Person:John Winthrop (1)

Admitted at Cambridge Univ., April and matriculated 04 Jul 1626 of Emanuel, in the rank of pensioner.

John was the first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony and was the organizer of the Winthrop Fleet which sailed in 1630 to found this colony. He travelled on the flagship, the Arabella.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} John Winthrop, in Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995).

   ORIGIN: Groton, Suffolk MIGRATION: 1630 on Arbella FIRST RESIDENCE: Boston OCCUPATION: Magistrate.
   BIRTH: Edwardstone, Suffolk, 12 January 1587/8, son of Adam and Anne (Browne) Winthrop [WP 1:5, 159].
   DEATH: Boston 26 March 1649 ("March 26, '48-9 [sic]. Our honored Governor, Mr. John Winthrop, departed this life, - a man of great humility and piety, an excellent statesman, well skilled in the law, and of a public spirit" [Hull 173]).

2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 John Winthrop, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.

   the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

   John Winthrop (January 12, 1587/88<ref></ref> – March 26, 1649) was an English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the second major settlement in New England following Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of colonists from England in 1630 and served as governor for 12 of the colony's first 20 years. His writings and vision of the colony as a Puritan "city upon a hill" dominated New England colonial development, influencing the governments and religions of neighboring colonies.

   Winthrop was born into a wealthy land-owning and merchant family. He trained in the law and became Lord of the Manor at Groton in Suffolk. He was not involved in founding the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1628, but he became involved in 1629 when anti-Puritan King Charles I began a crackdown on Nonconformist religious thought. In October 1629, he was elected governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and he led a group of colonists to the New World in April 1630, founding a number of communities on the shores of Massachusetts Bay and the Charles River.

   Between 1629 and his death in 1649, he served 18 annual terms as governor or lieutenant-governor and was a force of comparative moderation in the religiously conservative colony, clashing with the more conservative Thomas Dudley and the more liberal Roger Williams and Henry Vane. Winthrop was a respected political figure, and his attitude toward governance seems authoritarian to modern sensibilities. He resisted attempts to widen voting and other civil rights beyond a narrow class of religiously approved individuals, opposed attempts to codify a body of laws that the colonial magistrates would be bound by, and also opposed unconstrained democracy, calling it "the meanest and worst of all forms of government".<ref></ref> The authoritarian and religiously conservative nature of Massachusetts rule was influential in the formation of neighboring colonies, which were formed in some instances by individuals and groups opposed to the rule of the Massachusetts elders.

   Winthrop's son John was one of the founders of the Connecticut Colony, and Winthrop himself wrote one of the leading historical accounts of the early colonial period. His long list of descendants includes famous Americans, and his writings continue to influence politicians today.

3. ↑ Bremer, Francis J. John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
4.   John Winthrop, in Lundy, Darryl. The Peerage: A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe.
5.   Winthrop, John, in American National Biography Online.
6. ↑ John Winthrop, in Find A Grave.

The Winthrop Fleet (1630)

The Winthrop Fleet brought over 700 colonists to establish a new colony at Massachusetts Bay. The fleet consisted of eleven ships: the Arbella flagship with Capt Peter Milburne, the Ambrose, the Charles, the Mayflower, the Jewel, the Hopewell, The Success, the Trial, the Whale, the Talbot and the William and Francis.   Sailed: April and May 1630 from Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, England   Arrived: June and July 1630 at Salem, Massachusetts   Previous Settlers: The Higginson Fleet (1629)   Passengers: Winthrop wrote to his wife just before they set sail that there were seven hundred passengers. Six months after their arrival, Thomas Dudley wrote to Bridget Fiennes, Countess of Lincoln and mother of Lady Arbella and Charles Fiennes, that over two hundred passengers had died between their landing April 30 and the following December, 1630.   Selected leaders and prominent settlers: Gov. John Winthrop - Richard Saltonstall - Isaac Johnson - Gov. Thomas Dudley - Gov. William Coddington - William Pynchon - William Vassall - John Revell - Robert Seely - Edward Convers - Gov. Simon Bradstreet - John Underhill - William Phelps   Resources: The Winthrop Society - The Winthrop Fleet (Wikipedia) - Anderson's Winthrop Fleet