with (1) John Peckham's baptismal record (which named both of his grandfathers); (2) a 1634 Peckham family pedigree with the notation that John was chaplain of the Earl of Hertford; and (3) the observation that John Peckham's name disappeared from all later family pedigrees, paired with the assurance that there was no further record of John Peckham in the parish records of the Boxwood area.  (As far as I know, nobody has ever done any systematic research for information relating to the alleged career of John Peckham before coming to America.)

But why couldn't John Peckham have married in, say, London?  Certainly his patron spent a lot of time there.  A quick look through the IGI shows that John Peckham married Elizabeth Marshall 3 Nov. 1619 in London.  Also, John Peckham married Jane Hayte 23 Feb. 1632 in London.  Perhaps his new wife died in childbirth, and the heart-broken widower, seeking release from the necessity of concealing his secret heretical views, jumped at the chance to join his cousin Henry Vane's expedition to Massachusetts, a place that was expectantly billed as a new haven for religious dissenters.

"I would add to this SFP's point that the location of John Peckham's land allotment in Rhode Island relative to others' suggests he was not part of the first group of settlers." 

Could you please provide a quote for that statement?  Page 208 of the Peckham Genealogy states the opposite:  "His lands were allotted along with those of William Freeborn and John Coggeshall, who were among the first settlers of the Island of Aquidnick, or Rhode Island, where, on May 20^th, 1638, his name appears in a list of those who were admitted inhabitants of Newport."

It appears that here SFP is confusing the 1638 settlement of Portsmouth with the 1639 settlement of Newport.  In Newport John Coggeshall's land adjoined that granted to John Peckham's wife, but it was in PORTSMOUTH that John Coggeshall and others distributed land on May 20^th, 1638.  (Per The Great Migration Begins, p. 406 -- newly available at ancestry.com -- citing RICR:1:55-56.)  This was the very beginning of Rhode Island settlement and, if SFP's date is correct, John Peckham received land adjoining that of Coggeshall in both Portsmouth and later in Newport. 

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

It occurs to me that SFP may have been referring to John Peckham being one of the later settlers of Newport -- perhaps Peckham initially stayed in Portsmouth when the dissenters withdrew to establish the new town in 1639.  Perhaps Peckham's belated removal to Newport coincided with his betrothal to Mary Clarke; that would explain why the two of them were granted adjoining tracts of land. 

Regarding John Peckham's profile here at wikitree, I'm going to do some initial work sorting out his children, using the information in the well-sourced Clarke genealogy here: http://www.bonevich.com/clarke/clarkegen4.php

---

Here's another headache... John had a daughter Eleanor, who is naturally assumed by some to have been a daughter of his second wife Eleanor (married by 1648).  But this Eleanor is also widely assumed to have married Matthew Boomer around 1655, suggesting that she was born before the migration to Rhode Island.  New theory: Eleanor and perhaps one or more of John's older sons were children of an unknown earlier wife in Boston.  This would explain his marrying the 33-year-old Mary Clarke in 1640 -- he needed a mother for his child/children.

---

See SFP Peckham Genealogy Introduction bottom of page 16:

"John Peckham had a lot of land allotted to him, which remained in the possession of his descendants for five generations.... This land was midway of the island, which would indicate that his was not among the first allotments and that he came later."

By the way, the recording of what was in supposedly John Clarke's 1608 bible begins on page 209. This whole bible thing confuses me. SFP claims this was the bible of John Clarke, brother to Mary who supposedy married John Peckham. But the earliest recordings, which would assumedly be by the owner of the bible, refer to a "John Clarke 'my brother' bpt 1 May 1569." That would imply that the handwriting belongs to Thomas Clarke who was baptized 3 Nov 1570 (and this Thomas being the father of the John who emigrates to Rhode Island...)

This father Thomas, himself son of another John Clarke (1541-1598) and Katherine Cooke (1541-1598), seems to have been the father of (from reading both the bible entries and the parish record extracts that follow):

1. Margaret b 1 Feb 1600

2. Carew Clarke "my son" b 3 Feb 1602; bp 17 Feb

3. Thomas bp 31 Mar 1605; d 2 Oct 1674

4. Merie bp 17 Jul 1607 [is this she who supposedly married John Peckham?]

5. John Clarke bp 8 Oct 1609; d 20 Feb 1676. Of interest is another entry that says "John Clarke my brother d. 20 2mo [April] 1676 in [Rhode Island]" Note the similarity of death dates.

6. William Clarke "my son" bpt 11 Feb 1611

In any case, there's no reference, at least in this section, that documents a marriage of Mary Clarke to John Peckham. What is the evidence supporting Mary Clarke, brother of John Clarke, as wife of John Peckham? Did John Clarke leave a will that mentions her?

I've just used the time I can focus on this project for a couple of days. I've got this thing called employment calling my name, so must turn away for a bit. I'll be back.

