author
Francis Higginson
1587–1630
A pioneering Puritan minister in early New England, he helped shape the first church in Salem and left behind one of the earliest printed descriptions of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His brief life connected religious conviction, migration, and the uncertain beginnings of English settlement in America.
1 Audiobook
New-Englands plantation : with the sea journal and other writings
by Francis Higginson
About the author
Born in England in 1587 and educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, and later St John's College, Francis Higginson began his career in the Church of England before moving toward Puritan nonconformity. He served at Claybrooke in Leicestershire, where his preaching earned notice, but his growing religious differences eventually pushed him away from conformity.
In 1629 he sailed to New England with the Massachusetts Bay Company and became the first teacher of the church at Salem, one of the colony's earliest settlements. He is also remembered for writing New England's Plantation (1630), an early account that described the land, resources, and prospects of the new colony for readers back in England.
Higginson died in Salem on August 6, 1630, only a short time after his arrival. Even so, his writing and his role in Salem's founding years made him an important witness to the earliest phase of Puritan New England.