Rev. Joseph Hull (1596–1665) led a congregation of 104 from England to Massachusetts in 1635. He founded the Cape Cod town of Barnstable in 1639 and served as one of Maine’s earliest ministers. Hull's willingness to preach without approval from church officials and his efforts to chart a middle course between Anglicans and Puritans resulted in repeated conflicts with religious and colonial authorities.
England: 1596–1635 Baptized on 25 April 1596, Joseph Hull was the youngest son of yeoman Thomas Hull and Joane Peson of Crewkerne, Somerset. He began his studies at St. Mary's College, Oxford, on 22 May 1612 and earned a bachelor's degree on 14 November 1614. He was ordained as a deacon by Bishop William Cotton of Exeter on 23 May 1619 in the Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Silverton, Devon, and was appointed rector of St. Giles' Church, Northleigh, Devon, on 28 March 1622. He would serve the parish 11 years.
Hull's first wife, whose name is unknown,Hull's first wife was not Joanna Coffin, as hypothesized by Eugene Monnette in the early 20th century and widely repeated online. Coffin was baptized on 29 December 1616 and was thus about 3 when Hull first married. See Hughes, “Common Errors in the Joseph Hull Line” and “The Myth of Joanna Coffin.” died during or soon after the birth of her seventh child in 1632.Anderson, p. 455. Hull married Agnes (surname unknown)No contemporaneous primary source documents Agnes Hull's surname at birth, as noted by Phyllis Hughes, Hull Family Association genealogist, in her "Common Errors in the Joseph Hull Line." The surname "Hunt" has been suggested, but not confirmed. in St. Cuthbert's Church, Wells on 13 March 1633Joseph Hall [sic], marriage 13 March 1633, England, Somerset, Church Records, 1501-1999. Agnes's surname is apparently given in error. See Hughes and Anderson, p. 455. and resigned at North Leigh the following day. In April, he began working as a curate in the Broadway Parish, Somerset.Anderson, p. 457. Hull's decision to return to his native Somerset might have ensured relatives were available to support Agnes, then 23, as she became stepmother to a large family of young children.
Throughout his career, Hull refused to allow those in "ecclesiastical authority over him" to dictate when and where he could minister.Weygant, p. 245. In September 1629, wardens of the Crewkerne parish had been cited for allowing Hull and two other ministers to preach without license and without registration in the parish's Book of Strange Preachers.In September 1629, Hull preached alongside Rev. John Wareham, Crewkerne native and Hull's classmate at St. Mary's College. Hull's close association with Wareham provides some insight into his own religious practice. Two years prior, Wareham had been accused of failing to read authorized prayers in worship and repeating his sermons to his family and congregants in his home. See Hyde, p. 6. In January 1635, Hull reportedly preached in Glastonbury, “saying that judgment hung over the land and that first it would fall on the clergy and then the laity.” That same month, he was prosecuted for preaching without license. Hull failed to respond to the charges, and in February 1635, he was expelled from the Church of England.Alsbury, p. 6. Apocalyptic language, common among reformers like Hull, was associated with the “rebirth of the pure Apostolic Church” (Chatfield, p. 276, 51). Before the end of the following month, the 40-year-old minister had gathered a congregation of 104 and set sail for New England.Chamberlain, p. 300. Hull was the second of his siblings to emigrate. His older brother George sailed in 1632 and later settled in Connecticut (Anderson, p. 457).
Massachusetts Bay: 1635–1639 The Hull Company left Weymouth, Dorset, on 20 March 1635. Among them were a chandler, clothier, and cooper, eight husbandmen, twelve servants, two tailors, a salter, and a weaver. The Hulls were accompanied by three servants, the most for a single family. Hull signed the passenger list “boldly” as “Joseph Hull, Minister,” unlike many Puritan pastors who emigrated under assumed names.Porter, p. 125.
The group arrived in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on 7 June 1635,Chamberlain, p. 300, citing Thomas Holbrook's deposition. fifteen years after Pilgrims established Plymouth Plantation and five years after Puritans founded the Bay Colony, seeking the freedom to practice their religion without fear of persecution, a liberty they would not grant to others.Bay Colony law specified that “Catholics and Quakers were to be banished, and upon their return executed.” The celebration of Christmas was punished “by fine and the stock; absence from public worship, by fine and whipping; renouncing Church membership, … by fine and banishment” (McConnell, p. 33). On 8 July 1635, John Winthrop noted in his journal, “At this court Wessagusset was made a plantation and Mr. Hull, a minister of England, and twenty-one families with him allowed to sit down there.”Winthrop, John. Journal, vol. 1. p. 163.
