John Wheelwright | Biography

John Wheelwright, colonial minister and nonconformist, is best remembered for his association with Anne Hutchinson and his long conflict with John Winthrop and the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the Antinomian controversy. Wheelwright was probably born in Saleby, Lincolnshire, England, to Robert Wheelwright, a moderately wealthy landholder. Matriculating at Sydney-Sussex College, Cambridge, when he was eighteen, Wheelwright became friends with Oliver Cromwell before receiving his A.B. in 1614. He received his A.M. in 1618, and took orders the following year. In 1621 he married Marie Storre, daughter of Thomas Storre, vicar of Bilsby, and on 9 April 1623 he succeeded to the vicarage upon the death of his father-in-law. Sometime between 1628 and 1630, after bearing three children, his wife died; thereupon, in 1630, he married Mary Hutchinson, whose brother, William, was married to Anne Hutchinson.

Wheelwright's nonconformist beliefs emerged during the early 1630s, and in 1633 a successor to Wheelwright's vicarage was inducted. Wheelwright was soon completely silenced by his superiors. Perhaps already thinking of emigrating, Wheelwright had purchased land in New Hampshire in 1629, but he remained in Lincolnshire, although unable to preach, until 1636, when he left for America. He arrived in Boston with his wife and five children on 26 May 1636 and was admitted to the church on 12 June. After John Winthrop, fearing Wheelwright's beliefs were Antinomian, rejected his selection as second teacher of the church in Boston (behind John Cotton), Wheelwright became pastor of the new church in Mount Woolaston (now Quincy).

Shortly after assuming his duties, Wheelwright became embroiled in the Antinomian controversy, which centered on his sister-in-law, Anne Hutchinson. The Antinomians stressed the absolute superiority of faith and personal revelation over outward signs of sanctification, thus threatening the power of the community to control belief. In January 1637, Wheelwright belligerently preached a fast-day sermon, the contents of which seemed to oppose the legal authority of John Winthrop and other powerful Boston leaders. Because of his emphasis on justification by faith alone, he was brought before the General Court and was closely questioned for several days, until his conviction for "sedition and contempt of civil authority." Strong opposition to this decision from Governor Henry Vane and several magistrates caused the court to postpone final judgment; it was not until the first synod in August and September 1637 that a final decision was reached. Having lost his main support when now ex-governor Vane returned to England and John Cotton implicitly revised his extreme statements on faith, Wheelwright was finally "disfranchised and banished" by the court on 2 November 1637. Unwilling to continue his opposition, he hurriedly prepared for his exile.

Declining to live in Rhode Island with other settlers and exiles from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Wheelwright spent the unusually severe winter at Squamscot, New Hampshire. In April 1638 he purchased land from the Indians and, with family and friends, founded Exeter, New Hampshire. Despite the settlement's prosperity, Wheelwright remained uneasily just out of Boston's jurisdiction until the Massachusetts Bay Colony annexed Wheelwright's community in 1643. In the spring of that year, Wheelwright moved to Wells, Maine, along with a number of Exeter parishioners. Here he attempted to reconcile himself with the authorities in Boston by sending letters of repentance to the General Court and Governor Winthrop. Perhaps convinced by the submissive tone of the letters, the legislature lifted his banishment on 9 May 1644. Nevertheless, when John Winthrop and Thomas Weld published their attack on the Antinomians, Wheelwright rebutted it with his own pamphlet, Mercurius Americanus ... (1645). He remained at Wells until 1647, when he was asked to be minister at Hampton, New Hampshire. In 1654, during his ministry at Hampton (1647-1656), he was finally vindicated by the Massachusetts legislature.

In late 1655 or early 1656, Wheelwright returned to England to see and perhaps advise his old friends, particularly Cromwell, who were now in power. Wheelwright remained in England after the Restoration until 1662, when the increasingly uncertain political situation of the Puritans made his return to America advisable. At age seventy he became the pastor at Salisbury, New Hampshire, where he served until his death on 15 November 1679.