Edward Bulkeley matriculated pensioner from St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, Easter, 1629. He arrived at New England before his father and the rest of his family. He was at that time barely 21 years old. He joined the First Church in Boston 22 Mar 1634/5, and was made a freeman on 6 May 1635. Edward was dismissed to Concord, 15 Aug 1641. Having acquired a professional education, under instruction of his father, he was licensed to preach the Gospel and ordained at Marshfield, MA, in 1642/3. On the death of his father in 1659, he was dismissed and installed over the Church in Concord as his successor at £80 a year. He preached the Election Sermon in 1680.(1)

Edward Bulkeley succeeded his father, Peter, as Minister of the First Parish Church in Concord, and served from 1659-1696.  His house still stands at 92 Sudbury Road.  He had graduated from Harvard Divinity School and been ordained at Marshfield, MA in 1642.

He served during the bloody King Philip’s War of 1675.  People said that he delivered such fiery prayers that the Indians didn’t dare attach his town, and indeed there was never any trouble here with the American natives.

During his ministry, the second Meeting House was built on the same site as the first, we believe, only twice as big.  The exact location of these two buildings has never been decided.  One argument is that they were located on top of the hill where it would have been closer to God and a look-out for any enemies approaching.  The other argument is that they would never have lugged materials up that steep hill when they could have more easily built on ground level.  There they would have had easier access in an emergency, more warmth in winter with the help of the sun from the east, south and west, and protection from the north winds with the high esker behind them.  My own theory is that it was on the ground level because of the location of the burying ground and the first grave stones we see there today.  In their traditional English manner, their dead were buried close to and around their churches, and seven or eight very early stones, before inscriptions were possible, are in a just right position to indicate where a building might have stood. (2)

On 5 Mar. 1694, the town of Concord voted, “Whereas the Rev. Pastor, Mr Edward Bulkeley, is under such infirmities of body by reason of great age, that he is not capable of attending the work of the ministry as in time past, being also sensible of the obligations the town is under to afford him a comfortable maintenance during the term of his natural life, that thereby the people may testifie their gratitude for his former services in the Gospel, they do hereby oblige the town to pay Mr. Bulkeley yearly, during his natural life, the sum of £30 in lieu of his former salary.” He accepted this provided he could preach or not as he felt inclined.

Sewall’s diary, 4 Jan 1695/6: “The Revd. Mr. Edward Bulkly, of Concord, dies at Chelmsford in a good old Age; is buried at Concord.” [1]

Sources

1. 153. Donald Lines Jacobus, The Bulkeley Genealogy: Rev. Peter Bulkeley, being an account of his career, his ancestry, the ancestry of his two wives, and his relatives in England and New England, together with a genealogy of his descendants through the seventh American generation, New Haven, Connecticut, 1933.
2. Ministers of the First Parish Church in Concord:  369 Years of Parish Ministry. by Marian Wheeler, February 2006

Links

• http://trees.wmgs.org/getperson.php?personID=I11234&tree=Schirado