John Mills

Of Boston, and later of Braintree. He came from England about 1630, in the Winthrop Fleet (Sumner). He asked to be made a freeman on 19 Oct 1630 and took the oath on 6 Mar 1631/2 (Sumner, p. 178; Records of Mass. Bay, vol. 1). He was church member no. 33 at Boston, and the first First Church baptisms in Boston’s printed records are “Joy & Recompence daug[hters] of John Milles 8 mo. [1630]” (Boston RC 9:1); Sumner quotes the church record calling them “the first on our record.”

By 1639 he had four acres of upland and marsh at Hogg Island, which he sold to Thomas Savage. In 1640 he was granted 44 acres at Mount Wollaston (later Braintree), and in 1641 he, his wife and son John were dismissed from the Boston church to the church at Braintree (Sumner, p. 178; Anderson, via WikiTree Mills-1007). WikiTree, citing Anderson, adds that he was an innkeeper and clerk of the writs, and took the constable’s oath in 1641.

He was town clerk of Braintree in 1653 (“town clk. 1653,” Savage); a Braintree record calls him “Old John Mils who was somtime the keeper of this book” (quoted by Sumner, p. 178). That he was its first town clerk, as Mollie has it, is unproven.

His will of 12 Jan 1677/8 names his daughters Mary Hawkins and Susanna Dawes. Sumner says it stated that “his predecessors unto the third, if not the fourth generation” were ministers, and recommended that one of his son John’s sons be fitted for the ministry (p. 178).