Jonathan Fairbanks (1594 – December 5, 1668) was an English colonist born in

Heptonstall Heptonstall is a small village and civil parish within the Calderdale borough of West Yorkshire, England, historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. The population of Heptonstall, including the hamlets of Colden and Slack Top, is 1,448 ...

, Halifax, in the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

, England who immigrated to New England in 1633. Around 1641 Fairbanks built the Fairbanks House in Dedham, Massachusetts which is today the oldest surviving wood-framed house in North America.

Family

Fairbanks married Grace Smith in Halifax on May 20, 1617. Together they had six children. To celebrate the Fairbanks' 400th wedding anniversary, the Fairbanks Family in America offered half price admission to the house, as well as wedding cake and popcorn on May 20, 2017.

Settlement in New England

Jonathan Fairbanks arrived in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, Massachusetts Bay Colony, with his family in 1633. The Fairbanks family remained in Boston about three years, before settling in Dedham, as one of the earliest settler families. The family purchased 12 acres of land, and in 1641 master carpenters began constructing their home. Jonathan Fairbanks signed the Covenant when the town was founded and named. He served a single term as selectman in 1658.

Conversion to Christianity

Jonathan Fairbanks had "long stood off from the church upon some scruples about public profession of faith and the covenant, yet after divers loving conferences..., n 1646he made such a declaration of his faith and conversion to God and profession of subjection to the ordinances of Christ in the church that he was readily and gladly received by the whole church." Fairbanks became a member of the First Church in Dedham, which espoused a

Reformed theology Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Calv ...

(Calvinist) in the seventeenth century. Jonathan Fairbanks died in Dedham, December 5, 1668. Grace Fairbanks died either October 28, 1673; or March 19, 1676. Fairbanks was buried in the Old Village Cemetery. As was common at the time Jonathan used several spellings of his surname: Fairbanke, Fairebanke, Fayerbanke, and on his will Fairbanck. His sons and grandsons began spelling the name Fairbank or Fairbanks. The spelling Fairbanks carried on for 15 generations.

References

Works cited

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