MA-BAY-COLONY-L Archives
Archiver > MA-BAY-COLONY > 2005-10 > 1128781985
From:
Subject: John Winthrop - NEHGS database online, url below
Date: Sat, 8 Oct 2005 10:33:05 EDT
JOHN WINTHROP
ORIGIN: Groton, Suffolk
MIGRATION: 1630 on Arbella
FIRST RESIDENCE: Boston
OCCUPATION: Magistrate.
CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: Admitted to Boston church as member #1 on 30 July 1630,
the date the church was organized [ BChR 13].
FREEMAN: 25 May 1636 [ MBCR 1:372]. (This action was merely a formality, as
it had been assumed that Winthrop and several of the other colony leaders were
freemen based on their early participation in Massachusetts Bay Company
affairs in London.)
EDUCATION: Attended Trinity College, Cambridge, briefly, then studied law at
Gray's Inn, and in the 1620s was an attorney at the Court of Wards in London.
OFFICES: Governor of Massachusetts Bay, 1630-1633, 1637-1639, 1642-1643,
1646-1648 [ MA Civil List 16]. Deputy Governor, 1636, 1644-1645 [ MA Civil List
16]. Assistant, 1634-1635, 1640-1641 [ MA Civil List 21].
ESTATE: There is no surviving entry for John Winthrop in the 1645 Boston Book
of Possessions, but he owned two houses in Boston [ BBOP 75-76, 100]. He also
owned a large farm along the Mystic River, called Tenhills Farm [ WP 4:416
(and facing map), 5:59-60].
In a will dated 29 October 1639 John Winthrop bequeathed to "my dear wife
... half my farm at Tenhills during her life"; to "my good son John ... the
other Moiety of my farm Tenhills with the stock thereupon, and after the decease
of my wife the whole"; to "my son Adam my island called the Governor's
Garden"; to "my son Stephen my moiety of the Isle Prudence in Naragansett Bay, which
with his part of the reversion of his mother's estate in England will be a
good portion"; to "my son Deane and his heirs my land at Pullen Point with the
40 acres of marsh on the other side the hill there ... and if my land beyond
Powderhorne Hill shall not be sold etc. then I give it to him and his heirs"; to
"my son Sam[ue]ll my lot at Concorde ... and the half of my farm of 1200
acres upon Concord River"; residue to son John, "whom together with my wife I make
executor"; to "Jo[hn] Gager ... a cow ... in recompense of a heifer his
father bought of me" [ WP 4:146-47]. On 25 June 1641 Winthrop added a note to this
document, stating that his estate had become "much decayed through the
unfaithfulness of my servant Luxford ... I am now forced to revoke" this will. He
apparently never composed another, for he died intestate.
On 9 May 1649 "Mrs. Martha Winthropp and Mr. Adam Winthropp [were] granted
administration so far as the estate will go." The inventory of the estate of
"John Winthrop Esquire, late Governor of the Massachusetts, deceased," taken
17 April 1649, totalled £103 10s. 11d., with no real estate included [ WP
5:333-37, citing SPR Case #79].
BIRTH: Edwardstone, Suffolk, 12 January 1587/8, son of Adam and Anne (Browne)
Winthrop [ WP 1:5, 159].
DEATH: Boston 26 March 1649 ("March 26, '48-9 [sic]. Our honored Governor,
Mr. John Winthrop, departed this life, - a man of great humility and piety, an
excellent statesman, well skilled in the law, and of a public spirit" [ Hull
173]).
MARRIAGE: (1) Great Stambridge, Essex, 16 April 1605 Mary Forth; she was
buried 26 June 1615.
(2) Groton 6 December 1615 Thomasine Clopton; she d. 8 December 1616 [ WP
1:172], and was bur. at Groton 11 December 1616.
(3) Great Maplestead, Essex, 29 April 1618 Margaret Tyndal; she arrived in
New England on 2 November 1631, having sailed on the Lyon on its second
voyage of that year [ WJ 1:76] and was soon admitted to Boston church as member
#111 [ BChR 14]; she died at Boston on 14 June 1647 [ WJ 2:378-79].
(4) Soon after 20 December 1647, as her second husband, Martha Coytmore,
widow of Thomas Coytmore and daughter of William Rainsborough [ MBCR 2:232-36;
TAG 32:15]; she m. (3) Boston 10 March 1651/2 JOHN COGGAN [ BVR 34; NEHGR
111:13], and died there about 24 October 1660 [ NEHGR 111:15]. (Wyman and Pope
give the date of John Winthrop's fourth marriage as 4 December 1647, and later
writers have followed them, but the marriage contract shows that the marriage
did not take place until after 20 December 1647; these two authors were
apparently misled by an early account of the Winthrop family which put the number "4,"
indicating fourth wife, immediately ahead of "December 1647," the month of
the marriage as indicated by the marriage contract.)
CHILDREN:
With first wife
i JOHN, b. Groton 12 February 1605/6 [ WP 1:6, 159]; bp. Groton 23
February 1605/6; m. (1) Groton 8 February 1630/1 Martha Fones; m. (2) St.
