John Larkin (Deacon of Charlestown)

John Larkin
John Larkin
Born	April 3, 1735; Province of Massachusetts
Died	December 14, 1807; Charlestown, Massachusetts
Other names	First Congregational Church
Spouse	Ruth Kettell
Children	Ruth Larkin
Parent(s)	Samuel Larkin, Mary Hicks
Church	First Church of Charlestown
Congregations served	Charlestown
Title	Deacon

Deacon John Larkin (April 3, 1735 – December 14, 1807) was an ordained minister of the

Charlestown, Massachusetts. He was also a merchant, in the tea trade, for the East India Company, having in his possession chests of tea that he readily concealed to avoid England's Stamp Tax. John Larkin is most notable for aiding Paul Revere to obtain the horse he used in his "Midnight Ride". The horse, Brown Beauty was owned by John's father, Samuel Larkin

. John Larkin's will is among Charlestown Records. He amassed a large fortune before he died in 1807. His estate was probated for $86,381.99.

Aiding Paul Revere

On April 17, 1775, British troops were dispatched by

Menotomy (now Arlington) and Lexington. Genealogist William Ensign Lincoln

, recorded a Larkin family tradition that the horse was a mare named "Brown Beauty" belonging to Samuel Larkin, John Larkin's father. According to Lincoln, in 1930, he wrote: "The mare was borrowed at the request of Samuel's son, Deacon John Larkin, and was never returned to the owner."

During the Battle of Bunker Hill, some British troops marched through the Boston suburb of Charlestown, Massachusetts, where the Larkin families lived. John's brother, Ebenezer Larkin (1740-1794), fired a musket from a window of his home at the British troops, who in reprisal, burned the Larkin homes to the ground. John Larkin and his family fled, unscathed, to Cambridge, where they lived in a house once occupied by General Washington and later by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Larkin genealogy

John Larkin was the son of Samuel Larkin (1701-1784) and Mary Hicks (1700-1751). John married Ruth Kettell (1738-1816), daughter of Deacon William and Ruth (Stimpson) Kettell by whom he had ten children. The

Charlestown as early as 1634, descendants of Edward Larking, an English settler of the Massachusetts Bay Colony

.