Puritans were twice as literate as the British in general

From Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer. Page 28. About the Puritan immigrants.

The social status of these people also appeared in their high levels of literacy. Two-thirds of New England’s adult male immigrants were able to sign their own names. In old England before 1640, only about one-third could do so. By this very rough “signature-mark test,” literacy was nearly twice as common in Massachusetts as in the mother country.