John Winthrop (1587 - 1649)

Born 12 Jan 1587 in Groton, Suffolk, England

Ancestors

Husband of Mary (Forth) Winthrop — married 16 Mar 1605 (to 26 Jun 1615) in Great Stambridge, Essex, England

Husband of Thomasine (Clopton) Winthrop — married 6 Dec 1615 (to 8 Dec 1616) in Groton, Suffolk, England

Husband of Margaret (Tyndal) Winthrop — married 29 Apr 1618 (to 14 Jun 1647) in Great Maplestead, Essex, England

Husband of Martha (Rainsborough) Coggan — married 20 Dec 1647 (to 26 Mar 1649) in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Descendants

Died 26 Mar 1649 at age 62 in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Puritan Great Migration Project WikiTree [send private message] and Robin Wood [send private message]

John Winthrop migrated to New England during the Puritan Great Migration (1621-1640). (See Great Migration Begins, by R. C. Anderson, Vol. 3, p. 2038) Join: Puritan Great Migration Project Discuss: pgm

Biography

John Winthrop is Notable.

John Winthrop (12 January 1587 [1] – 26 March 1649) was of a landowning family. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, came into a family fortune, and became a government administrator with strong Puritan leanings. He was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer. Born at Edwardstone, near Groton, Suffolk, England, he was one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth Colony.

John Winthrop is best known as the Puritan Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, departing England on the flagship Arbella, ^[1] leader of The Winthrop Fleet of 1630; the largest fleet of Englishmen ever to depart for the New World.

Winthrop was a deeply religious man, and he believed that the Anglican Church needed to rid itself of Catholic ceremonies. He and his followers decided to leave England because they thought that God would punish their country for this heresy, and they thought they would be safe in the New World.

He was elected governor of the colony on 20 October 1629,^[2] before their departure in 1630, and he was re-elected several times after they had arrived in the New World. As governor, he tried to keep the number of executions for heresy to a minimum, and he opposed the veiling of women, which many colonists supported.

Winthrop served as governor for 12 of the colony's first 20 years of existence. His writings and vision of the colony as a Puritan "city upon a hill" dominated New England colonial development, influencing the government and religion of neighboring colonies.

"Winthrop, John, ... He arrived (1630) in the ship Arbella at Salem and shortly founded on Shawmut peninsula the settlement that became Boston. He was - with the possible exception of John Cotton - the most distinguished citizen of Massachusetts Bay colony, serving as governor some 12 times. He helped to shape the theocratic policy of the colony and opposed broad democracy. It was while he was deputy governor and Sir Henry Vane (1613–62) was governor that Winthrop bitterly and successfully opposed the Antinomian beliefs of Anne Hutchinson and her followers, who were supported by Vane. The force of his influence on the history of Massachusetts was enormous. Winthrop's journal, which was edited by J. K. Hosmer and published in 1908 as The History of New England from 1630 to 1649 is one of the most valuable of American historical sources." ^[3]

Marriages and Children

John married first, at Great Stambridge, Essex, England, 16 April 1605, Mary Forth (buried 26 June 1615). They had three sons and three daughters^[2]:

1. John Winthrop, Governor of Connecticut
2. Henry Winthrop
3. Forth Winthrop (son)
4. Mary Winthrop, wife of Samuel Dudley
5. Anne Winthrop
6. AnneWinthrop (second child named Anne)

John married second, at Groton, Suffolk, England, 6 Dec 1615, Thomasine Clopton (baptized 18 Feb 1583; buried 11 Dec 1616) and they had one daughter who died as an infant.^[2]

John married third, Margaret Tyndall at Great Maplestead, Essex, England on 29 April 1618. They had six sons and two daughters^[2]:

1. Stephen Winthrop
2. Adam Winthrop, abt 27 years old at his father's death, he was granted administration of his father's estate with Martha, Gov Winthrop's widow. ^[4]
3. Deane Winthrop
4. Nathanial Winthrop
5. Samuel Winthrop, Deputy Governor of Antigua
6. William Winthrop
7. Anne Winthrop
8. Sarah Winthrop ^[5]

John's wife Margaret died at Boston, Massachusetts 14 June 1647. He married fourth, soon after 20 Dec 1647, Martha Rainsborough, widow of Thomas Coytemore and daughter of William Rainsborough. They had one son:

1. Joshua Winthrop^[2]

Burial

King's Chapel Burying Ground, Tremont St., Boston, Massachusetts.^[6]

Sources

1. ↑ Robert Charles Anderson. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, Volumes 1-3; The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635, Volumes 1-6. Boston: New England Historical and Genealogical Society, 1996-2011. 3:2038.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4} Douglas Richardson, author and Kimball G. Everingham, ed. Royal Ancestry : A Study in Colonial & Medieval Families (Salt Lake City, Utah: Douglas Richardson, 2013), 5:223-4.
3. ↑ Wikipedia for John Winthrop Directly quoted. Wikipedia has an extensively well documented biography with information on family members.
4. ↑ Anderson. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, 3:2039.
5. ↑ Robert Edmond Chester Waters, Esq., B.A. Genealogical Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley: Their Ancestors and Descendants, Volume 1 (London: Robson & sons, 1878), 280.
6. ↑ Resting Places: The Burial Sites of more than 14,000 Famous People. 3rd ed. by Scott Wilson

