| History | |
|---|---|
 England | |
| Name | Blessing of the Bay |
| Owner | John Winthrop |
| Builder | Robert Molton, Mistick (now Medford, Massachusetts) |
| Launched | July 4, 1631 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Barque |
| Tons burthen | 30 tons |
Blessing of the Bay was the second oceangoing, non-fishing vessel built in what is now the United States, preceded only by the Virginia, in 1607. [1]
The Blessing of the Bay was a thirty-ton barque or a pinnace, built largely of locust tree wood. According to John R. Spears, Blessing of the Bay was not a bark except as the term was used to designate any sailing vessel at the time. He also stated that she had one mast. [2] William H. Clark calls the Blessing of the Bay "primarily a trading vessel, but armed and designed to fight." He also stated, "she was high-bowed with one mast." [3]
The ship was built for John Winthrop at Mistick (now Medford, Massachusetts), by Robert Molton and other shipwrights sent to New England in 1629 by the Massachusetts Bay Company, and was launched July 4, 1631 under the command of Anthony Dike. [4]
Blessing of the Bay was built "for the use of the Massachusetts Colony at the insistence of Governor Winthrop, and was finished under his eye, the object being to open communication with the Dutch at the mouth of the Hudson and to trade to various parts of the coast." [1]
She went to sea August 31, 1631, and carried on a coastal trade as far south as the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam (New York City). "She traded regularly along the entire New England coast and around Cape Cod and Long Island and with the Dutch on Manhattan Island. She carried to the Dutch salt from sea water, maple sugar, and probably clapboards, in exchange for molasses, sugar from the West Indies, and the spices and tea that the Dutch ships brought from the East via Amsterdam." [3] Hall says that she sailed to "Long Island and other settled localities." [1]
On November 21, 1632, according to Perley's History of Salem, Governor Winthrop called a council with Captain Neal of Portsmouth, New Hampshire to use a bark ship described similarly as the Blessing of the Bay to apprehend the pirate Dixie Bull, but unfavorable weather conditions prevented their pursuit: [5]
Capt. Anthony Dike lived in Salem. He was once taken by the pirate Bull, but by some means escaped. In his Journal, Governor Winthrop records that Captain Dike, in a bark of thirty tons, was “cast away upon the head of Cape Cod. Three were starved to death with the cold; the other two got some fire and so lived there, by such food as they saved, seven weeks, till an Indian found them, &c.”
— Sidney Perley, The history of Salem, Massachusetts
According to Hall, Blessing of the Bay traded for only a short time. She "disappeared from view, and it is possible that she was the unfortunate vessel sent by Winthrop and others from Boston to Virginia in 1633 with a load of fish and furs and was wrecked on the capes when near her destination." [1]
In Bertha Clark's genealogical research Bertha Clark found the following information on the bark Blessing of the Bay. (John Wood of Rhode Island and His Early Descendants on the Mainland by Bertha W. Clark, and edited by Dorothy W. Ewers: 1966)
"1636
In the spring of 1636 John Winthrop, Jr. wrote to his father in Boston from Saybrook. to which he was newly and not yet permanently come: “Quineticut May 16:1636 Sir, John Wood being returned with out any Corne I shall -now desire that I may be supplied by the first shipping that arrive with any store of provisions with 10, or 13 hogsh[eads] of meale 5 or 6 hogsh[eads] of peas 2 or 3 barrells of oatmeale 2 hogsh[eads] of beife. for if we should want I see noe meanes to be supplied heere, and a little want may overthrow all our designs.
“I sent home the Bacheler, and desire your helpe for her disposing. I must of necessity have her returne heere for I may shortly have much use of her: but I desire they may goe for shares and victual them selves, which John Wood and his company are willing to doe. I cannot find that the miscarriage of his voyage was through his default but Contrary winds therefore I am desirous he should and that Company goe still is her, so they will goe for shares and victual themselves. the Blessing I would sell if any will buy her at 160 or 150 £ she Cost 145 besides some new saile, and rigging and a new Cable above 20 £. the Cable is special; good, except you should foresee any occasion that she should rather be kept still: or if their be implyment to Sable for her: but if she continues to goe upon and designe I desire she should goe likewise for her share the men to find themselves, otherwise I would have her laid up at Boston till further occasion. the men I desire should be discharged as soone as ever they Come ashore, and their wages paid them: I thanke you for the bread you sent. you write of 800 but there is not above 300 and an halfe at most delivered, besides 100 they keepe still aboard the rest I cannot learne what become of it but that it hath been wastefully spent: they had besides halfe an hogshead of bread of their owne which was likewise spent and they were but [mutilated] eleven persons they say most of that tyme. [mutilated] for they pillaged her the tyme they had her to Salem pittifully that she hath neyther blockes nor braces nor running ropes, which the Bolt Will sayth teat Mr. Holgrave cutt them of he saw him. therefore I have agreed with John Wood Fredericke and George to take her to thirds. thus with my duty remembred I rest your obedient son.
