John Weston

   Another name for John was John Wesson.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Emigration: at age 13 from England to Salem, Massachusetts, 1644. ^282,283
Came to Salem 1644 and settled in Reading, now Wakefield, 1652. He was prosperous and the possessor of several tracts of valuable land.

• Dates & Events. ¹³⁴
John Weston was was prosperous and the possessor of several tracts of valuable land. He married April 18, 1653, Sarah Fitch, daughter of Deacon Zachary. This is the earliest marriage record in Reading. He died about 1723, aged over 90 years.

• Background Information. ⁵⁵⁸
About the year 1644, during the Civil War in England, John Weston came from Buckinghamshire, England to Salem, Massachusetts. He left his widowed mother, and secured passage to America by concealing himself in a emigrant ship until well out to sea. He was then thirteen years of age.

John was a member of the Frist Church in Salem in 1648, and about the year 1652, removed to Reading. He lived in a part of the town named Wakefield. He was a large landed proprietor, his property adjoining the meeting house square and bordering on the southeast part of the Reading pond, extending thence southerly.

John was a man of great industry and wealth, being the largest tax payer in the town, and became distinguished for important service participation in the formation and administration of the Colonial government.

Deeply interested in religious matters, John frequently penciled down sermons, in which he exhibited a good degree of skill. He died about the year 1723, at the advance age of more than ninety-two years. He was married 18 Apr 1653 to Sarah Fitch, daughter of Deacon Zachary and Mary Fitch of Reading. They were the parents of eight children, John (died young), Sarah, Mary, John, Elizabeth, Samuel, Stephen and Thomas.

~Genealogical and Family History of the State of New Hampshire: A Record of the Achievements of ... By Ezra Scollay Stearns, William Frederick Whitcher, Edward Everett Parker, Lewis Publishing Company, Lewis publishing company, Chicago, p. 1279

• Dates & Events. ⁵⁵⁹
John was a captain of a trading vessel and made several voyages to England. He was a Puritan, very earnest in his piety, and his gravestone in Reading graveyard shows that he was one of the founders of the church there. He served in King Philip's war.

~Genealogical and Family History of the State of Maine, p. 1141

John married Sara Fitch, daughter of Zacharie Fitch and Marie, on 18 Apr 1653 in Reading, Middlesex, Massachusetts ^{134,558,559,647} (Sara Fitch was born on 20 Jun 1633 in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England and died on 25 Dec 1698 in Reading, Middlesex, Massachusetts.)