Person:William Pynchon (1)

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William Pynchon (October 11, 1590 – October 29, 1662) was an English colonist and fur trader in North America best known as the founder of Springfield, Massachusetts, USA. He was also a colonial treasurer, original patentee of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the iconoclastic author of the New World's first banned book. An original settler of Roxbury, Massachusetts, Pynchon became dissatisfied with that town's notoriously rocky soil and in 1635, led the initial settlement expedition to Springfield, Hampden County, Massachusetts, where he found exceptionally fertile soil and a fine spot for conducting trade. In 1636, he returned to officially purchase its land, then known as "Agawam." In 1640, Springfield was officially renamed after Pynchon's home village, now a suburb of Chelmsford in Essex, England — due to Pynchon's grace following a dispute with Hartford, Connecticut's Captain John Mason over, essentially, whether to treat local natives as friends or enemies. Pynchon was a man of peace and also very business-minded — thus he advocated for friendship with the region's natives as a means of ensuring the continued trade of goods. Pynchon's stance led to Springfield aligning with the faraway government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony rather than that of the closer Connecticut Colony.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9} William Pynchon, in Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633. (Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1995)
   3:1536-38.

   ORIGIN: Essex.
   FREEMAN: 11 August 1642 [MBCR 2:292]. (This must have been something of an afterthought, for William Pynchon was certainly acting from the day of his arrival as if he were a freeman. It may be relevant that on 8 May 1642 Pynchon was elected an assistant, the first time he had served in a colony office since 1636, and the oversight may have been noticed at that time.)
   BIRTH: Springfield, Essex, about 27 December 1590, son of John and Frances (Brett) Pynchon [Hale, House 723; NEHGR 87:224].
   DEATH: Wraysbury, Buckinghamshire, 29 October 1662 [Waters 867].

2. ↑ Dorset Pilgrims
   154.
3. ↑ ^3.0 3.1 William Pynchon, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
4.   Burt, Henry Martyn. The First Century of the History of Springfield: The official records from 1636 to 1736, with an historical review and biographical mention of the founders. (Springfield, MA: H.M. Burt, 1899)
   2:621-660, Transcript at US Gen Web, 1899.
5.   Savage, James. A Genealogical Dictionary of the First Settlers of New England: Showing Three Generations of Those Who Came Before May, 1692, on the Basis of Farmer's Register. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co, 1860-1862)
   3:498.

   "WILLIAM, Roxbury, an Assist. came in the fleet with Winthrop 1630, had been assoc. with the patentees, 1628, wh. purch. from the Plymouth comp. that yr. and named to office by the royal chart. of 4 Mar. 1629; brot. four ch. Ann, Mary, John, and Margaret, with their mo. says the rec. of Roxbury ch. of wh. his name is first. His w. d. in the first season, bef. ret. of the sh. in wh. they came; and aft. some yrs. he m. Frances Sanford, a grave matron of the ch. of Dorchester, and a. 1636, rem. to found the town of Springfield, so named, prob. from the place of his resid. near Chelmsford in Old Eng. He was a man of great enterprise, and highly honored as Treasr. bef. his leav. the seacoast, and as Couns. after, until his publicat. of the dangerous judgm. as to religion, wh. he had formed 30 yrs. bef. For this he suffered indignity in 1651, when his book was by our governm. ordered to be burned, and lest the same form of purificat. might reach to the author, he went home, as more freedom was enjoyed in his native ld. See the letter, in full, to Sir H. Vane, from our Gov. Endicott and his council of Assist. in 3 Mass. Hist. Coll. I. 35. At Wraisbury, on the Thames, near famous Runnymede, in Co. Bucks, he d. Oct. 1662, in 72d or 74th yr. his w. having d. there 10 Oct. 1657. Ann m. Henry Smith, s. by her first h. of the sec. w. of her f.; Margaret m. Dec. 6, 1644, capt. William Davis of Boston; and Mary m. 20 Nov. 1640, capt. Elizur Holyoke, and d. 26 Oct. 1657. Four of this name had been gr. at Harv. and three at Yale, 1825."

6. ↑ The Wikipedia article does not provide a source for this birth date.

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