John was ordained as a minister of the church at Colchester, Conn. on December 20, 1703. He took a very high rank among the clergymen of New England. He wrote the preface to Wolcott's "Meditations." He published: election sermon (1713) entitled "The Necessity of Religion in Societies"; "Inquiry Into the Right of the Aboriginal Natives to the Land in America" (1724); "An Impartial Account of a Late Debate at Lyme Upon the Following Points; Whether it be the Will of God that the Infants of Visible Believers should be Baptized; whether sprinkling be lawful and sufficient; and whether the Present Way of Supporting Ministers by a Public Rate or Tax be Lawful."
Dr. Chauncy wrote of Bulkeley: "Mr. John Bulkeley I have seen and conversed with, though so long ago that I formed no judgment of him from my very own knowledge. Mr. Whittlesey of Wallingford, Mr. Chauncey of Durham and others I could mention ever spoke of him as a first-rate genius, and I have often heard that Dummer and he, who were classmates in college, were accounted the greatest geniuses of their day. The preference was given to Dummer in regard to quickness, brilliancy and wit; to Bulkeley in regard to solidity of judgment and strength of argument. Mr. Gershom Bulkeley, father of John, I have heard mentioned as a truly great man and eminent in his skill in chemistry, and the father of Gershom, and grandfather of John, Peter Bulkeley of Concord, was esteemed in his day as one of the greatest men in this part of the world. But by all that I have been able to collect, the Colchester Bulkeley surpassed his predecessors in the strength of his intellectual power."
Administration of his estate was granted 22 Sept. 1731 to Patience Bulkeley and his son John. Distribution ordered 10 May 1754 to widow Patience; heirs of John Bulkeley a double share; Gershom, Charles, Peter, and Oliver Bulkeley, Sarah Bulkeley alias Welles, Dorothy Bulkeley, Patience Bulkeley alias Lord, and Lucy Bulkeley alias Lord.
There had been a mutual agreement of heirs dated 17 July 1733, signed by the children John, Gershom, Charles, Peter Bulkeley, Sarah Trumble, Dorothy Bulkeley, and Patience Bulkeley, by which "our mother" was to have half of the personal estate and also the negro man Cesar; John to have our father's library, except Charles to have "such Physicall (sic) books are in the Inglish Tongue." At the acknowledgment of this agreement in Court, 22 Dec. 1742, Sarah Trumble was called Sarah Wells.
(Jacobus, D.L. Peter Bulkeley: an account of his career, his ancestors, & ancestors of his two wives, & his relatives in England & New England, with a genealogy of his descendants. New Haven, Conn., 1933, pg. 139-140).
First minister and settler at Colchester, Ct. (Colonial families of the U.S.A. Baltimore : Genealogical Pub. Co., 1966, vol. 7, pg. 126).