See also:

• Capen, Nahum (ed) (1851). The Massachusetts State Record, Volume 5. Boston: James French. OCLC 1770853. Pages 53-54
• Hart, Albert Bushnell (ed) (1927). Commonwealth History of Massachusetts. New York: The States History Company. OCLC 1543273. A multi-volume history of Massachusetts, structured as a series of essays on many topics. Page 1:607
• Anderson, Robert Charles. The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New England, 1620-1633, 3:2038-42 (Boston: New England Historical and Genealogical Society, 1996-2011); image of pp. 2038-42 by subscription AmericanAncestor.org.
• Barghouti, Kim, comp. Handy Book of American Authors, 1907. Online publication - (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000). Original data - Louis Harmon Peet. Handy Book of American Authors. New York, USA: Thomas Y. Crowell and Co., 1907.
• Winthrop, John; Hosmer, James Kendall, 1834-1927. Winthrop’s journal : "History of New England", 1630-1649. New York : Scribner. 1908. Winthrop’s Journal
• Wikipedia: John Winthrop
• Dunn, R. S. and L. Yeandle, abridged ed. The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630–1649 (1996).
• Dunn, Richard S. Puritans and Yankees: The Winthrop Dynasty of New England 1962. Reprint, Princeton University Press, 1971. press.princeton.edu
• Mayo, Lawrence Shaw. The Winthrop Family in America. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1948. Image Copy.Archive.org: accessed 2016.
• Winthrop, Robert C. Life and Letters of John Winthrop: Governor of the Massachusetts-Bay Company at Their Emigration to New England, 1630. 2 vols. 1864. Image Copy. Archive.org Reprint, Boston: Little, Brown, 1869.
• Richardson, Douglas, Royal Ancestry A Study in Colonial & Medieval Families, Vol. 5. Salt Lake City, Utah, 2013.
• Winthrop, R. C. Life and Letters of John Winthrop 2 vol. 1864–67. Reprint 1971.
• John Winthrop, Wikipedia
• Venn, J. A., comp.. Alumni Cantabrigienses. London, England: Cambridge University Press, 1922-1954. Cambridge University Alumni, 1261-1900. Online publication - (Provo, Utah, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1999).
• Waters, Robert Edmond Chester, Esq., B.A. Genealogical Memoirs of the Extinct Family of Chester of Chicheley: Their Ancestors and Descendants, Volume 1. London: Robson & sons, 1878. p 264. Image Copy. Archive.org ; accessed 2016.
• Whitmore, William Henry,. Notes on the Winthrop family : and its English connections before its emigration to New England. Albany: J. Munsell, 1864. "Reprinted with additions from the New England historical and genealogical register for April, 1864." Image Copy. Archive.org : accessed Aug 2016.
• Winthrop Family Papers. Massachusetts Historical Society. http://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0294 : accessed 2016.
• Winthrop Papers (5 vol., 1929–47); biographies by J. H. Twichell (1892), E. S. Morgan (1958), G. R. Raymer (1963), and F. J. Bremer (2003).
• Unsourced Image. Winthrop Family Ancestry.com: accessed 26 Aug 2016. (Ancestry.com; subscription required)
• Moore, Jacob Bailey. Lives of the Governors of New Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay (C. D. Strong, Boston, 1851) Page 237-72
• Bridgman, Thomas. Memorials of the Dead in Boston (Benjamin B. Mussey & Co., Boston, 1853) Page 309
• John Winthrop, Baptism Record: 16 Jan 1587 in Groton, Suffolk, England; parents Adam and Anna. England, Births and Christenings, 1538-1975. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013; Film# 952218
• The New England Historical and Genealogical Register for the year 1864. Albany: J. Munsell, 78 State Street. 1864. "Notes on the Winthrop Family And Its English Connections, Viz: The Families of Forth, Clopton, Tyndale and Fones" by William H. Whitmore. pp 182 - 185.link
• Muskett, Joseph James. "Evidences of the Winthrops of Groton, co. Suffolk, England, and of Families in and Near that County, Whom They Intermarried" p. 154. link
• Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery: https://legacyofslavery.harvard.edu - Governor Winthrop is affiliated as the college's Overseer from 1637-1649. He is also noted as the enslavor of the following persons: the wife of Pequot Sachem Mononotto, and two unnamed sons of Mononotto, documented date of 1637; At least four additional unnamed Indigenous people: two men and two women, documented dates 1637-1639. https://radcliffe-harvard-edu-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/3d37f30c-a266-4be8-bd4b-234dca08497f/AppendixI-ListofHumanBeingsEnslavedbyProminentHarvardAffiliates.pdf

Acknowledgments

• Jo Gessford

• Doris (Muller) Wheeler imported the data for John Winthrop from MASTER2011WIKITREE.GED on 27 Jan 2011.