Notes for John Fisk: Educated at Peterhouse College, Cambridge, he graduated in 1628/29 and undertook to preach the Gospel. The pressures of the Conformity Act and the persecution he recieved in its name however eventually forced him out of his ministry and he instead turned his attention to the study of medicine. After a rigorous examination he recieved a license of public practice. He joined a ship bound for New England with his wife, 2 children, 3 younger brothers, sister and elderly mother in 1637, seeing it as a chance to quietly follow his orginial calling. He had to board in diguise to avoid relgious prosecutors. His mother died after they set sail. Once past lands end he undertook to give the other passengers 2 sermons each day, along with other discourses and exercises. Another passenger remarked he did not know when the Lord's Day was, he thought every day was the Sabbath for the did nother than pray and preach all week long. They arrived in New England in 1637, with his only infant dying shortly after landfall. They were well stocked with servants and the manner of tools for animal husbandry and carpentry, and enough provisions to survive for 3 years in the wilderness. Much of these provisions he gave to the new country, which in found the throes against the Pequot Indians. He was first employed as a teacher in Massachusetts and later in Salem where he was particularly well known. He was admitted as a freeman in Nov 1637. In 1641 he moved to Wenham where he resisted for 12 years and was the first minister there, having established a church in 1644. He was also the town's physican and continued as both until 1656. In that year many of his congregation moved to the town of Chlemsford where he once again practiced as both minister and physician. |