| Comfort Starr | |
| Birth Date: | 6 July 1589 |
| Birth Place: | Cranbrook, Kent Kingdom of England |
| Death Place: | Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony |
| Resting Place: | King's Chapel Burying Ground Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Nationality: | English |
| Occupation: | Physician |
Comfort Starr (6 July 1589 – 2 January 1659) was a 17th-century English physician who emigrated to the Thirteen Colonies. He was one of the founders of Harvard College, serving as a member of the earliest incarnation of the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Starr was born in Cranbrook, Kent, on 6 July 1589.[1] He was one of the seventeen children of Thomas Starr.[2]
In 1635, aged 45, Starr left the Kingdom of England aboard the Hercules, which launched from Sandwich, Kent. He settled in Cambridge, Colony of Massachusetts Bay,[3] where he was a founder of Harvard College the following year.[1] [4] He came with three of his children and three servants; his wife followed with most of the other children.[5] One of his daughters did not emigrate until after his death.[6]
His sister, Suretrust, also emigrated, and lived in Charlestown, Colony of Massachusetts Bay, with her husband Faithful Rouse.
Prior to his family's emigration, Starr was a warden at St Mary's Parish Church in Ashford, Kent, where he also had a surgery.[2] [7]
Starr married Elizabeth Watts on 4 October 1614. They had nine children: Thomas (1615–1658), Judith (1617–1622), Mary (1620), Elizabeth (1621–1704), Comfort (1624–1711), John (1626–1704), Samuel (1628–1633), Hannah (1632–1662) and Lydia (1634–1653). Mary married John Maynard in 1640.[8] Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States, was a descendant of John.
After arriving in the Massachusetts Bay, in 1635 he purchased the homestead of William Peyntree in Duxbury.[6] The family moved to Boston just over a decade later.[6]
Their grandson, Comfort Starr (1666–1743), built the Comfort Starr House in Guilford, Connecticut Colony, in 1695.[9]
Starr died on 2 January 1659, aged 69, just over six months after the death of his wife.[10] They are buried in King's Chapel Burying Ground in Boston.[1] A memorial plaque to Starr was installed in St Dunstan's Church in Cranbrook, Kent, where he was baptised.[11] [12]