Note 505 — NEW ENGLISH CANAAN OR NEW CANAAN. (continued 3)

The person referred to in this chapter was probably the Rev. Francis Bright, of whom very little is known. He was one of the three ministers sent over by the Massachusetts Company in 1629, Higginson and Skelton being the other two. In June of that year, when Graves and the Spragues were sent by Endicott to effect a settlement at Charlestown, Bright accompanied them as “minister to the Company’s servants.” (Young’s Chron. of Mass., pp. 316, 376.) As such, he was the Caiaphas, or high-priest, of that region, and it naturally devolved on him to “exercise his guifts on the Lords day at Weenasimute.” Morton further says that the person he refers to had been a silenced minister in England. That Bright had been silenced is not known, but both Skelton and Higginson had been (Magnalia, B. I. ch. iv. § 4; Neal’s Hist. of Puritans, vol. ii. p. 229); and, though Hubbard intimates that Bright was a conformist (p. 113), yet, in the Company’s letter to Endicott, the three ministers are stated to have “declared themselves to us to be of one judgment, and to be fully agreed on the manner how to exercise their ministry.” (Young’s Chron. of Pilg., p. 160.) Winthrop, Morton adds, “spied out Caiphas practise; and he must be packing.” Bright returned to England shortly after Winthrop’s arrival. Johnson says (Wonder-working Providence, p. 20) that he “betooke him to the Seas againe,” when he saw that “all sorts of stones would not fit in the building.”

Samuel Skelton is referred to by Morton a few pages further on (Infra, 306) as “Pastor Master Eager,” which name may be taken to imply “covetousness” in him. But, though Skelton might be termed the “Caiphas” of the country, he was not silenced by Winthrop. He can, therefore, hardly be the person here aimed at.