The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Dixwell, John

DIXWELL, John, one of the regicide judges of Charles I., born in 1608, died at New Haven, Conn., March 18, 1689. After the reaction in England which placed Charles II. upon the throne, and caused himself and his associates to be condemned to death, he escaped to America, took the name of 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 Goffe, who had found a refuge at Hadley, Mass. His favorite study in exile was the “History of the World,” which Raleigh had written in prison, and he cherished a constant faith that the spirit of liberty in England would produce a new revolution.