 

---

I understand about the work thing; the Peckhams will still be here when you and/or others have time.

Regarding the Clarke Bible, presumably the earlier entries were copied from a parent's or grandparent's Bible.  I think there's a simple explanation for the wording: presumably the father of Dr. John Clarke copied the information from his own Bible into the new Bible before giving it to his son.

It seems that there is indeed proof that Dr. John Clark was the brother of Mary, wife of John Peckham, but the chain of documentation is rather complicated; I'll be adding this to various Peckham profiles.  In a nutshell,  Tobias Saunders, husband of John Peckham's proven daughter Mary, in his 1688 will mentioned legacies "given my son John by wife’s uncle John Clarke of Rhode Island, dec."  (SFP 1922, p. 217)

This shows that John Peckham's wife Mary had a brother John Clarke who died by 1688.  Dr. John Clarke's will, dated 20 April 1676, leaves legacies to “cousin Fish [i.e. neice, wife of Samuel Fish] and her children”; and to “cousin Mary Saunders wife of Tobias and her children.” (SFP 1922, p. 217)

Is there any other John Clarke (besides Dr. John) of Rhode Island who died before 1688, who could have been the brother of Mary?  Dr. John's brother Thomas had no known children.  Dr. John himself had no known children, by any of his three wives.  Dr. John's youngest brother Joseph had a son John b. 1645, who died in Rhode Island in 1704 per findagrave http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=121272194

All of this, taken together with the Clarke Bible information that I overlooked from SFP (thanks for that), seems to point strongly to the conclusion that John Peckham's wife Mary Clarke was the "Merie" baptized in 1607.  And if John Peckham's wife was that old, perhaps we have to adjust the supposed 1615 birthdate that the John Peckham profile currently shows.

 

Answer 1

John,

One of your questions in your post is: "John Peckham's second wife Elinor was admitted to the church in 1648.  She had children including Clement and Rebecca, leading to the general assumption that she was the daughter of Clement and Rebecca (Holbrook) Weaver.  Is there any further evidence supporting this assumption?"

My personal database has a baptism of 10 Sep 1623 at St. Benedict's in Glastonbury, Somerset, England for Eleanor Weaver, daughter of Clement Weaver & Rebecca Holbrook.  Ref: is History and Genealogy of a Branch of the Weaver Family, by Lucius E. Weaver, publ. 1928 by The Du Bois Press, Rochester, NY.

On a site on werelate.com, I located the following comment:  "Lucius Weaver listed Eleanor Weaver's baptismal name as Elner (page 60). The evidence that John Peckham's second wife was nee Eleanor Weaver is not conclusive. Support for this identification can be derived from the naming of a son of John and Eleanor Peckham as Clement Peckham; second, John Peckham did marry a lady named Eleanor; and third, Clement Weaver Jr. and John Peckham were contemporaries in Newport and Portsmouth, RI. Austin's Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island notes the baptism of John Peckham's wife, Eleanor, in 1648 in the First Baptist Church of Newport. Children born subsequent to this time would not be children of John Peckham's first wife.--Bill Wright 14:53, 9 September 2013"  (See: http://www.werelate.org/wiki/Family:John_Peckham_and_Eleanor_Weaver_(1)

Darlene

Comments

Scanned images of both the old Peckham genealogy and the old Weaver genealogy are available at ancestry.com.  It's interesting that both families have plausible medieval ancestries that haven't been thoroughly researched.

I'm inclined to accept that John Peckham's wife was Eleanor Weaver, based on the extremely unusual name "Clement" that shows up in both families, together with the known fact that Clement Weaver had a daughter Eleanor.

I wonder if anybody has analyzed where the Peckhams and Weavers lived in the mid-17th century, to see if they were near each other.

I am inclined to add Henry Peckham as John's father, based on the following evidence:

--John clearly was a wealthy man who married late, fitting the supposition that he was a younger son of a gentleman who was waiting for an inheritance before establishing himself.
--John gave the name "Little Compton" to part of his land in New England, aligning with Compton (also known as "Little Green"), a Peckham manor near Boxgrove, Susses, where the baptism of John Peckham (son of Henry) is recorded.
--The reconstruction of John's biography in the old Peckham genealogy (among the earliest settlers of Rhode Island, pointing to earlier residence in Boston where Peckham-descended Henry Vane was briefly governor, combined with absence from the list of men whose arms were confiscated, supporting the inference that he was a cleric and therefore didn't have a gun) fits together logically.  In addition, it appears that John's mother was an heiress who died in 1633, which gives rise to the supposition that John Peckham, upon receiving an inheritance from his mother (and now eligible to marry), decided to follow his non-conformist heart and his cousin Henry Vane to Boston, where, during the Anne Hutchinson hullabaloo, he met the also-somewhat-long-in-the-tooth Mary Clarke, whom he married in Rhode Island.

