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Rev Joseph Hull

Rev Joseph Hull

Male - 1665

 

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Rev. Joseph Hull sourced biographical sketch

Author unknown. Sourced to The Hull Family Association Journal, and "The Hull Family in America". Uploaded by Ancestor.com user daisysykes27

Rev. Joseph Hull, 1595-1665, colonist and founder of what in later years became known as the Mariner-Quaker branch of the Hull family in America, was the son of Thomas and Joane (Peson or Pyssing) Hull, of Crewkerne, Somersetshire, England. Unfortunately history seldom records the events of childhood, as they are considered in most cases to be too commonplace to be worthy of note. The early life of Joseph Hull was no exception to this rule, so it can only be surmised that his childhood days were spent in a manner then common in the households of large families living in the quiet English countrysides. On the 12th of May 1612 he was matriculated at St. Mary Magdalene Hall, Oxford, and on the 14th of November 1614 he was admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Arts.

During the five years immediately following, he studied theology, serving meantime as a teacher and curate under his elder brother, William Hull, vicar of Colyton in Devonshire. On the presentation of Thomas Hull of Crewkerne, Joseph was ordained a clergyman of the Church of England on April 14, 1621 and installed as Rector of Northleigh in the Diocese of Exeter, which was the scene of his labors for eleven years. At the end of that period in 1632 he evidently found himself out of accord with those in ecclesiastical authority over him, and, as shown by the records, voluntarily resigned his rectorship.

During this rectorship he was married and three children were born of this union. Strange as it may seem, no record has been discovered of the marriage, the maiden name of his wife, or the date of her death, but it is not impossible to consider that the latter occurred at about the time of his resignation, and may have been the reason for it. Just how the next three years were spent by Rev. Joseph Hull is only a matter of conjecture, but during this period he married for a second time. Again we find no record of the marriage, but we do find that his wife bore the given name of Agnes.

Leaving Northleigh he moved with his family to the vicinity of his ancestral home at Crewkerne. On the 20th of March 1635 he, with his wife Agnes, two sons, five daughters, and three servants sailed from Weymouth, Dorsetshire, England, with a company of sixteen families, numbering in all one hundred and four persons. For 235 years the shipping list containing the names, occupations and ages of this goodly company of intelligent adventurers, known in New England history as "Hull's Colony", was lost sight of, and its existence was generally doubted by interested historians and genealogists, but in 1870 a copy of it appeared in "The New England Genealogical Antiquarian Register". Hull's Colony reached Boston, 6 May 1635, and Governor Winthrop's Official Journal, under date of July 8th of that year, contains the following entry: "At this court Wessaguscus was made a plantation and Mr. Hull, a minister of England, and twenty-one families with him allowed to sit down there."

The company received permission to set up a plantation at Wessaguscus (now Weymouth), where a church was gathered from the members of this company and others from Boston and Dorchester. On the 8th of July at the age of forty, Rev. Joseph Hull was installed as its first pastor and on the 2nd of the following September he took the oath as a Freeman of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Some of the Puritans living in the neighborhood looked with disfavor on this church and it was not long before dissension arose within it. Unquestionably this was fostered from without and in less than a year, Mr. Hull relinquished his charge and withdrew when the Separatist section of the church called the Rev. Thomas Jenner of Roxbury to be their pastor.

He now turned his attention to civil affairs, but apparently the spirit of the pioneer was strong within him as he received on the 12th of June 1636 a grant of land in Hingham. Here he remained for several years and represented that town as a Deputy in the General Court of Massachusetts in September of 1638 and March of 1639. On the 5th of May 1639 it is recorded in Hobart's Journal that Mr. Hull preached his farewell sermon. Whether this took place at Weymouth or Hingham is not stated.

Mr. Hull moved in 1639 to the Old Colony of Plymouth, and there founded the present town of Barnstable, at a place called by the Indians, Mattakeese. The rock still stands in the middle of the highway, from which he preached, surrounded by his armed parishioners.

