Henchman, Daniel, 1623 - 1685

Daniel Henchman was the son of Richard Henchman and Anna Newberry of London, England.  After his immigration to New England, he became a school teacher at Boston and captain of that town’s Artillery Company.  As commander of Boston’s First Company of Infantry during King Philip’s War, his unit was stationed at Pocasset where he built a garrison called Fort Leverett.  It later served at Mendon, Rehoboth, Mount Hope, and in the Narragansett and Nipmuck Countries.  In 1675, Henchman was one of a committee authorized by the Massachusetts General Court to establish a settlement at Quinsigamond in western Massachusetts, where he received a twenty-five acre house lot.   After the war, he continued in the plan, becoming responsible for the management of the settlement of what would become Worcester, Massachusetts.  In 1684, Henchman represented Worcester at the Massachusetts General Court.  Bodge, Soldiers in King Philip’s War, 27-31, 47-58.  Eric B. Schultz and Michael J. Tougias, King Philip’s War: The History and Legacy of America’s Forgotten Conflict (Woodstock, VT: The Countryman Press, 1999), 21, 45, 107.  Martin, Profits in the Wilderness, 25-28, 182.