John CHAMBERLIN

                   BIOGRAPHICAL AND RESEARCH NOTES:
    Information from the World Chamberlain Genealogical Society are included in these notes.

John Chamberlin first appears on the records when he was admitted as an inhabitant of Boston, MA, on 28 July 1651 (Boston Book of Possessions, P. 105). In this and other records he was called a Currier. In those times, a currier was a tailor, as he worked with leather and garments. On 14 Oct 1652, he purchased a dwelling house and lot on Hanover Street in Boston, from one William Courser (Suffolk Deeds, Liber I, P. 246). 
On 20 July 1658, he and his wife Anne, deeded land in Boston to Thomas Lake and others (Suffolk Deeds, Liber III, P. 172). Again, on 20 July 1659, he sold a house and one acre in Boston to John Morton (Suffolk Deeds, Liber III, P. 257). 
It was about 1659 that John Chamberlin became interested in the cause of the Quakers. The story of the Quaker persecutions in New England presents one of the most moving chapters in American history. Most of the following text has been taken from the article, John Chamberlain, The Quaker, by Eben Putnam (Chamberlain Association of America, Annual Report, 1906-07, pp. 61-64): 
The actions and teachings of the earlier adherents of Fox, in England, had caused dismay. The orderly and tolerant way of living, later the distinctive mark of the Society of Friends, was by no means characteristic of the early disciples of Fox. It was even feared that the self-appointed messengers to New England were really emissaries of Rome. The authorities of Massachusetts Bay, holding that their charter gave them the right to exclude undesirable inhabitants, did not hesitate to attempt to prevent the residence within the limits of their charter of any person to whose way of life they objected. The Quaker propaganda was distinctly contrary to and disagreeable to Puritan ideas, and the persistence of those, who, by both reasonable and sensational methods, sought to force upon the people consideration of their claims, was not only provoking and tantalizing to a degree we cannot realize, but was deemed dangerous to the existing order of things-as indeed it was. 
The grave mistake of the authorities was in taking notice of the fanatics, for such were the newcomers. This precipitated the trouble, and the evident injustice meted out to those who harbored and gave hearing to the Quaker enthusiasts, caused a wave of sympathy to spread through the country, and secured for the sect many adherents. 
At first John Chamberlin's role was that of a sympathic bystander, but the time came when he could no longer stand idly by. The subsequent treatment of John Chamberlin, the Currier, of Boston, for his Quaker beliefs, presents a striking example of the manner in which the Massachusetts Bay Colony Government attempted to regulate the religious as well as the civil life in those times. John Chamberlin was present at the hanging of William Leddia on Boston Common and with others, made public protests of the same. Among this company was Edward Wharton, one of the most zealous of Quakers and who later founded the Quaker Colony at Shrewsbury, Monmouth County, New Jersey. He was also present at the execution of Marmaduke Stevenson and William Robinson on Boston Common, 27 October 1659, seeing there also, the reprieve of Mary Dyer, not because of their religious beliefs, but because they had deliberately broken the law in remaining after banishment, evidently with the intention of suffering the death penalty, as a few months before they had been released from prison and ordered to leave the jurisdiction of Massachusetts upon pain of death. 
John Chamberlin was drawn to visit the Quakers in prison and stated that: Those in prison soon tasted of your cruelty, and hath been much and long imprisoned by you; and, although still you have sorely shot at him, yet his bow abides in strength, being enable to bear all your cruelty, and stand as a faithful witness for the Lord against you. As he witnessed their faith, constancy and suffering, he became convinced of their beliefs. An account of his conversion to Quaker Doctrine is of record. At a Court of Assistants held 5-13 March 1659/60, he was among a party of nine; some from Salem where they had been arrested and others from Boston who were examined regarding their doctrine. Among those from Boston was one Martha Stanly, late of Tenterdon in Kent, single woman, who had a message from the Lord to visit her friends in prison in Boston. Of John Chamberlin, the record reads: John Chamberlin of Boston came into Court with his hatt on. Moreover, this same John Chamberlin expressed himself thusly: `that he finds not the opinion of ye Quakers to be cursed, but that it shall stand when all yours shall fall. The other evidence apparently was not of a character far different from John Chamberlin's, except in the case of the Salem contingent and the Kentish woman. Mary Trask, Margaret Smith, and Martha Stanly could not be kept from expressing their opinions, and had to be removed from Court. 
