The Owners' Manual | Issue 21 | Spring/Summer 2021

John Jenney, Meriden

Following the arrival of the Mayflower in Plymouth in 1620, two supply ships from Land’s End, England arrived in 1623, and on one of those ships, the “Little James”, was my Great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great grandfather, John Jenney, his wife Sara, and their three children. John, a brewer from Norwich, England, married Sara in Leyden, Holland in 1614. In 1623, after returning to England, and after three months and two days at sea, they landed in Plymouth. The first settlers who arrived in the Mayflower, the Fortune, theAnneand the Little James, were known as “First Comers”. John Jenney and his family settled on land between the Town Brook and

Strawberry Hill, along with their three cows, two ponies and two goats. John was one of the original sixty-eight Freemen of the Corporation of Plymouth. In 1633 he was appointed by Governor Winslow to establish the tax rate for the colony of Plymouth. He was later appointed as the Governor’s counsel, served on the coroner’s jury, and was on the committee that established and built the first meetinghouse. In 1636, John Jenney served on the Governor’s council that prepared a regular system of laws for the colony. In 1637, he was assigned the job to construct a mill for grinding corn, which at the time, was used as a form of currency and used in the making of beer. You could say that he was the first to bring European beer making to America. The Jenney Grist Mill was constructed using timbers from the original fort that had been built several years prior, and the mill is still in use as a museum to this day (rebuilt in 1970 after a fire destroyed it in 1837). In 1638, he was appointed Assistant- Governor under Governor Thomas Prence, and then served as Assistant-Governor to William Bradford in 1639. From 1640 on, John Jenney served as the delegate to the Massachusetts Bay Colony Assembly, representing Plymouth, and he managed the disposition of lands throughout the Plymouth colony. This included the job of surveying property boundaries. In 1643, “A Counsell of war for the towne” was appointed that was made up of seven men, including Governor Bradford, Edward Winslow, Captain Myles Standish and John Jenney. In December of 1643, Governor Bradford reported to Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay colony the passing of John Jenney at the age of 43 (+/-). His wife Sara lived for another twelve

years, and with her son, continued to manage the mill and other business endeavors. Since that time, all eight generations of my family, which included whaling ship captains, lawyers, ship builders and engineers, has maintained roots in southeastern Massachusetts. I plan to maintain that connection upon my retirement.