Matthew, Friday Street, London, 6 July 1635 Elizabeth Reade [ NEHGR 88:301; Bethia
Harris Anc 75].
ii HENRY, b. 10 January 1607/8 [ WP 1:159]; bp. Groton 19 January
1607/8; m. 25 April 1629 Elizabeth Fones [ WP 2:84]. She m. (2) ROBERT FEAKE and
then became the consort of William Hallett.
iii FORTH, b. Great Stambridge 30 December 1609 [ WP 1:98, 161], and
bp. there 10 January 1609/10; bur. Groton 23 November 1630.
iv MARY, bp. Great Stambridge 19 January 1611/2; m. by 1633 Samuel
Dudley, son of Governor THOMAS DUDLEY .
v ANNE, b. 3 August 1614 [ WP 1:160]; bp. 8 August 1614; d. 17 [sic]
August 1614 [ WP 1:160]; bur. 16 August 1614.
vi ANNE, bp. 26 June 1615; bur. 29 June 1615
With second wife
vii Daughter, b. 30 November 1616 [ WP 1:166]; d. 2 December 1616 [
WP 1:166], and buried the same day; reburied with her mother 11 December 1616
[ WP 1:172].
With third wife
viii STEPHEN, b. 24 March 1618/9 [ WP 1:216, 218]; bp. Groton 31
March 1619; m. by 1644 Judith Rainsborough [ Waters 162; TAG 32:15].
ix ADAM, b. Groton 7 April 1620 [ WP 1:217, 218]; bp. Groton 9 April
1620; m. (1) by 10 October 1642 Elizabeth Glover [ WP 4:358]; m. (2) 7 May
1649 Elizabeth (Hawkins) Long, daughter of Thomas Hawkins and widow of Nathaniel
Long [ Aspinwall 225].
x DEANE, bp. Groton 23 March 1622/3; m. (1) Sarah Glover [Winthrop
Gen 71]; m. (2) Martha (_____) Mellowes, widow of John Mellowes [ TAG 11:28;
Bulkeley Gen 26; NEHGR 76:198-99].
xi NATHANIEL, bp. Groton 20 February 1624/5; no further record.
xii SAMUEL, bp. Groton 26 August 1627; m. Rotterdam 8 July 1648 [NS]
Elizabeth Hodgkel.
xiii ANNE, bp. Groton 29 April 1630; d. about 1 September 1631,
aboard Lyon [ WJ 1:77].
xiv WILLIAM, b. 20 August 1632 [ WJ 1:105 (corrected)]; bp. Boston
26 August 1632 [ BChR 278]; no further record.
xv SARAH, bp. Boston 29 June 1634 [ BChR 279]; no further record.
With fourth wife
xvi JOSHUA, bp. Boston 17 December 1648 "being about 5 days old" [
BChR 313]; d. 11 January 1651/2 [ BVR 34].
COMMENTS: Given the exceptional quantity of documentation for the Winthrops,
there are multiple records for the birth, baptism, marriage, death and burial
of many members of the family. There are a number of discrepancies in these
records, and although none of them is ultimately of any great genealogical
consequence, a catalog of these differences is instructive about the records
themselves, and about the secondary sources. The original Groton parish register was
examined as part of the preparation of this sketch.
ii HENRY: Winthrop Gen gives his baptism as 20 January, but the
Groton parish register says 19 January.
v ANNE: Winthrop Gen says she was born 8 August, but this is the
date of her baptism; Winthrop Gen has her burial on 26 August, but Winthrop
Papers say 17 August, and Groton parish register has 16 August.
vi ANNE: Winthrop Gen gives 26 June as date of birth, but this is
date of baptism.
x DEANE: Winthrop Gen gives date of birth as 16 March.
xiv WILLIAM: Winthrop Journal, as published, gives date of birth as
14 August 1632, but the manuscript has next to this item the date 20 August.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC NOTE: The vast collection of documents generated by and
collected by the Winthrop family over many generations is one of the most important
sources for colonial New England history. The most useful for our purposes have
been John Winthrop's so-called Journal, or, more properly, History of New
England , and the six volumes of published Winthrop Papers , covering the years
from 1498 to 1654 (see Key to Titles for proper citations to these works).
Vast amounts have been published on Governor John Winthrop, and this
sketch will not essay even a summary of his career. Two of the most informative and
perceptive of the modern studies are by Richard S. Dunn [Puritans and
Yankees: The Winthrop Dynasty of New England, 1630-1717 (Princeton 1962)] and Darrett
B. Rutman [ Winthrop's Boston: A Portrait of a Puritan Town, 1630-1649
(Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1965)].
In 1948 Lawrence Shaw Mayo prepared a lavish genealogy of John Winthrop
and his descendants [The Winthrop Family in America (Boston 1948)], cited above
as Winthrop Gen.
http://www.newenglandancestors.org/research/database/great_migration/W.asp
This thread: