Brown-Crocker

John Bursley arrived in Wessagusett, the present town of Weymouth sometime around 1623. Wessagusett was the second settlement in New England after Plymouth. The original settlement was a disaster and Bursley seems to have been part of a second group that brought some order to the community. There is a Bursley Road in the Wessagusett Beach area of today's Weymouth. He served as a Deputy to the General Court from Weymouth/Dorchester area. After living in Weymouth he moved for a time to Scituate, MA. He was one of the founding settlers in Barnstable on Cape Cod. He may have been there before the village was officially granted a charter in 1639. According to an old story, Bursley acquired his land in West Barnstable from an Indian around 1634, paying a copper kettle and a bushel of wheat. This would be where the Bursley Manor is located. In 1639 he married Joanna Hull, the daughter of Barnstable's minister, Rev. Joseph Hull. He was approximately 50 and she was around 19. When Rev. Hull left Barnstable for Maine, John and Joanna lived in the Rev. Hull's house in Barnstable Village. Around 1650 they sold the house to Mr. Allyn and moved to the Bursley Manor on the Bursley Farm in West Barnstable.