As a child, he was taken by his parents to New England, where he later graduated from Harvard as one of nine graduates in the first commencement ceremony (1642),[1] was ordained and became assistant minister and afterward pastor of the Congregational church at Ipswich, Massachusetts, a post which he resigned just a year before his death.
[2] He wrote, at the order of the Colonial government which paid him 50 pounds for it,[a] a History of New England,[3] mainly compilation, which barely escaped destruction by fire when Gov.
He wrote also, A Narrative of Troubles with the Indians (Boston, 1677),[4] which for years was popular in New England.
It is full of errors, but illustrates what was regarded by the writer's contemporaries as an elegant prose style.
Minor works are a volume of sermons (1684) and a short pamphlet, Testimony of the Order of the Gospel in Churches (1701).