A New Start in Quinnipiack
Under Queen Elizabeth I, the Church of England was Calvinist. But her successor, James I (reigned 24 March 1603 – 27 March 1625), although a committed Protestant, restored some of the forms and ceremonies of the Catholic church to which he was attracted. This love of ritual pomp and ceremony was referred to as the “beauty of holiness.” While some puritans strenuously objected to these Catholic practices, others went along with James’s program, for the sake of Protestant unity. John Davenport (baptized April 9, 1597 – May 30, 1670) was one of these. Educated at Oxford University, Davenport was ordained in 1617 as a minister in the Church of England. He believed that the fundamental theology was more important than making an issue over ceremonies.
There was growing anti-Calvinist sentiment that began around 1590 and continued into the 1600’s. The main bone of contention was the doctrine of predestination. People asked questions that the ministers couldn’t answer. Didn’t Christ die so that all people might be saved, not just the “elect?”
King James was succeeded by his son, Charles I, who appointed William Laud archbishop of Canterbury in 1628. Laud, a latitudinarian, was a strong proponent of the high church and the episcopacy, and hated Calvinism. Charles and Laud pushed the Church of England even closer to Catholicism than James had. The Puritans wanted to take over the Church of England from within, by contriving to place Puritan clergy in influential pulpits in the Church of England. But Archbishop Laud discovered what they were up to, and began to harass them.
At first, Davenport denied that he was a Puritan, because he was going along with Church ritual and practice. But he was a Calvinist, and eventually decided that the Church of England practices were evidence of popery, and renounced them. Davenport became an advocate of establishing utopian communities, and when businessman John White proposed the establishment of a Puritan haven in America, Davenport contributed money to the cause. The company that formed, which included investors Theophilus Eaton and Sir Richard Saltonstall, founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America.
Davenport remained in England, but was soon forced to flee to Amsterdam, where he continued to preach in an English church there, hoping to return to England one day. In Holland Davenport was exposed to republican ideas, and also came to believe that the Millennium was near. England, meanwhile, exerted pressure on the Dutch government to force the English church in Holland to conform to Church of England practice. Davenport and Theophilus Eaton organized a group that intended to found a New Jerusalem in America, and they sailed off in the ship Hector, arriving in Boston on June 26, 1637.
In Massachusetts, Davenport was disappointed to find the colonists already divided over issues of theology and practice. He tried to act as a mediator, but came to believe that the best course for his group was to move on. Beside the religious issues, the best land was already taken, and what was offered to Davenport and Eaton was not satisfactory. Eaton lead a small exploratory group to check out an area on the southern New England coast called Quinnipiack, and found a good harbor, a land with ample timber, fresh water, grazing for animals, plentiful shellfish, and friendly natives. The Massachusetts people were eager for Quinnipiack to be settled by Englishmen before the Dutch claimed it. Davenport and his group left Boston in mid-April, and arrived at Quinnipiack on Sunday April 25, 1638.
Archbishop Laud was beheaded in 1645 after being accused of treason. King Charles I (1600-1649) would be beheaded in 1649 by English revolutionaries led by Oliver Cromwell, a Puritan. After the interregnum, Charles's son, Charles II, assumed the throne, ushering in the Restoration period. Understandably, Puritans were not looked upon with favor, and three of the judges that condemned Charles I fled to New Haven, where they successfull evaded the agents of Charles II. This would have later a profound effect upon Davenport's New Jerusalem.
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For further information, see:
Francis J. Bremer. Building a New Jerusalem: John Davenport, A Puritan in Three Worlds, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012).
Rollin G. Osterweis. Three centuries of New Haven. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953).
Also see the following:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Davenport_(minister)