Deacon Edward Convers (January 20, 1590 – August 10, 1663) was an early

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should b ...

settler in the

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around Massachusetts Bay, one of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of M ...

, and was one of the founders of Woburn, MA. He built the first house and first mill in Woburn. Convers was very active in town affairs, serving as one of its first selectmen. He served on "every committee and had a part in every movement that had this new settlement in view." He also helped establish Charlestown. He was one of the colony's wealthy landowners, and was a farmer, miller and surveyor.Thompson, Rev. Leander, "Deacon Edward Convers," ''Winchester Record,'' October, 1885 (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~converse/bios/edw-bio.html ) Retrieved 10 Feb. 2011. Edward Convers was born January 20, 1590. After his first wife, Sarah Parker died in 1625, he married Sarah Stone in 1629. He and his family arrived in

Salem, Massachusetts Salem ( ) is a historic coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, located on the North Shore (Massachusetts), North Shore of Greater Boston. Continuous settlement by Europeans began in 1626 with English colonists. Salem was one ...

, with the

Winthrop Fleet The Winthrop Fleet was a group of 11 ships led by John Winthrop out of a total of 17funded by the Massachusetts Bay Company which together carried between 700 and 1,000 Puritans plus livestock and provisions from England to New England over th ...

on June 8, 1630, in the early stages of the Great Migration. He also founded the First Church of Charlestown, and established the first ferry from Charlestown to Boston. The ferry operated where the Charles River Bridge is now located, and was referred to as the "Great Ferry" (to distinguish it from a smaller ferry operating between Charlestown and Winnisimmet). Convers died on August 10, 1663, in Woburn, Massachusetts.Wynne, Robert L., ''Ancestry of Deacon Edward Converse, 1590-1663,'' R.L. Wynne Pub., Houston, TX, 1980.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Convers, Edward 16th-century births 1663 deaths American Puritans American people of English descent People from colonial Massachusetts New England Puritanism Founders of cities in the Thirteen Colonies People from Woburn, Massachusetts English emigrants to Massachusetts Bay Colony