Henry Whitfield (minister)

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Henry Whitfield (c. 1590–1657) was an English Puritan minister who helped found Guilford, Connecticut, and was its first pastor. He was born in Wadhurst, England, and studied at Oxford before leaving the Church of England to become a Puritan and pastor. He married Dorothy Sheafe in 1617. In 1639 he moved to New Haven, Connecticut, and helped establish Guilford by signing the Guilford Covenant for the town on Menuncatuck in a deed from Wequash Cooke. He built a fortified stone house, the Henry Whitfield House, about 1639 with help from local Native Americans; it is one of the oldest surviving American houses. Whitfield later returned to England in 1650 and died in Winchester in 1657.