England, in the 1620's during the reign of Charles I, was feeling the unease that was a prelude to the revolution eventually resulting in the Cromwell victory. For the stalwart yeomen of many a British town, the unrest in the government and the pressure of religious persecution became intolerable. To this discontent of spirit the rosy claims of such astute gamblers in the American Dream as the London Company and the Plimouth Company sounded a siren call.

Independent young family men of standing and some substance in their communities answered this summons, and sought peace, freedom of worship and the gold at the end of the rainbow in the new world.

John Endicott, a staunch Puritan, sailing in the "Abigail" with a party of about fifty, established the Salem settlements of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1628. Lynn was settled the next year. In 1639, some of the Lynn settlers expressed dissatisfaction with the coastal lands allotted them and requested permission to settle farther inland. A grant of land was recorded in 1639 to these Lynn families, "extending six miles west to Redding's two ponds." The court, in granting the land to the Lynn petitioners, did it "on condition that they shall within two years make some good proceedings in planting so as it may be a village fit to contain a convenient number of inhabitants which in due time may have a church there." This expression of intent to have a church (1639) is the first recorded thought of a church or a meetinghouse in this locality. After the date of this grant, a number of families from Saugus and some from England joined the original petitioners and settled nearby.