Captain John Evered (ca.1611–1668), also known as Webb, was one of the first Europeans to settle what is now known as the Merrimack Valley in Massachusetts, specifically the town of Dracut, which Evered named. Early years John was born in Wiltshire, England around 1611, to father John Webb (b.1580) and mother Rebecca Evered. He was baptised in 1612 in Bromham, Wiltshire. In his early 20s, he, his brother Stephen, their oldest sister Hannah and her husband John Ayer (Eyre) and children, on June 3, 1635, set sail for the New World, aboard the ship James. As they approached New England, a hurricane struck, and they were forced to ride it out just off the coast of modern-day Hampton, New Hampshire. According to the ship's log and the journal of Increase Mather, son of some of the passengers, the following was recorded; "At this moment,... their lives were given up for lost; but then, in an instant of time, God turned the wind about, which carried them from the rocks of death before their eyes. ...her sails rent in sunder, and split in pieces, as if they had been rotten ragges..." They tried to stand down during the storm just outside the Isles of Shoals, but lost all three anchors, as no canvas or rope would hold, but on Aug 13, 1635, torn to pieces, and not one death, all one hundred plus passengers of the James managed to make it to Boston Harbor. The ship's log listed John and his brother as laborers/husbandmen. John and Stephen stayed in Boston, while his brother-in-law went on to Salisbury, Massachusetts before finally settling in Haverhill. Life in Boston As a single man, John was admitted to the First Church, Boston, and became a mariner, and he was made a freeman of the Massachusetts Bay province on December 7, 1636. In 1639, while living in Boston, he married Mary Faireweather, a widow of Thomas Fayreweather, as she states her intentions in a deed of gift to her son John; "…to the use of such child and children that shall be lawfully begotten betweene me and John Everet als. Webb whome I intend by the grace of God to take to my husband…” They bought their first home together in Boston for 50 pounds, and Mary and John had a daughter, Hannah Webb Evered, the following year. This was their only child together, making a