John Meigs and wife Thomazine Frye Meigs of New Haven

On my Grandfather Fairchild's side, my 10th great grandfather is John Meigs or Meggs of Guilford and New Haven, Connecticut. He is the son of Vincent Meigs who came with his family from Dorset/Devon, England in 1639 to Connecticut and settled in the New Haven area. John married Thomasine Frye.

John is famous because on the night of May 12, 1661 he rode from Guilford to New Haven to warn the regicides Whalley and Goffe who were hiding at Rev. Davenport's that agents of the King were on the way to arrest them. Whalley and Goffe had been among Cromwell's men who sentenced King Charles I to death. Once Charles II ascended the throne, he planned revenge on the men who had had his father beheaded.

John Meigs supposedly helped them hid in Judges Cave on West Rock where they escaped justice. There is a plaque there to commemorate the occasion.

His daughter Elizabeth married Richard Hubbell through which the line descends to the Glover family in Newtown, then to the Fairchilds.