Thomas Larkham

Thomas Larkham or Larcome (1602–1669) was an English Puritan clergyman, an early but not permanent settler at Dover, New Hampshire. Life He was born at Lyme Regis, Dorset, on 17 August 1602, matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1619, and proceeded B.A. from Trinity Hall in 1622, and M.A. 1626. In 1622 he was living at Shobrooke, near Crediton, where he married. He was instituted vicar of Northam, near Bideford, on 26 December 1626, where his puritan views brought him into trouble. A petition against him was delivered about 1639, and he was proceeded against in the Consistory Court at Exeter. In 1640 Larkham left with his family for New England, going first to Massachusetts, but moved on to Dover called also then Northam. Here he became minister, ousting a Mr. Knollys. Larkham's conduct in taking on civil as well as religious authority led to much discontent and even open warfare, and commissioners from Boston, of whom Hugh Peters was one, were sent to arbitrate. They found both parties in fault. Larkham remained at Dover until the end of 1642, when, in the account of John Winthrop, he left for England after promising not to; Winthrop also mentions the birth of an illegitimate child of which Larkham was admitted to be the father. Larkham himself gives the date of his departure with his son Thomas as 14 November. In England he became chaplain in Sir Hardres Waller's regiment going to Ireland. On 30 January 1648 he went to Devon, proceeding in the following April to Tavistock, where Sir Hardres then had his headquarters. The vicarage of St Eustachius' Church, Tavistock had been vacant since George Hughes accepted a call from the people of Plymouth on 21 October 1643. Larkham had succeeded to the vicarage by 1649. According to the report of the commissioners, who, under the Act for Providing Maintenance for Preaching Ministers, visited Tavistock on 18 October 1650, Larkham was elected by the inhabitants, and presented by the Earl of Bedford. On 15 November 1649 he had been dismissed from his post as chaplain of Waller's regiment, after a court-martial, which sat for two days at Plymouth, had found him guilty of inciting to insubordination. He seems nevertheless to have secured some other military post, for he speaks of receiving money in 1651 at a muster in Carlisle; and on 11 June 1652 pay from Ebthery at Bristol. He was absent from Tavistock almost the whole of 1651–2, to the discontent of his congregation.