Joseph Hull: 52 Ancestors 2020 Prompt “Travel”

Joseph Hull: The Peripatetic Preacher

1594-1665

My eighth-great-grandfather, Rev. Joseph Hull, was quite the rolling stone. At a time--the early 17^th century--when a single voyage across the Atlantic took several weeks and was quite hazardous, he crossed three times. He was a minister in both England and the American colonies, but continuously lost his positions and moved from church to church. He was a man of firm beliefs that placed him at odds with others, and had an adventurous spirit. The combination turned him into a prolific traveler.

Joseph Hull was born in Somerset, England somewhere between 1594 and 1596 to Thomas Hull and Joane Pysin or Peson Hull. He attended St. Mary’s Hall at Oxford, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree there on November 14, 1614. He then served as curate under his older brother, William Hull, who was the the vicar of Colyton, a village in Devon, England.

St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, 1600s

Joseph married his first wife around 1618, and was ordained May 23, 1619 as a clergyman in the Church of England. He became rector of Northleigh in the diocese of Exeter in 1621. He served there for eleven years. During that time, he and his wife (there are no records of her first or surname—some researchers list her as Joanne, principally because the couple’s eldest daughter was named Joanna, but there are no records to confirm the hypothesis.) had a large family. His wife died, leaving him a widower with seven young children.

Joseph left his position in Exeter, moving back to Somerset, sometime around 1632. It is unclear why he resigned; he apparently had some sort of doctrinal dispute with the church. On March 13, 1633, Rev. Hull remarried; his second wife was a young Somerset woman named Agnis or Agnes Hunt.

Rev. Hull seems to have continued to try to make a living as a minister; he was cited multiple times in two different towns for preaching without a license from the church, and was eventually expelled from the Church of England in 1635. Around the same time, he decided to move to the American colonies, and began organizing a group of colonists. He apparently had a brother, George, who had already emigrated.

The “Hull Colony” as the 106 people in his party were called, set sail from Weymouth for New England on March 20, 1635.  In addition to his new wife and seven children, he brought three servants with him, which would seem to indicate he was a man of some means. The ship arrived in Boston on May 6. In July 1635, the Governor of Massachusetts wrote, "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 new immigrants doubled the size of the town, which was renamed Weymouth in honor of the town from which the Hull group set sail.

One might assume that since Rev. Hull had decided to move to the colonies, he was seeking religious freedom and espoused Puritan beliefs like other colonists. However, he seems to have continued to support the Anglican faith, which got him into trouble in Puritan New England. He served as the first minister of the church his group established in Weymouth, and was named a “freeman”, which signified influence and possible wealth. However, the Puritans in the area soon found a replacement minister. In June of 1836, probably feeling unwelcome in Weymouth, Rev. Hull got a land grant near the town of Hingham, and moved there. He served his new community as a Deputy in the General Court of the colony for two years, and was also preaching at some sort of church, giving his final sermon in May 1639.

He moved his family yet again to the Plymouth Colony where he founded the town of Barnstable. There is a memorial plaque at the site where he delivered the first sermon to the town’s founding residents. 

However, a Puritan preacher was also in residence in Barnstable. Rev. Hull seems to have deferred to him at first, turning more toward civilian concerns, including cattle raising. However, he apparently had a hard time keeping track of his cattle, as he was sued several times for trespass. Perhaps these conflicts with his neighbors led him to move again, this time to nearby Yarmouth. He served that community as a minister, but did so without approval of the Church, so in May 1641 he was excommunicated once more.

Rev. Hull and his wife had continued to add to their family as they moved about New England. Two sons were born before he moved to Barnstable, and two daughters were born in Barnstable. At some point after his eleventh child Ruth’s birth in 1641, tired of conflict with Puritans, he ventured further afield to what was then the Maine territory, parts of which eventually became New Hampshire. This area was not a Puritan controlled colony. The Hulls initially settled in the town of Agamenticus, now York, Maine, where Rev. Hull led a church. The family then moved southwest to the Oyster River settlement in what is now Durham, New Hampshire. He also served as minister in the Isle of Shoals area, a series of islands and peninsulas in the Portsmouth area of New Hampshire, and seems to have been beloved by those parishioners.

Unfortunately, Rev. Hull once again ran afoul of changing political and religious allegiances. As the Maine territories came more under the control of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Rev. Hull’s Anglican sympathies came under attack. He decided to return to England around 1648, subjecting his wife and several of his younger children to another grueling trip across the Atlantic. Several of his older children, who had started their own families and businesses, elected to stay behind in New England.

Rev. Hull settled in Cornwall, living in Launceston from 1648 until about 1652. Joseph and Agnis’ last three children were born and christened in Launceston. The two youngest died there. In late 1652, Rev. Hull became rector at St. Buryan, Cornwall, and remained there, apparently conflict free, for several years. 

St. Buryan's, Cornwall

However, in 1662, political upheaval once again left him on the wrong side of church leadership, and he was ejected from his parish, along with hundreds of other ministers, in what was called the Calumny of 1662. Despite his increasing age, Rev. Hull and family booked passage on a ship to New England one more time, returning to the Oyster River and Isle of Shoals area. Several of his older children lived in the region, and Rev. Hull had been happy there.

Joseph Hull’s travels ended with his death on November 19, 1665. He died in Isle of Shoals at about age 70; his burial site there is unknown. Probate records show his estate was valued at around 52 pounds—not a large sum for the time-- and he was still owed 20 pounds for his service as minister to the church on Isle of Shoals at the time of his death.

I am indebted to several other genealogists who previously researched Rev. Hull and his doctrinal conflicts with both the Anglican and Puritan churches. Their insights and explanations were invaluable. They are cited below.

Sources:

Princes, Paupers, Pilgrims and Pioneers “Rev. Joseph Hull” by KTC. https://kindredconnection.wordpress.com/2018/02/19/joseph-hull/

Reverend Joseph Hull and Some of His Descendants, Amy Eleanor E. Hull, Stonebaker Bros. and Co, Baltimore, 1904.

“Common Errors in the Rev. Joseph Hull Line”, by Phyllis J. Hughes, HFA genealogist. https://www.hullfamilyassociation.org/genealogist_errors_joseph1.shtml

“Rev. Joseph Hull”, by Sam Beling.

http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~sam/hull/joseph.html

Cook, Lawrence, "The Exodus of the Joseph Hull Company", 1991, Origins of the Bicknell Family in North America as Descended from Zachary Bicknell (1589-1635) website.

The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Robert Charles Anderson, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Jan 1, 1996