John Winthrop (1588-1649)

John Winthrop 1588-1649, governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony, b. Edwardstone, near Groton, Suffolk, England. Of a landowning family, he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, came into a family fortune, and became a government administrator with strong Puritan leanings. A member of the Massachusetts Bay Company , he led the group that arranged for the removal of the company's government to New England and was chosen (1629) governor of the proposed colony. 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.

Bibliography: See The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630-1649 (1996), abridged ed. by R. S. Dunn and L. Yeandle; R. C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop (2 vol., 1864-67; repr. 1971); 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); R. S. Dunn, Puritans and Yankees (1962, repr. 1971).

Winthrop, John (1588–1649). Governor of Massachusetts. Of a prosperous Suffolk clothier's family, Winthrop went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and then studied law at Gray's Inn. Of strong puritan principles, he became increasingly disillusioned with the state of England—‘evil times are coming when the church must fly to the wilderness.’ In 1630 he left for America with a group of like-minded families, having been elected governor of the tiny colony of Massachusetts, which had then no more than 700 settlers. During the first summer he founded the settlement at Boston and some thousands of new settlers came in. Winthrop was governor until 1634, and then 1637–40, 1642–4, and 1645–9. He was involved in all the religious disputes of the day, gradually adopting a more austere line towards dissent. The journal which he kept from 1630 onwards is an important source for early colonial history.

J. A. Cannon