Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Nowell, Increase
NOWELL, INCREASE (1590–1655), New England settler, born in 1590, was one of the patentees mentioned in the charter of the governor and company of Massachusetts Bay. He was chosen an ‘assistant’ in 1629, and became a very active and efficient member of the company. In 1630 he arrived in America in the Arbella with John Winthrop. He was appointed ruling elder of the church at Boston in August 1630, but resigned that office in 1632 on becoming convinced of the impropriety of being a magistrate and an elder at the same time. He was in consequence dismissed from the Boston pastorate, and became a founder of the church in Charlestown. He was a commissioner of military affairs in 1634. In 1637 he was one of those who refused to disclaim the charter, and for not appearing to answer for his conduct before the commissioners from England was outlawed (Felt, Eccl. Hist. of New England, i. 275). From 1644 until 1649 he was secretary of Massachusetts colony. He died in poverty at Boston on 1 Nov. 1655. By his wife Parnell Gray (1603–1687) he had five sons and three daughters. In recognition of his services the colony granted 1,000 acres of land apiece, in Cocheco country, New Hampshire, to his widow and son Samuel.
His eldest surviving son, Samuel Nowell (1634–1688), born at Boston on 12 Nov. 1634, graduated at Harvard in 1653, and was chaplain under General Josiah Winslow in Philip's war. At the great Narraganset swamp fight in South Kingston, Rhode Island, on 19 Dec. 1675, he displayed remarkable bravery (Mather, Magnalia, bk. vii. ch. 6, sect. 10). He was chosen assistant of the colony in May 1680, and in Oct. 1685 became treasurer. In 1688 he went to England on behalf of the old colonial charter, and died in London in September of that year.
[Young's Chronicles of the First Planters, p. 262, and elsewhere; Prince's Annals, p. 334; Winthrop's Hist. of New England (Savage); Budington's First Church in Charlestown, pp. 31, 190; Hutchinson's Massachusetts Bay, 2nd edit., i. 17, 22; Felt's Eccl. Hist. of New England, i. 159; Savage's Genealog. Dict. iii. 295; Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, 3rd Ser., i. 47.]