Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Dixwell, John

DIXWELL, JOHN, regicide, b. probably in Folkstone, Kent, England, in 1607; d. New Haven, Conn., 18 March, 1689. It appears that he was a man of estate, and was descended from a family long prominent in Kent and Warwickshire. In the revolution of 1640 he espoused the popular cause, was a colonel in the parliamentary army, a member of four parliaments, thrice in the council, and also one of the court that tried and condemned Charles I. After the Restoration he and his associates were condemned to death, but Dixwell escaped to America. He changed his name to John Davids, and lived undiscovered in New Haven, where he was married and left children. In 1664 he visited two of his fellow-regicides, Whalley and Goff, who had found a refuge at Hadley, Mass. Up to the time of his death he cherished a hope that the spirit of liberty in England would produce a new revolution. See Stiles's “History of Three of the Judges of Charles I. — Whalley, Goffe, Diexwell” (Hartford, 1794).