John Cotton

John Cotton (1585-1652) graduated from the University of Cambridge University and is a highly regarded Puritan scholar, preacher, and counselor. He was appointed minister at St. Botolph's Church, Boston, Lincolnshire, England, in 1612. Twenty year later, because of a crackdown in the Church of England against nonconformity, Cotton was forced into hiding and in 1633 sailed across the Atlantic to New England, where he became a minister in Boston, Colony of Massachusetts Bay. Cotton was instrumental in the establishment and growth of Congregationalism, which became the dominant church polity in New England.