Ichabod Chauncey was the second son of Mr Charles Chauncey, at one time minister of Ware in Hertfordshire, of whose sufferings in the High Commission Court, Rushworth, in his “Historical Collections,” has preserved a particular account. He was suspended by Archbishop Laud, for refusing to read the “Book of Sports,” and having suffered for nonconformity, by fines and imprisonment in his own country, became an exile in New England. He arrived there in 1638; and upon the removal of Mr Dunster, was made president of Harvard college, in which office he continued till his death, 2nd February, 1671, leaving six sons, all bred to the ministry, and all (if we may credit Mather(1)) inheriting from their father a taste for and skill in medicine. Two of them combined the two professions.
Ichabod, the subject of our present notice, was entered a student at Harvard college in 1651. Coming to this country, he acted for some time as a minister in the capacity of chaplain to Sir Edward Harley’s regiment at Dunkirk; but, having been silenced by the Bartholomew Act, he devoted himself to medicine, and was admitted an Extra-Licentiate of the College of Physicians 13th October, 1666.
He settled at Bristol, where he was indicted 9th April 1684, under the Act of 35th Elizabeth, and sent to Newgate; and on the 15th of the same month sentence of banishment was passed on him, when he was made to swear “that he would depart this city and nation within three months from this port and no other, and never return without the King’s leave.” He is said to have been “very cheerful under all, though he had been about four months in Newgate already.” In obedience to the sentence he left Bristol, and anxious to utilize his banishment proceeded to Leyden, and on the 29th September, 1684, entered himself on the physic line there. He returned, however, to Bristol in 1686, and resumed the practice of his profession, and dying there on the 25th July, 1691, was buried in St Philip’s church in that city.
William Munk
[(1) History of New England, b. iii, p. 140.]