Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Noyes, James

NOYES, James, clergyman, b. in Wiltshire, England, in 1608; d. in Newbury, Mass., 22 Oct., 1656. He was educated at Oxford, came to this country in 1634, and after a short service in Medford was pastor of the church in Newbury from 1635 till his death. He published “The Temple Measured” (London, 1647); “Catechism” (1650, reprinted in 1691); and “Moses and Aaron, or the Rights of Church and State” (1661). — His son, James, clergyman, b. in Newbury, Mass., 11 March, 1640; d. in Stonington, Conn., 30 Dec., 1719, was graduated at Harvard in 1659, began to preach in 1664, and was pastor of the church in Stonington from 1674 until his death. He was one of the first trustees of Yale, a councillor in civil affairs in the critical periods of his colony, and also practised medicine with success. — The second James's cousin, Nicholas, clergyman, b. in Newbury, Mass., 22 Dec., 1647; d. in Salem, Mass., 13 Dec., 1717, was graduated at Harvard in 1667, and, after preaching thirteen years in Haddam, removed in 1683 to Salem, where he was pastor until his death. Although learned and devout, he engaged bitterly in the witchcraft persecutions, and was active in the legal inquiries that were instituted in 1692. He afterward retracted his opinions, and publicly confessed his error. He published “Election Sermon” (1698); a poem on the death of Joseph Green (1715); and verses prefixed to Cotton Mather's “Magnalia.”