• John and his older cousin, Richard Derby, sailed from Barnstaple, Devonshire, Eng. for the new world about May 1637 when he was seventeen years of age. [667, p 1; Amos Otis Papers, p. 156] Some records say in the month of July and aboard the ship Friendship. However, no ships roster or other authoritative document has yet come to light confirming this report. But, up to 1850, he was the only man of the surname Chipman to come to New England. [667, p 2]

• It was at the Rocky Nook home of John and Elizabeth Howland that presumably John Chipman wooed, won and married Hope Howland. An authority [Miss Alice Beale, Barnstable, Mass.] on Barnstable history states that for the first three years, they probably rented home quarters while he plied his carpentry trade in Plymouth. But in 1649, they moved to Barnstable, Mass., having “that year, bought the homestead owned by Edward Fitzrandolphe” the deed of which is in the records at Barnstable. [667, p 4]

• A declaration by John Chipman to the Plymouth Court dated 8 February 1657/58 giving substantial background about himself is transcribed in NEHGR 35:127-28. In 1657 he had been out of England for twenty-one years and he supposed that he was thirty-seven years old. Thus, he was born ca. 1620, and probably arrived in New England between 12 July 1637 and 31 August 1638. [20, p 262]