Peter (or Peters), Hugh (1598-1660)

English-born Puritan preacher. He became a minister of the first church at Salem, Massachusetts. Peter returned to England in 1641 to represent Massachusetts Bay Colony, and served with the forces of Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Fairfax as an army chaplain. He took part in Parliamentarian politics, was a vigorous propagandist for the Parliamentary cause, and published many pamphlets. In 1660, at the Restoration, he was executed for his part in the death of Charles I.

Peter was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge University. He emigrated to Holland and then to New England, where he established a colony at Saybrook, Connecticut, and was a co-founder of Harvard College.