James Atherton

James Atherton ( 16241710) was an early settler and one of the founders of Lancaster, Massachusetts. He emigrated to the New England Colonies from the parish of Wigan, Lancashire, England, in 1635. Emigration The Massachusetts Bay Colony had been founded by the owners of the Massachusetts Bay Company, which included investors in the failed Dorchester Company which had established a short-lived settlement on Cape Ann in 1623. The colony began in 1628 and was the company's second attempt at colonization. It was successful, with about 20,000 people migrating to New England in the 1630s. Atherton was part of this first wave of Puritan migration to New England (1620–1640). Atherton was a child emigrant. Biographers agree that he travelled from Lancashire to Bristol and then sailed on the James, in the company of the Reverend Richard Mather; a minister from his home town and Humphrey Atherton, an elder relative (but not a sibling). The latter would later become the mayor general of the Massachusetts Bay Colony troops. On June 4, 1635, he set sail for the New World aboard the ship James. However, quoting another source, it sailed days earlier;