Detail of the portrait Reverend John Davenport, New Haven by Amos Doolittle, engraving, 1797 – Connecticut Historical Society
John Davenport (1597–1670)
Born in Coventry, England, in 1597, John Davenport trained for the ministry at Oxford, but became disillusioned with the Church of England. He followed in the paths of other influential Puritan ministers, such as Thomas Hooker, and sailed for the Massachusetts Bay Colony—arriving in June of 1637. The following spring he and a group of followers set out to establish a new colony on Long Island Sound. It became the Colony of New Haven. Davenport’s ideas greatly influenced both the physical and social structure of the colony until the Charter of 1662 combined New Haven with the Colony of Connecticut. Shortly after, Davenport left New Haven to accept an appointment at the highly influential First Church in Boston. He died in Boston in April of 1670.
