Jane Verin left no journals, letters, or other personal documentation, but she appears in church and court records and in the correspondence of Roger Williams and others. Joshua Verin appears in these and in Salem town records; his letters also appear in Providence town records. Despite the paucity of sources, there are elements of their history that one can determine with a great deal of certainty. Using a variety of sources, including birth, marriage and death records, wills and probate records, church membership rosters, passenger lists, court records, correspondence, town and plantation records, and early histories of the New England colonies, the skeleton of a family sketch begins to emerge. This chapter will reconstruct as much as possible the circumstances of the Verin family within the English Atlantic world, based on facts ascertained from the available sources, and place their experiences within the context of English migration.
The Verins
The Verin family hailed from New Sarum (later called Salisbury), in Wiltshire, England. Records indicate that the family had lived in and around Salisbury for many generations.1 The male members of the family were tradesmen. Philip Verin and his brother, Hugh, were ropers and actively involved in the Joiners Guild in Salisbury.2 Philip and Dorcas Verin married ca. 1615.3 Although both Philip and Hugh owed money to the guild in 1616, by 1618, Philip was a chamberlain, enrolling apprentices for the guild. In 1622, Philip narrowly missed election as warden, coming in third of thirteen candidates for the two one-year positions.4 Several male members of the Verin family took up the profession; Thomas Verin, whose will was probated on May 24, 1658 in Deptford, England, listed it as his occupation.5 The passenger list of the James includes Philip and his son, Joshua Verin, who is also identified as a roper.6 The fact that Joshua is listed indicates that he was an adult. The passenger list includes “53 men, youths, boys, besides wives and children of divers of them” and identifies them as “late of New Sarum.”7 Philip Verin took a large extended family with him, including his wife Dorcas, their eldest son Philip, a wheelwright, and his wife Joanna, their sons Nathaniel and Hilliard, and Joshua and his wife Jane.8
At some point before their departure for New England, the Verin family joined with other non-conformists (as puritans were then known). On July 15, 1626, Joshua’s older brother, Philip, married Joanna Cash.9 The marriage license identifies her as a 23-year-old spinster and daughter of Elizabeth, a widow.10 At the time, non-conformists frequently obtained a license because this necessitated appearing in church only once as opposed to having the banns read in church three times, a practice required by the Church of England. There is no surviving license or certificate for marriage between Joshua and Jane Verin either in England or New England. However, it can be assumed that they were married sometime prior to their arrival in Salem in June 1635, because they were, with their parents and siblings, listed as members of the First Church of Salem.11
There is no information available about Jane’s origins or, indeed, even her surname. Her mother was the Widow Reeves, but it is unknown whether that was a first or second marriage. Several women were excommunicated from the First Church of Salem for following Roger Williams, among them the Widow Reeves, Jane Verin, Margery Holliman, and Mary Oliver. Jane Verin continued to defy the religious authorities, even after her return to Salem. Records from the Quarterly Court in Salem note that on Christmas Day, 1638 “Jane, wife of Joshua Verrin, [was] presented for absence from religious worship.” Hugh Peter, pastor of the First Church of Salem, requested time to confer with her again, most probably to try to dissuade her from her continued defiance. The Widow Reeves was censored by the Church of Salem for refusing to hear the word and for refusing to acknowledge the churches of Massachusetts as true churches. She was a landowner in early Providence, her lot being north of Joshua and Jane Verin’s land (two house lots up from Roger Williams and his family).
While many congregations followed their ministers to the New World, the Verins, although they were actively involved in their church after their arrival in Plymouth, appear to have emigrated for both religious and economic reasons. None of the ministers or other church leaders from either St. Edmund’s or St. Thomas parishes in Salisbury during this time appears on any of the passenger lists, nor did any of the clerics receive licenses to pass beyond the seas.12 However, the Reverend John Avery, a preacher of “good repute” who arrived in Boston with his wife and children, hailed from Wiltshire. A closer connection can be found in the case of Anthony Thatcher. Thatcher, his wife, and their four children, too, came from Salisbury. They embarked on the James in 1635. Prior to their departure, Anthony had served as a curate in 1631 and 1634 to his brother, Peter Thatcher, the rector of St. Edmonds. Anthony Thatcher was a non-conformist who had lived in Holland prior to his departure for New England.13 St. Edmond’s is the parish where Joshua Verin and all of his siblings were baptized.
