WINTHROP, John (1587-1649), was born at Groton, Suffolk, England, January 12, 1587. He graduated at Trinity College, Cambridge, about 1605, and was bred to the law. He became a Puritan, and in 1629 was made governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company. The next year he headed the great emigration to Massachusetts, landing at Salem and settling at Boston. The remainder of his life was closely identified with the history of his colony. He was re-elected governor until 1634, and afterwards in 1637-40, 1641-43, and 1646-49. He died at Boston, March 26, 1649.
The tenderness and gentleness of Winthrop’s nature are beyond dispute; even such political opponents as Vane retained their personal friendship for him. These qualities, however, were supplemented by a decided antipathy to democracy in every form, which made him the best of civil leaders for the supporters of the ecclesiastical system of early Massachusetts. A vigorous, perhaps captious, statement of this side of his influence will be found in Brooks Adams’s Emancipation of Massachusetts. His Life and Letters have been edited by his descendant, R. C. Winthrop. His Journal has been edited by James Savage, who has given it the more appropriate and exact title of The History of New England, 1630-1649. The Winthrop Papers are in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Winthrop’s descendants have been numerous, and have included an unusual number of men and women of marked ability; see Whitmore’s Notes on the Winthrop Family. One of them, Theodore Winthrop (1828-1861), of New Haven, was one of the earliest victims of the civil war....
WINTHROP, John (1606-1676), son of the preceding, was born at Groton, England, February 12, 1606. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, studied law at the Inner Temple, London, and then travelled on the Continent, seeing some military and diplomatic service. In 1631 he followed his father to Massachusetts, being made a magistrate in 1633. Returning to England, he obtained a commission as governor of Connecticut under the Say and Sele patent, and sent out the party which put up the fort at Saybrook, at the mouth of the Connecticut river. In 1645 he obtained a title to lands in south-eastern Connecticut, and founded there the present city of New London. Connecticut made him a magistrate in 1651, and elected him governor annually from 1657 until his death. He was the agent who obtained for the colony the charter of 1662. He died at Boston, April 5, 1676.
All of the father’s fine qualities, and more, came out in the son. The father has had a few unfavourable critics; the son has always been looked upon as the flower of American Puritanism. Even the son, however, was only the representative, in obtaining the charter, of a knot of able and determined men, who had clearer notions of the commonwealth life at which they were aiming; and the governor does not seem to have approved all of their somewhat vigorous proceedings in putting it into effect. Physical science had strong attractions for Winthrop. He was one of the first members of the Royal Society, and was constantly interested in mines and mining in New England. The authorities for his life are those given in the preceding sketch. ·
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