John Endecott

John Endecott , c.1588-1665, one of the founders of Massachusetts Bay colony, b. England. He led the first group of Puritan colonists to Massachusetts Bay in 1628 and was the first governor (1629-30) of the colony at Salem. Endecott remained important in public affairs after John Winthrop established the colony's center at Boston, serving as governor again a number of times (1644, 1649, 1651-53, 1655-64). As a military leader, he so mismanaged an expedition (1636) against a group of Native Americans that he helped bring on the Pequot War. One of the sternest of the Puritan fathers, he was zealous in persecuting the Quakers.

Bibliography: See biography by L. S. Mayo (1936, repr. 1971).

Endecott, John (c. 1588–1665) a founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony who served several years, intermittently, as its governor or deputy governor between 1629 and 1664. He led an ineffectual expedition against the Pequot (1636), who had been attacking isolated settlements. Their attacks resumed, and they were wiped out the following year in the Pequot War (1637).

Endecott, John (c.1589–1665), emigrated from England (1628), and was governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1629–30) until the arrival of Winthrop. He held other important posts in the colony and was several times governor. Although an able administrator, he was stern and intolerant, and persecuted Quakers, followers of Thomas Morton, and others who differed in creed. In “Endicott and the Red Cross,” Hawthorne tells the story of his tearing the sign of the cross from the British ensign because he considered it to smack of popery. Robert Lowell made a verse adaptation in Endicott and the Red Cross in The Old Glory (1965). The first of Longfellow's New England Tragedies deals with his persecution of Quakers. Endicott is a variant spelling.