Native Wessagusset had been “nearly depopulated” by the Great Dying, beginning in 1616 when contact with early Europeans sparked waves of infectious disease for which Americans had no immunity.Robert Hull notes that war, like "pestilence," had "nearly depopulated" Native Wessagusset (p. 20). It was the site of a massacre on 26 March 1623 when Plymouth colonists captained by Miles Standish ambushed and murdered Massachusett leaders and villagers. See Massachusett Tribe, Wessagusset Massacre. Tens of thousands died in the nations between today's southern Maine and Rhode Island. For King James, it was a “wondrous plague” that allowed the English to appropriate vast tracts of land—including cultivated acres and buildings—without purchase. In 1634, Winthrop observed, “For the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess.”"The Great Dying, 1616-1619." Historic Ipswich. 21 April 2021. On 2 September 1635, the General Court in Boston changed the name of Wessagusset to Weymouth after the Hull Company's port of departure and made Hull a freeman.Nash, “Sketch,” p. 158. He received the town's largest land grantNash, “Sketch,” p. 280. on 12 June 1636.Chamberlain, p. 300.
The village had a small English population when the Hull Company arrived. Some had been among the first successful settlers in 1623.Alsbury, p. 6-7. Starvation aborted an attempt to settle Wessagusset in 1622. See Nash, “Journal,” p. 21. Under the leadership of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, these colonists were more theologically liberal than the Puritans who joined them beginning in 1630.Porter, p. 126. If Hull “hoped to bridge the gap between Anglicans and Puritans,”Routledge, p. 39. he found his efforts rejected by both sides. From 1635 until 1644, “there was almost constant tumult and disturbance” in the village, “sometimes so serious as to draw the attention of the General Court.”Nash, “Sketch,” p. 28. “The agitations showed themselves principally in the church and upon ecclesiastical matters.”Nash, “Sketch,” p. 7.
“Dissention quickly arose” between Hull and the village's Puritans, likely “instigated by the authorities outside,” and, in less than a year, they had called Rev. Thomas Jenner to be their pastor.James Hull, p. 13. At the same time, Hull's willingness to adopt a Puritan practice caused “tension” with Weymouth's traditional Anglicans. Like nearly all Massachusetts ministers, he required prospective congregants to give a “testimony of spiritual experience” before they could join the church and have access to the sacraments. When new emigrant Rev. Robert Lenthall agreed to make baptism the only “door to the church,” some Weymouth residents asked him to join them.Moore, p. 62. For the New England practice of church admission by testimony and examination, see Chatfield, p. 292. Yet another minister, Rev. Samuel Newman, was soon “summoned to heal the breach.” Thus, by 1637, “there were no less than four claimants for the Weymouth pulpit, each with a strong party at his command.”
In 1637, Hull “relinquished his charge and withdrew.” After “a brief season of preaching at Bass River, now Beverly, he gave up his ministerial labor.”James Hull, p. 13. See also Nash, “Sketch,” p. 158. Moving to adjoining Hingham, he was granted a five-acre house lot and 45 acresAnderson, p. 454, citing the Hingham Book of Possessions. which he used to graze cattle.See Standerweek's deed of cattle sale dated 20 Feb 1639, Records of the Colony of New Plymouth, vol. 1, p. 160. The ecclesiastic chaos had not cost him “the confidence of his fellow townsmen.” He was appointed a local magistrate in 1638 and was elected to serve as the settlement's Deputy to the General Court on 7 September 1638 and 13 March 1639. Hull's years in the Bay Colony ended when he received permission from Plymouth to found a colonial settlement on Cape Cod. He delivered a “farewell sermon,” likely in Hingham, on 5 May 1639.Nash, “Sketch” p. 158; Chamberlain, p. 300.
Cape Cod: 1639–1641 To encourage development and defense, colonial officials granted large swaths of Native land to their fellow Englishmen. The Cape Cod village of Mattakeese was prized for its soil's “adaptation to the raising of grain, much of the land being already cleared by the Indians” who had long “successfully cultivated it.”Freeman, p. 246. When the original English grantee failed to establish a settlement, Plymouth eradicated his claim and granted the land to Hull and Thomas Dimmock, who led the first group of colonists to Mattakeese in May 1639.Otis, p. 336; King, p. 48. They changed the name of the village and established the town of Barnstable in June.Otis, p. 336. A historical marker near 2786 Main St., Barnstable, reads, “Site of the house built by Rev. Joseph Hull 1595-1665 who with Elder Thomas Dimmock was given the charter for the land now occupied by the Town of Barnstable.” Hull and Dimmock held nearly all offices and shared the responsibility of parceling house lots and acreage. “No appeal from their decisions was ever made,” and they “seemed to possess the entire confidence of the people."Otis, p. 336.
In October, a large influx of families arrived under the leadership of Rev. John Lothrop after their church in Scituate split in a controversy over baptism. In December, Hull and Dimmock were elected as Barnstable's Deputies to the General Court.Records of the Colony of New Plymouth, vol. 1, p. 126. On 11 December 1639, a service of thanksgiving and a feast were held at Hull's house.Scituate and Barnstable Church Records, p. 39. Spelling is modernized in all quotations from this source; hereafter, S&B Church Records. Communal praise quickly gave way to “controversy,” which “turned primarily on the conflicting loyalties and interests of the people who had come to Barnstable from different places.” Hull and his followers founded the town, but the Scituate settlers brought “a population large enough to support a congregation, and Lothrop expected to be its minister.”King, p. 72.