Jeremiah was well-educated. He was said by Cotton Mather to have been bred at Harvard College. He was probably a student there, but his name is not in the list of Harvard graduates. He preached or taught school at Guilford until 1660.
He was then in charge of the Collegiate School at New Haven, a Colony School instituted by the General Court in 1659. It was open to students from other colonies. Instruction was given in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and men prepared for college. In 1661 the school closed for lack of support, but opened later.
In the Autumn of 1661 Jeremiah was probably ordained and he then became a preacher at Saybrook, CT. In 1666 he moved to Guilford, but he was opposed to the "Half-way Covenant" adopted by the General Synad in 1662, so he left the Colony and moved to Newark NJ. He was one of the first settlers, residing on the North east corner of Market and Mulberry St. He was not a minister in Newark, but preached in Elizabethtown, and moved there in 1669 or 1670. In Sep 1678 he moved to Greenwich to become minister there. In 1690 he moved to Waterbury and became the first minister there. His will was dated 1 Jan 1696/97.