Concerning the claims of the Quakers for recognition, it was related that Major Hawthorne at dinner with ye Governor and Magistrates at a Court of Assistants said that at Salem, Cassandra Southwick said she was greater than Moses because Moses had seen God but twice and that backwards; but she had seen him three times face to face, named place, viz., her old house one time and by such a swamp another time, etc. The record proceeds: the jury was called over to them and liberty given to challenge any of them off the Bench. 
No record appears of sentence or commitment at this Court, but on 25 May 1660, following, a writ for the arrest of John Chamberlin was issued as follows: 
To ye keeper of ye Prison at Boston: You are to take into your custody ye person of John Chamberline for venting his wretched opinions in Charlestown meetinge howse, tendinge to seduce and for reproachfull expressions otherwise. You are to keepe him as a prisoner untill Authoryty heere established take farther coorce with him. [Charlestown, ye 25:3:1660 (25 March 1660] 
Per me Richard Russell 
Up to this time he had been whipped in public several times and probably in prison. Before September 9, 1661, he had been nine times whipped, three times through three towns (Bishop's New England Judged). 
As he languished in prison, we can only imagine the privations, hardships and injustices that were meted out to his little family in addition to the cruelties he himself suffered during his imprisonment. His wife Anne, while apparently not altogether of the same opinion as her husband nevertheless proved to be steadfast, loyal and true. Of her, Bishop wrote in 1702, that Deputy Governor Bellingham knowing that she was not of the same principle entirely with her husband, went about to draw her to deny and disown him..telling her that when he came home again, he would murder her...that she should not want and that she might live with another husband, but being not able to prevail with all his art on the poor woman who told of her true affection to her husband, the Court...could not but take seriously his family's efforts to alleviate his condition (Bishop's New England Judged, 1702, P. 358, etc.) 
The General Court, perceiving that their measures had been too harsh and that some concession must be made to the rising popular indignation, had passed a law, May 22, 1661, which permitted a vagabond Quaker to return to try the patience of the authorities no less than six times before the death penalty was expected. Quakers arising from the people themselves, those who had right of residence in the country, were liable to the law of 1658, and were to be banished under penalty of death if they returned. On May 22, 1661, after passing the law mentioned, the court granted Winlock Christison, who was among those examined in March 1660, and others, liberty to leave its jurisdiction, but ordering them to be conveyed from town to town on their way by the constable. Two of the prisoners, because of standing mute at their trial, were to be tied to the cart's tail, and to receive twenty lashes in Boston. Christison had been sentenced to die June 13, but on June 6, he was given liberty to ask for mercy, and on June 11, was escorted beyond the limits of Dedham by the Constable whose return is on file. 
It was apparently about this time that Henry Chamberlin, Senior, and Henry Chamberlin, Junior, of Hingham, his father and brother, presented a petition to the General Court in his behalf and probably with the hope that he would abandon his beliefs and gain his freedom. This petition is not only interesting and valuable, but provides the only conclusive proof that John Chamberlin, the Currier of Boston, was a son of Henry Chamberlin, blacksmith, of Hingham, Massachusetts. While the grandchild John Chamberlin mentioned in the will of Henry Chamberlin, Senior, in 1673, is believed to be the son of this man, there is no proof. 
The petition reads as follows: 
To the Honorable General Court now assembled at Boston, the humble petition of Henry Chamberlin Senior and Henry Chamberlin Junior humbly showeth: 
That forasmuch one John Chamberlin, a very near and dear natural relation of ours, a child and a brother, doth now lie shut up unto death, there being no thing between him and the utmost execution of humane Justice but the pronounciation of judgement, we having been and still remaining petitioners unto God for mercy in his behalf, we know not unto whom to cry next, but unto yourselves. Natural affection is always urging us to do something in order to the further continuation of his life and what to do we know not; loath are we to offend God or you; loath are we to obstruct Justice and yet fain we would plead for Mercy, and we have some hopes that the Honored Court may at least moderate Justice by mercy as to cause them to go together as to this particular administration. 
