William Goffe

William Goffe , d. c.1679, English soldier and regicide. A personal adherent of Oliver Cromwell, he fought in the English civil war, signed the death warrant of Charles I, and became an administrative major general during the Protectorate. He was excepted from the Act of Indemnity (at the Restoration) and fled with his father-in-law, Edward Whalley , to America. After short periods in Cambridge (Mass.), New Haven, and Milford (Conn.) he lived in seclusion at Hadley (Mass.). The tradition that he headed the citizens of Hadley in repelling an attack by Native Americans was used by Sir Walter Scott in his Peveril of the Peak and by James Fenimore Cooper in his Wept of Wish-ton-Wish.

Goffe, William (c.1605–79), English Puritan, signer of the death warrant of Charles I. During the Restoration he fled to America, where he lived mainly in seclusion at Hadley, Mass. He is said to have been instrumental in repelling an Indian attack during King Philip's War. He figures in Cooper's The Wept of Wish‐ton‐Wish, Barker's Superstition, Paulding's The Puritan and His Daughter, Hawthorne's The Grey Champion, McHenry's The Spectre of the Forest, and Delia Bacon's Tales of the Puritans, as well as in Scott's Peveril of the Peak. A factual account of Goffe is contained in Ezra Stiles's History of the Judges of Charles I (1794). His father‐in‐law and fellow regicide, Edward Whalley, accompanied Goffe to America.