In my mind there is a genealogical category of "not conclusively proven but supported by sufficient evidence to warrant the assumption that this is the correct lineage," and I think that John's parentage (Henry Peckham and Elizabeth Badger) and the identity of his second wife (Eleanor Weaver) both fit into that category.

Answer 2

Was he the same person as the John Peckham, second son of Henry Peckham of Nyton manor, who was baptized 8 Apr. 1595 at Boxgrove, Sussex, England and who was chaplain to the Earl of Hertford in 1634? 

In the Church of England data base there is a John Peckham rector  at Horsted Parva from 1623  with livings also in West Wittering, Bursledon,(Hound Chapel) and Hamble .His  last record in 1642..He also had a licence to preach in the Deanery of Boxgrove from 1634. http://db.theclergydatabase.org.uk/jsp/persons/DisplayPerson.jsp?PersonID=78500

There is only one other 'career record' for a John Peckham during the period ; a John Peckham who covered a vacancy at South Stoneham in Hampshire between 1626 and 27 ( this may well   have been the same man given the proximity to Hamble and to Hound, his  Hampshire parishes)

John Peckham rector of Horsted  was on the list of sequestered clergy in 1643. I think that this would imply he was a Royalist supporter (see Wikipedia  Committee for Plundered Ministers) It would  explain why he has no clergy record after this date

http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/Sussex_Archaeological_Collections_Relating_to_the_History_and_v33_1000269865/317

.It appears that John Peckham, son of Henry and grandson of Edward (ie the chaplain to the Earl of Hertford as recorded on the printed pedigree)https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=okhFAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=john+peckham+boxgrove+chaplain&source=bl&ots=2WtfZixrAa&sig=q_le9WNLhf8GMqhcfUVhKWeusgk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAWoVChMIy5-eq-iZxwIVhFUUCh2cIgOV#v=onepage&q=john%20peckham%20boxgrove%20chaplain&f=false

 was owner of the Manor of Boxgrove until 1674 when he sold the manor.http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol4/pp140-150#anchorn101

Finally there is a will for a John Peckham of Boxgrove d 1682 in the Calender for Chichester. ( indexed on Ancestry but when I link I seem to lose everything.)

also see Alumni Cantabrigienses. John Peckam ;Pembroke  MA 1620 . The writer says that he is  perhaps the son of Henry of East Hampneth and therefore the chaplain to the Earl of Hertford of the Close Chichester .Continues by mentioning that a V of Horsted with that name was one of those sequestered in 1643 (quotes same source as I used)

 

Comments

Helen, thank you very much for those links. At this point it seems clear that Rev. John Peckham of England couldn't have been the same man as John Peckham, immigrant to Rhode Island.  Following up on a lead in one of your sources, I found the following in Sussex Archeological Questions, vol. 30, p. 120, at https://archive.org/stream/sussexarchaeolog30suss_0/sussexarchaeolog30suss_0_djvu.txt

HORSTED PARVA. 

The following curious order occurs on May 24th, 
1645: — " This Ooittee have taken into consideracon the 
cause transmitted from the Coittee of Parliamt for the 
county of Sussex why the wife of Peckham from 
whom the Vicarage of Horstede Parva in the said County 
is sequestered should not have a 5 th pt 26 for her maintenance & for that it appeareth that she hath contemned the said sequestracon by keeping possession of the house till she was from thence expelled & that during her said continuance she hath comitted much wilfull spoyle upon the said house & for that the said living is but small & the said Peckham doth practice Phisick & farmeth Lands worth 181 a yeare & the said living is of itself e small this Coittee thinke fit that the said living be discharged from the said fifth part & Mr . Bigge to whom the same is sequestered is hereby discharged from the payment thereof." (15669, p. 79.) 

On page 121 we have the following:

John Peckham was one of the " Century of Malignant Priests "whose livings were sequestered by the House of Commons in the autumn of 1643. Colonel John White thus describes him in " The Century " (p. II) 30 :— " 25. The Benefice of John Peckham, Rector of the Parish Church of Hosteede Parva, in the county of Sussex, who giveth out that he is the Kings Chaplaine, is sequestred, for that he hath been very negligent in his cure, absenting himselfe from his Parishioners, sometimes a whole 
Month together, without leaving any to Officiate for him, and hath refused to administer the Lord's Supper to those of his Parish that would not come up to the Railes, and is a common drunkard, and notorious adulterer and uncleane person, (here follow some details unfit for publication), and hath expressed great 
malignity against the Parliament, and proceedings thereof, and hath affirmed publikely, that a man might live in murther, adultery and other grosse sinnes from day to day, and yet be a true penitent person."

If I'm reading your sources correctly, it appears that the John Peckham who sold East Hampnett in 1674 and made a will at Chichester in 1682 was the grandson of Henry (and nephew of Rev. John).

