He then emigrated to the United States with his family and settled at Baltimore, running a book and stationery store.
[1][8] John joined the Methodist movement from the age of sixteen, when he left all his old companions, and began to associate "with persons of a religious character.
John left London on 18 October 1791, with another preacher named Pattison and headed for Falmouth, Cornwall.
They sailed on 27 October from Falmouth, on board the Dashwood Packet, and anchored in Carlisle Bay, Barbados, on 26 November.
[11] John Kingston became ill with Yellow fever, on 13 August 1793, the day after a hurricane had struck the island of Nevis.
Because he did not seem to be getting any better, John wished to sail back to England, where he wanted to die, but could not find a ship at the time that was bound for Europe.
But because of the death of Mr. William Jessop, a preacher of the Baltimore circuit, John Kingston supplied his place there until the following Spring.
[14] He left the United States on 10 April 1796, on board the William, and headed for the island of Saint Kitts.
He arrived at Saint Kitts after twenty three days and then was appointed to Dominica, reaching there on 26 May 1796 with a Mr. Baxter, a fellow missionary.
On 17 October 1796, he was summoned by Colonel Metcalf, of the St. George's Regiment, to appear in the field as a soldier the following Sunday morning.
On 7 May 1798, John Kingston sailed back to England from Grenada on board the Cotton Planter, with Mr. Richard Pattison, reaching Portsmouth on 1 July.
After spending a few days with his parents, John travelled to Bristol, and was present at the Methodist Conference on 30 July 1798, when he was appointed to the Carmarthen circuit.
He attended the Methodist Conference at Manchester, on July the 29th 1799 and was then appointed to the Penzance circuit in Cornwall alongside Thomas Longley, William Pearson, and John Reynolds junior.
It was witnessed by Thomas Longley, a preacher on the Wesleyan circuit of Penzance, and Elizabeth Branwell, who was Jane's sister.
[23] In the following year, John was assigned to Launceston, Cornwall, and his daughter Anne Branwell Kingston was born there on 15 May 1803.
He was accused and found guilty of taking money from the book fund during his time as Wesleyan superintendent minister of Shrewsbury.
[30][31] John Kingston emigrated to the United States before the end of 1807, taking his pregnant wife and four children to Baltimore, Maryland.
[33] Due to a combination of an unhappy marriage, and the climate in the United States, which was not to her liking, Jane separated from John Kingston taking her youngest daughter Elizabeth, then ten months old with her.
[c]John Kingston sewed a lock of Elizabeth's hair to a piece of paper, with a note marking the date.
[37] It was made possible for Jane to be able to leave John Kingston, due to an annuity of fifty pounds a year, from different property rents left to her from her father Thomas Branwell's will written on 26 March 1808.
[39] In 1810 he was the author and publisher of The New American Biographic Dictionary Or, Memoirs of Many of the Most Eminent Persons that Have Ever Lived in this Or Any Other Nation.
[45] In 1818, John Kingston sailed to England, and with his children stayed with his older sister Sarah, in London.