John Winthrop was an English Puritan lawyer and one of the leading figures in founding the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the second major settlement in New England following Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of colonists from England in 1630 and served as governor for 12 of the colony's first 20 years. His writings and vision of the colony as a Puritan "city upon a hill" dominated New England colonial development, influencing the governments and religions of neighboring colonies in addition to those of Massachusetts.
The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1628–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, one of the several colonies later reorganized as the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The lands of the settlement were in southern New England, with initial settlements on two natural harbors and surrounding land about 15.4 miles (24.8 km) apart—the areas around Salem and Boston, north of the previously established Plymouth Colony. The territory nominally administered by the Massachusetts Bay Colony covered much of central New England, including portions of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.
Ipswich is a coastal town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,785 at the 2020 census. Home to Willowdale State Forest and Sandy Point State Reservation, Ipswich includes the southern part of Plum Island. A residential community with a vibrant tourism industry, the town is famous for its clams, celebrated annually at the Ipswich Chowderfest, and for Crane Beach, a barrier beach near the Crane estate. Ipswich was incorporated as a town in 1634.
Theophilus Eaton was a wealthy New England Puritan merchant, diplomat and financier, who took part in organizing and financing the Great Puritan Migration to America. He was a founder of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and a founder and eventual governor of New Haven Colony. He also cofounded Boston, Massachusetts, Greenwich, Connecticut and Eaton's Neck in New York.
The Winthrop Fleet was a group of 11 ships led by John Winthrop out of a total of 16 funded by the Massachusetts Bay Company which together carried between 700 and 1,000 Puritans plus livestock and provisions from England to New England over the summer of 1630, during the first period of the Great Migration.
Thomas Dudley was a New England colonial magistrate who served several terms as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Dudley was the chief founder of Newtowne, later Cambridge, Massachusetts, and built the town's first home. He provided land and funds to establish the Roxbury Latin School and signed Harvard College's new charter during his 1650 term as governor. Dudley was a devout Puritan who opposed religious views not conforming with his. In this, he was more rigid than other early Massachusetts leaders like John Winthrop, but less confrontational than John Endecott.
John Haynes, also sometimes spelled Haines, was a colonial magistrate and one of the founders of the Connecticut Colony. He served one term as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was the first governor of Connecticut, ultimately serving eight separate terms. Although Colonial Connecticut prohibited Governors from serving consecutive terms at the time, "John Haynes was so popular with the colonists that he served alternately as governor and often as deputy governor from 1639 to his death in 1653."
Simon Bradstreet was a New England merchant, politician and colonial administrator who served as the last governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Arriving in Massachusetts on the Winthrop Fleet in 1630, Bradstreet was almost constantly involved in the politics of the colony but became its governor only in 1679.
Sir Richard Saltonstall led a group of English settlers up the Charles River to settle in what is now Watertown, Massachusetts in 1630.
Deacon Edward Convers was an early Puritan settler in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and was one of the founders of Woburn, MA.
William Aspinwall was an Englishman who emigrated to Boston with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630. He played an integral part in the early religious controversies of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Walter Palmer (1585–1661) was an early Separatist Puritan settler in the Massachusetts Bay Colony who helped found Charlestown and Rehoboth, Massachusetts and Stonington, Connecticut.
Increase Nowell, (1590–1655), was a British colonial administrator, original patentee of the Massachusetts Bay Company, founder of Charlestown, Massachusetts, and first ruling elder of the First Church in Charlestown.
The Revd Isaac Johnson, a 17th-century English clergyman, was one of the Puritan founders of Massachusetts and the colony's First Magistrate.
Henry Winthrop (1608–1630) was the second son of John Winthrop, founder and Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In addition to his taking part in his father's Great Migration to America in 1630, Henry is part of American history for being the first husband of Elizabeth Fones, who would later be a founding settler of what is now Greenwich, Connecticut, but also be at the center of scandal in colonial America, as captured in the popular novel, The Winthrop Woman.
Margaret Jones was the first person to be executed for witchcraft in Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the second in New England during a witch-hunt that lasted from 1647 to 1693. Hundreds of people throughout New England were accused of practicing witchcraft during that period, including over two hundred in 1692 during the Salem Witch Trials. Prior to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, over a forty-one year period (1647–1688), nine women, including Margaret Jones, were hanged as witches.
John Humphrey was an English Puritan and an early funder of the English colonisation of North America. He was the treasurer of the Dorchester Company, which established an unsuccessful settlement on Massachusetts Bay in the 1620s, and was deputy governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company from 1629 to 1630. He came to Massachusetts in 1634, where he served as a magistrate and was the first sergeant major general of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He became involved in English attempts to settle Providencia Island in the late 1630s, and returned to England in 1641 after financial reverses and probable religious differences with other members of the Massachusetts ruling elite. He then became involved in an attempt to settle The Bahamas in the late 1640s, and had some involvement in the politics of the English Civil War.
Mary and John was a 400-ton ship that is known to have sailed between England and the American colonies four times from 1607 to 1634. She was during the later voyages captained by Robert Davies and owned by Roger Ludlow (1590–1664), one of the assistants of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The ship's first two voyages to North America were to what is now Maine in June 1607 and September 1608, transporting emigrants to the colonies and back to England. The third voyage was on March 20, 1630, bearing 130 colonists, and the fourth on March 26, 1634, to Nantaskut in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Isaac Stearns was an English emigrant who, on April 8, 1630, embarked from Yarmouth, England, aboard the ship Arbella. He was among the original settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Stearns was born c. 1598. He worked as a tailor and married Mary Barker on May 20, 1622, with whom he fathered eight children. His pedigree is unknown, and it is uncertain from where in England he came, but his wife was from the parish of Nayland, in Suffolk, and their first three children were born there.
George Phillips was an English-born Puritan minister who led, along with Richard Saltonstall, a group of English settlers up the Charles River to settle in what is now Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1630.