---

I think you lost the last bit of your post but certainly at the moment I would think that this is the John of Boxgrove. I would have thought that another cleric of the same name would have left some documentation behind either in the C of E archives or at Oxford or Cambridge . Getting a licence to preach at Boxgrove would suggest he wanted to officiate at some services there  (family baptisms or funerals?)

I hadn't noticed the information further on in the Archaeological  transactions. It certainly seems as if Parliament was 'out to get him' with all sorts of accusations. it  certainly wasn't unusual for vicars to be absent from their parishes or indeed to have multiple benefices. On the other hand, the accusations made against  have him have to be taken with a large pinch of salt (reading further he's not the only one to have been accused of all sorts of licentiousness) This was right in the middle of the First Civil War.

Interesting that they say he claimed to be the 'King's Chaplain

He obviously had an income, not huge at £181 a year and presumably a home so he  certainly wasn't impoverished, he was also practising as a doctor 

I now  have found  Henry Peckham of Boxgrove's  will d May 1655. It would take a long time to transcribe it properly (not my forte) but importantly,  the John who inherited Boxgrove was Henry's son not  his brother.  (ie Henry and Eliz.Badger's grandson). The genealogy I saw just had two daughters so put together with the Vic County History it looked like John would have inherited the land. However, Henry had several children.

 The will   mentions his wife Elizabeth, his  oldest son John who co inherit the estate after bequests. His sons Henry and Thomas and daughter  Mary( already provided for so only small bequests) and daughters Ann, Margaret, Jane and Grace who  were  bequeathed £300 each when they reached 18 years of age.

 His wife and John are appointed executors  His brother Thomas of Rumboldswyke and cousin Henry Peckham of Chichester are appointed overseers of the will and sale of land if it is necessary to pay out bequests. I can't spot any mention of brother John  (but neither are his other brothers and at least  William was alive at this date) 

Will  The National Archives; Kew, England; Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers; Class: PROB 11; Piece: 245  viewed on Ancestry.com. England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 1384-1858 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013

(it's also on the National Archives website for a small payment)

I've enjoyed the diversion (it's becoming a habit) 

A bit of a loose end though.It would be good to find out what happened to him . 

 

 

 

Answer 3

The usual 8 Apr 1595 Boxgrove date of baptism quoted for John is incorrect - it should be 24 Apr 1595 (from primary source image via FS of Boxgrove parish registers - baptism checked and deciphered) - see Peckham-1938

Comments

Jeremy, I see you created a profile for the John Peckham, son of Henry.   He did have such a son, and that son became a minister, but he was NOT the immigrant to Rhode Island. Search above for an answer from Helen Ford; she found evidence that the son of Henry remained in England.  The information she found should be added to the profile you created.

---

Many thanks Gillaine - so much has been written about him it's hard to find the right conclusions - thanks for the guide/hint about Helen Ford's answer.

Yes, I created a profile for said John 1595 Boxgrove, Sussex, as I saw that he did not yet have one, only a few days after that I realised there had been all the discussion about Rhode Island etc. I shall try to follow up what happened to him and also the origin of the John Peckham who went from Old to New England.

---

It seems Rev John Peckham bapt 24 Apr 1595 Boxgrove, Ssx sided with king Charles I during the English civil war 1642-51 and fell out of favour thereafter, dying in relative obscurity, unmarried, in Sussex, perhaps near Horsted in aroughly about 1560-70. His Peckham relatives at Chichester declared for the Parlementarians.Now concerning John Peckham b.abt 1610 who went to RI in abt 1638: do we know if the Peckham land was named Little Compton (Compton parva) by them or prior to them being alloted it? There are several LCs in England which could form basis of a search. Also the son's name William might be from his father's father. I have researched many Peckhams in 17thC Sussex and Kent but have rarely seen any named Stephen, James (very few), Deborah or Clement (m or f - anyway named from mother's father): the names might help narrow the search among the Little Compton parishes slightly. Another clue for his origin might be that he became/(was) a baptist minister in RI, possibly ordained in England in the 1630's.

---

I just read that Sakonnet was renamed Little Compton in about 1682 https://familypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Little_Compton,_Rhode_Island possibly being a reference to Little Compton in Warwickshire (now yes; was in Gloucestershire b.t.w.) without substantiation (so probably just a guess). In Old England there were/are many Great, Long & Little Compton (=Compton Parva) so no reason to choose the Warwickshire one. Anyone know where the name came from ?

---

Edward Peckham and Grace Sambourne had a child named Clement! Also a child named Lawrence bap. 1/4/1586 who married Elizabeth Cawley in Chichester abt 7/8/1614 and gave birth to John bap. 7/12/1617 making him 21 in 1638. Could he not be the emigrant?