Peter Bulkeley and Concord

I am a retired professor of (British) history at North Carolina State University, graduated from Randolph-Macon College, Atouches, VA, attended University of Edinburgh on Rotary Foundation Fellowship (1949-1950), and obtained graduate degrees from Duke University.

I am descended on my father's side from many families who were part of the Puritan Migration of the 1630's and 1640's, through Boston and for most to Fairfield County, CT. I spent most of the summers of my youth in Manomet, MA, and now my summers are enjoyed in Falmouth, MA.

I first became aware of the Bulkeley family connection with Concord when my wife and I, during one of several self-guided, self-driving ancestral sites tours in England and Scotland, discovered a large plaque in the Odell church recognizing a substantial contribution from the citizens of Concord toward the renovation of that church (see sidebar at right for information about Odell).

The text from the plaque at Odell from a photgraph we took reads:

"The Five XVIIth Century Bells in the tower of this church were retuned and rehung with a metal bell frame in 1958 - A Sixth Bell, given by Harold and Betty Justing was added at the same time. The cost of this work was met by many friends in Odell and elsewhere, including the people of Concord, Mass. U. S. A. who made a generous donation in memory of the founder of Concord, the Rev. Peter Buckeley, a Rector of Odell in the XVIIth Century. Frank J. Barwood, Rector."

The following history is all obviously from a genealogical and Bulkeley perspective. Any reference to Concord's origins on this site needs to come from broader sources than just this article.

The Rev. Peter Bulkeley (left, above) was born in 1583 in Odell, Bedfordshire, England. He was a graduate of Cambridge where Puritan ideas were being generated. He succeeded his father as rector of the Church of All Saints in Odell in 1610.

In 1634 as a result of Archbishop Laud's campaign against the Puritans, Bulkeley was suspended. He brought his family to Boston in 1635. "In the autumn of 1635, a tract of land at Musketaquid, six miles square, was purchased from the Indians. The hardships which the founding of Concord entailed...." (Jacobus, The Bulkeley Genealogy, p 104 [1933]). Bulkeley and Rev. John Jones organized a church in 1636 with Jones as pastor and Bulkeley as teacher.

Unfortunately, theological disputes common to many colonial towns caused Jones to leave in 1644 for Fairfield, CT (one of his daughters had married one of Bulkeley sons [my ancestor]). Only thirty families remained.

Eventually under Bulkeley's leadership Concord began to prosper. During this time he wrote The Gospel Covenant that was the first religious book of importance written in New England (Jacobus), and one of the first American books to be printed.