Of Concord, Mass. A Doctor of Divinity. The son of Edward Bulkley. (Browning, Charles H. Americans of royal descent, 7th ed. Baltimore : Genealogical Pub. Co., 1986, pg. 392). He came to America on the ship "Susan and Ellen" in 1635 (www site: www.wizard.net/~aldonna/rwe.htm, accessed 3/7/2002)
Puritan clergyman, son of Edward and Olyff (Irby) Bulkeley, was born at Odell in Bedfordshire, England, and died in Concord, Mass. Both his parents were of distinguished ancestry. His father, a man of independent means, was a Church of England clergyman somewhat touched with dissent. At about sixteen, Peter entered St. John's College, Cambridge, where he remained for a long time as student (M.A., 1608) and fellow, acquiring an education to be approved of later by Cotton Mather as "Learned,... Genteel, and which was the top of all, very Pious." (Magnalia, 1702, Bk. III, p. 96). In January 1619/20, upon the death of his father, he succeeded to a considerable fortune and to his father's position as rector of Odell. He was married twice. His first wife, Jane Allen, after giving birth to twelve children, died in 1626. "A thundering preacher and a judicious divine" (Daniel Neal, The History of the Puritans, 1754, p. 585), he was clear in his disapproval of ritualism and of men with long hair, but not so clear that his recalcitrance could not be overlooked by ecclesiastical superiors who were themselves of his view-point.
But on the accession of Laud to the archbishopric, recognizing the divergence between himself and those in control of the Church, Bulkeley determined in 1634 or 1635 to emigrate to Massachusetts. His second wife, Grace Chetwode, whom he had but recently married, and his many children and servants came with him in 1636. After a short residence in Cambridge, he went up "further into the Woods" (Mather, Magnalia, Bk. III, p. 96) and established a new town, with a church of which he was officially made "teacher." He was from that time head of the theocracy of Concord, diligently and with substantial results, so far as one can judge, furthering the interests of his followers in both this world and the next. His chief participation in affairs away from Concord was in 1637, when, with Thomas Hooker, he served as moderator of a church council held in Cambridge, to determine among other things, whether for salvation one should look more confidently to grace or to works. Himself a partisan of works, he denounced Anne Hutchinson as a "Jezabell whom the Devill sent over thither to poison these American Churches with her depths of Satan" (New England Historical and Genealogical Register, XXXI, 157). His Gospel Covenant, made up of a number of his sermons, was published in London in 1646, and again in 1651 - "one of those massive, exhaustive, ponderous treatises, into which the Puritan theologians put their enormous Biblical learning, their acumen, their industry, the fervor, pathos, and consecration of their lives" (M.C. Tyler, History of American Literature during the Colonial Time, 1897, I, 217) (Dictionary of American biography, N.Y. : Scribner's, 1958, vol. 2, pg. 249-250). Additional references: New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. X; F.W. Chapman, Bulkeley Family (1875); J.W. Bailey, Paternal Pedigree 1907.
He was the first settler and minister of Concord, Massachusetts (1635). His private collection of books was the nucleus of the library at Harvard College. Author of "The Gospel Covenant, or, The Covenant of Grace Opened." (Colonial families of the United States of America, Baltimore : Genealogical Pub. Co., 196, vol. 7, pg. 125)
Descendants given in Browning, Charles H. Americans of royal descent, 7th ed. Baltimore : Genealogical Pub. Co., 1986, pg. 189, 282, 320, 352, 353, 379, 392, 407, 411.
About Dr. Edward Bulkeley's son Reverend Peter Bulkeley, brother of Sarah Bulkeley St John, and uncle of Sarah's children Chief Justice Oliver St John and Elizabeth St John Whiting):
In 1634, (Peter) Bulkeley sent some associates to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to prepare for his arrival, according to the First Parish of Concord website:
"Rev. Bulkeley had been ousted from his pulpit in Odell, England (where he had succeeded his father, Rev. Edward Bulkeley, in 1609), in 1634 after several warnings from Bishop Laud and the Church of England that he was not following the dictates of King Charles I. He, along with John Jones, knew full well that he would be removed from his pulpit sooner or later, so, being foresighted, he sent his oldest son Edward and a house builder named Thomas Dane to the colonies to build a house for Peter's family. Rev. Bulkeley was a wealthy man, and fortunately for him, he was allowed to bring his money with him when he followed his son to the new world a year later.
https://historyofmassachusetts.org/concord-massachusetts-history/