His name appears as one of the committee of deputies for the town of Barnstable in the records of the General Court of Plymouth at the June 3rd session. Whether Mr. Hull actually attended or did not attend the Court at that time cannot be ascertained from the court records. While he and Thomas Dimmock constituted the Barnstable committee, it is very likely that neither attended, as both made their oaths at the session on the 3rd of December 1639, when Joseph Hull was admitted a Freeman. Tradition credits Rev. Joseph Hull with having preached the first sermon within the town of Barnstable, in spite of the fact that Rev. Stephen Batchelder was in the vicinity as early as 1636.

On the 11th of October 1639, Rev. John Lothrop arrived in Barnstable with his church from Scituate and on the 31st of that month a "Day of Humiliation" was observed, followed on the 11th of December 1639 by the celebration of the first Day of Thanksgiving within the town. After extended religious services the company broke into three sections, one of which dined at the house of Rev. Joseph Hull. Apparently Hull made no effort to perform any ministerial functions after the arrival of Mr. Lothrop. Undoubtedly these two men were of very different natures and temperament, Hull being aggressive and of a roaming nature, while Lothrop appears to have been extremely strong-minded. Whether any dissension arose between them or not is not a matter of record, but about a year later Joseph Hull moved into the adjoining town of Yarmouth, where, at the request of some of the residents, he served them in a ministerial capacity. In so doing he neglected to secure the approval of the Barnstable church, and for this act was excommunicated on the 1st of May 1641. Only nine days after the edict of excommunication, his daughter, Ruth Hull, was baptized in the Barnstable church.

While Mr. Hull was in the Plymouth Colony he engaged in the business of cattle raising, and not unlike some clerics who turn to business affairs, did not have his ventures crowned with financial success. He was the defendant in a number of actions for trespass, and it is interesting to note that in all but one of these actions, the constable attached two of Mr. Hull's steers. This might lead to the conclusion that his cattle were highly desired by those who initiated the suits.

After serving the Yarmouth church for a little over a year he began to journey afield, preaching the Word from place to place in the Colonies. In 1642 on the 7th of March, the Court at Plymouth issued a warrant directing his arrest should he attempt to exercise his ministerial duties within the Plymouth Colony, and described him in the warrant as an excommunicated minister. There is no evidence that this warrant was ever served, for no return appears to have been made of it, and only four days later his wife was re-admitted to the church in Barnstable. To cap the climax, he himself was re-admitted to the Barnstable church on the 10th of August 1643 "having acknowledged his sin."

He soon after removed to the Episcopal Colony of Sir Ferdinando Gorges in Maine, and under his patronage was minister at Accomemticus (now York, Maine) and had the Isles of Shoals also under his charge. A "Church-Chapel" was also erected by the inhabitants of the Isles of Shoals on Hog Island for a congregation of which the records say Rev. Joseph Hull was the minister. There he remained until 1652, when the MA Bay Colony subjected the provinces of Maine to their jurisdiction and Mr. Hull again felt the power of his old enemies on the Bay. A sound Puritan minister, Mr. Brock, was sent to supersede him.

In 1652 he returned to England where he became Rector of St. Burien in Cornwall, near Lands End and remained there for ten years, at which time he was ejected from the parish. In the same year he returned to the Colonies and settled at Oyster River, now Durham, New Hampshire, where he had considerable trouble with Quakers, and from which he shortly thereafter removed to the Isle of Shoals, where he continue his ministry until his death on the 19th of November 1665. He died intestate, leaving an estate valued at 52 pounds, 5 shillings and 5 pence - 10 pounds of which was put down for books, and 20 pounds as due him from the Isles of Shoals for his ministry.

If he was of a contentious nature, as some claim he was, it is undoubtedly true that he only contended for what he believed to be right; for his was a moving spirit - the spirit of the pioneer, seeking new fields to conquer, and going forth and preaching the word of God according to his interpretations and the dictates of his own conscience.

References

  • Hull Family Association Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2, Summer, 1995
  • The Hull Family in America, compiled by Col. Weggant, Hull Family Association


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