Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Josselyn, John
JOSSELYN, JOHN (fl. 1675), traveller, was second of two sons of Sir Thomas Josselyn, knt., of Willingale Doe, Essex, by his second wife, Theodora, daughter of Edmund Cooke of Lesnes Abbey, Erith, and Mount Mascall, Bexley, and widow of Clement Bere of Dartford, all in Kent (Lodge, Peerage of Ireland, ed. Archdall, iii. 266; Berry, County Genealogies, Kent, p. 472). At the invitation of his brother Henry (see below), he sailed for New England on 26 April, and arrived in Boston on 2 July 1638. There he paid visits to John Winthrop and John Cotton [q. v.] To the latter he delivered from Francis Quarles a metrical version of six of the Psalms for his approbation. He then went to Black Point, Scarborough, Maine, where his brother was settled, and stayed there until his return to England in October 1639. He paid his next visit to New England in 1663, arriving at Boston on 28 July, soon joined his brother at Scarborough, and remained with him for nearly eight years and a half. On his return home in December 1671 he published his impressions of the country in a curious book entitled ‘New-Englands Rarities discovered in birds, beasts, fishes, serpents, and plants of that country … Illustrated with cuts,’ 8vo, London, 1672 (reprinted with notes by Edward Tuckerman, Boston, 1865). Josselyn wrote also ‘An Account of two Voyages to New-England. Wherein you have the setting out of a ship, with the charges; … a description of the countrey, natives and creatures, with their merchantil and physical use; the government of the countrey, … a large chronological table of the most remarkable passages from the first discovering of the Continent of America to the year 1673,’ &c., 8vo, London, 1674; 2nd edit. 1675. The book was reprinted by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1834 in their ‘Collections’ (3rd ser. vol. iii.), and again at Boston in 1869.
His elder brother, Henry Josselyn (d. 1683), was sent to New England by Captain John Mason, patentee of New Hampshire, and arrived at Piscataqua, Maine, in the summer of 1634. After Mason's death in 1635 he took service with Sir Ferdinando Gorges [q. v.] In 1636 and 1640 he was a member of the Maine government. By 1638 he had settled at Black Point, Scarborough, Maine. In 1643 he succeeded to the Cammock patent at Black Point, and in 1645 became deputy-governor of Maine. He was appointed a commissioner for the administration of the government in 1665. Conquered by the Indians in October 1676 he retired westwards. He was at Pemaquid, Maine, in 1682, and died in the early part of 1683 (New England Hist. and Genealog. Reg. xi. 31). By his marriage with Margaret, widow of Captain Thomas Cammock (d. 1643), he had a son Henry (Savage, Genealog. Dict. ii. 570–571). Both he and his brother were staunch royalists.
[Josselyn's Works; Douglas's British Settlements in North America, ii. 71; Hutchinson's Province of Massachusetts Bay, i. 267, 268; Sullivan's Maine, pp. 330–2; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit. i. 1000; New England Hist. and Genealog. Reg. ii. 204.]