Plymouth Colony was founded in 1620 by English separatists, also called Pilgrims, who settled in and around Cape Cod. William Bradford served as the governor for the first 30 years of its founding; his History of Plimoth Plantation, remains an important source for understanding the early history of these colonies and the rivalries that emerged. Salem (derived from the Hebrew word for Peace) is the second oldest settlement in New England, founded in 1626 by Roger Conant. Starting in 1628, the colony at Salem was led by Governor John Endecott.14 Two years later, they were joined by puritans under the leadership of John Winthrop; beginning in 1630, members of the “Great Migration” arrived first at Salem, and then moved northward to establish permanent settlements in Boston and elsewhere along the Shawmut Peninsula in what would later be named Massachusetts Bay. The Verin family stayed in Salem. The patriarch of the family, Philip Verin, was made a freeman of the Massachusetts colony on September 2, 1635; and in the following year, he received a grant of 160 acres in Salem.15 Being a freeman meant that Verin was considered a full citizen of the colony. These satisfied conditions of church membership (and hence guaranteed voting rights); only freemen had the right to hold public office or vote in town meetings. Joshua Verin received a land grant for a two-acre house lot on February 6, 1635.16 The renewal of the Church covenant signed at Salem in 1637 promises that the signatories would “walk with our brethren & sisters in … Congregation, with all watchfulness & tenderness …”17 It was signed by 85 men and 79 women, including Dorcas Verin, Philip Verin’s wife (and mother of Joshua).
The entry for Joshua Verin in James Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England describes Verin as “a favorer of Roger Williams” who went to Providence in 1637, where his “w[ife] made some trouble there, came back, and in few [years he followed … her].”18 In fact, Savage erred as it was Jane, not Joshua, who was the reason the Verins came to Providence. As mentioned earlier, records indicate Joshua arrived in New England in June 1635 on the James with his parents and siblings. Joshua, his father, and his brother Hilliard all became landowners, members of the First Church of Salem, and held various positions of authority in Salem.19 While both Joshua and Jane were admitted to communion in the First Church of Salem, in the two years prior to their arrival in Providence, several sources indicate that Jane Verin and her mother, Margery Reeves, were among the female activists who “refused to worship with the congregation from 1635 to 1638 and the latter two women denied that the churches of the Bay colony were true churches.”20 Apparently, Joshua Verin was a non-Separatist Congregationalist, while his wife was a committed Separatist. In England and Massachusetts Bay, an unregenerate could go to church, but not receive communion. These frequently included women and children. Williams went one step further, arguing that unregenerate Christians could not even attend church.21 Indeed, he believed that men and women should not pray together unless both were regenerate.22 Williams was a charismatic and persuasive preacher. In his journal, John Winthrop confirms that Roger Williams had been so influential in Salem, that
many there (especially of devout women) did embrace his opinions and separated from the Churches … he has drawn about twenty persons to his opinion … [they] went all together out of our jurisdiction and precinct, into an Island, called Read-Iland … and there they live to this day … but in great strife and contention.23
It seems some members of their congregation had returned to England and while there, they had attended services in the Church of England. Once they returned to Salem, these travellers were allowed once again to receive communion.24 Williams and his followers condemned these practices, among others, as corrupt.
As a result of this and other criticisms, Roger Williams, having been banished by the authorities in Massachusetts Bay and fearing imminent arrest, made his way to what would become Providence on land he had purchased from the Narragansett Indians. Williams later recalled that he had been “unkindly & unchristianly (as I believe) driven from my howse & land & wife & children (in the midst of N. England winter).”25 According to John Winthrop, Williams and about 20 followers “intended to erect a plantation about the Narragansett Bay.”26 Joshua Verin certainly counted himself among the “six which came first.”27
A plot map of the early township reveals Verin purchased the house lo...