Our humble petition therefore to this Honored Court is that if it may stand with the Justice of God's glory and the preservation of our just laws against the Quakers, you would be pleased to remit the sentence of Banishment upon Pain of Death, and permit him to live in prison during your pleasure, we still hoping that God may enlarge his soul from those Chains of Darkness and then and not till then, we should be bold to petition for the enlargement of his body from outward restraint. We should not have been so bold to have mentioned such a thing to this Honored Court, but that we thought his condition somewhat more capable of mercy than the condition of other Quakers, he being an Inhabitant, a child to a father, a father to children, and so bound by many obligations of natural relation. Unto this place, we hope he may have accomodation in prison to work at his Trade for the support of himself and his family, which if this Honored Court be pleased to grant it, will abundantly engage your poor petitioners to pray, etc.. . . . . 
In answer to this petition, the deputies think it meet, to order that John Chamberlin, now in prison, be forthwith removed to the Castle Island, there to provide himself lodging, housing, victuals, etc., at his own charge and during the Courts pleasure to remain there and not to come off at his peril, desiring our Honored Magistrates consent, hereto. William Torrey, Cleric, 7:4:1661 (June 7, 1661). [Massachusetts Archives, Volume 10, P. 272] 
John Chamberlin's final release came in November 1661, when the letter of the King, directing that the laws in force against the Quakers be repealed, was received, and the General Court took occasion to place on record that all the prisoners had been granted liberty to leave and had done so. 
We are saddened to report that his wife Anne probably died about the time of his release from prison. His second wife, Catherine Chatham, was a Quakeress who came from London through many travels and hard trials to Boston and appeared clothed with sackcloth as a sign of the indignation of the Lord coming upon you. She also had been imprisoned and whipped. At Dedham, Massachusetts, she was whipped, fined, and driven into the wilderness. Imprisoned again and ordered to pay a fine, she was taken to wife by John Chamberlain and so became an inhabitant of Boston (Bishops New England Judged, 1702, P. 420). 
About 1663, John Chamberlin removed to Newport, Rhode Island, with his family as did many of the other Quakers. The Quaker records at Newport state that John Chamberlin died there in April 1666, in his fortieth year. There is some question as to the correctness of this date, since a daughter Jane is recorded as having been born to him in December 1667. Be that as it may, the will of one Nicolas Upsall of Boston, which was dated 9 August 1666, reads: I give my greate coate to the children of John Chamberlin to cloth them, while his inventory which was taken on 31 October 1666, referred to the Quakers (New England Historic Genealogical Society Register, Volume 15, P. 251). This evidence generally corroborates the correctness of John Chamberlin's death date. 

His widow Catherine married second, Valentine Huddleston, at Newport, RI, by whom she had at least the following children: 
M i Henry Huddleston, b. 21 Sep 1673, Newport, RI. 
M ii George Huddleston, b. 28 Sep 1677, Newport, RI. 
F iii Jean Huddleston, b. probably about 1680 (?), at Newport, RI. Married Samuel King, and died 1 May 1702 (Rhode Island. Vital Records, Volume 4, P. 109). 
On March 20, 1679/80, Henry Chamberlin, calling himself the eldest son of John Chamberlin, deceased, sold to his step-father Valentine Huddleston, all rights to his father's father's estate in Rhode Island, and on May 18, 1680, acknowledged that he had done so. His brother William witnessed the deed (Rhode Island Land Evidences, Volume 1, 1921). 
On February 16, 1679/80, Matthew Allen, of Dartmouth, New Plymouth, sold land in Dartmouth to Valentine Huddleston (Rhode Island Land Evidences, 1921). On September 17, 1722, Valentine Huddleston deeded land in New Jersey to his stepson Peleg Chamberlin. (See Peleg³ Chamberlin [LN 22]. Valentine Huddleston was undoubtedly the man who died at Dartmouth, Massachusetts, on 8 June 1727, aged 99 years (New England Register, Volume 20, P., 340).