John Winthrop” 6
The George just mentioned was John Wood's son. At the settlement of Wood's estate nineteen years later George was called his eldest son. If – as seems likely – Frederick was another son, he must have predeceased his father, for he is not mentioned in the settlement. This is the only reference to him that we have seen.
It is evident from the letter that Winthrop placed confidence in John Wood and his group, even though they had ill luck on a recent voyage for him. He is considering putting both the Bachelor and the Blessing under their management, and has made some sort of tentative agreement with them about it; of which, however, his Papers give us no further details.
The Blessing was a boat that had already helped make American history. Hubbard in his “New England” says: “The bark Blessing, built by Gov. Winthrop at Mistick in 1631 returned Oct. 2, 1634 from a voyage southward to the Dutch Plantation upon Hudson’s river having made a further discovery of that [land] called Long-Island.” 7 . It is even possible – very possible—that John Wood was on that voyage, and that it was then that he made the acquaintance of Manhattan. He was surely in that town, and investing money in I, by 1640."
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.
Anne Hutchinson was a Puritan spiritual advisor, religious reformer, and an important participant in the Antinomian Controversy which shook the infant Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1636 to 1638. Her strong religious convictions were at odds with the established Puritan clergy in the Boston area and her popularity and charisma helped create a theological schism that threatened the Puritan religious community in New England. She was eventually tried and convicted, then banished from the colony with many of her supporters.
Miantonomoh, also spelled Miantonomo, Miantonomah or Miantonomi, was a chief of the Narragansett people of New England Indians.
The Pequot War was an armed conflict that took place in 1636 and ended in 1638 in New England, between the Pequot tribe and an alliance of the colonists from the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook colonies and their allies from the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes. The war concluded with the decisive defeat of the Pequot. At the end, about 700 Pequots had been killed or taken into captivity. Hundreds of prisoners were sold into slavery to colonists in Bermuda or the West Indies; other survivors were dispersed as captives to the victorious tribes.
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.
Richard Bellingham was a colonial magistrate, lawyer, and several-time governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the last surviving signatory of the colonial charter at his death. A wealthy lawyer in Lincolnshire prior to his departure for the New World in 1634, he was a liberal political opponent of the moderate John Winthrop, arguing for expansive views on suffrage and lawmaking, but also religiously somewhat conservative, opposing the efforts of Quakers and Baptists to settle in the colony. He was one of the architects of the Massachusetts Body of Liberties, a document embodying many sentiments also found in the United States Bill of Rights.
Elizabeth Proctor was convicted of witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was the wife of John Proctor, who was convicted and executed.
William Coddington was an early magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and later of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He served as the judge of Portsmouth and Newport, governor of Portsmouth and Newport, deputy governor of the four-town colony, and then governor of the entire colony. Coddington was born and raised in Lincolnshire, England. He accompanied the Winthrop Fleet on its voyage to New England in 1630, becoming an early leader in Boston. There he built the first brick house and became heavily involved in the local government as an assistant magistrate, treasurer, and deputy.
Arbella or Arabella was the flagship of the Winthrop Fleet on which Governor John Winthrop, other members of the Company, and Puritan emigrants transported themselves and the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company from England to Salem between April 8 and June 12, 1630, thereby giving legal birth to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. John Winthrop is reputed to have given the famous "A Model of Christian Charity" sermon aboard the ship. Also on board was Anne Bradstreet, the first European female poet to be published from the New World, and her family.
Sir Richard Saltonstall led a group of English settlers up the Charles River to settle in what is now Watertown, Massachusetts in 1630.
Rebecca Nurse was a woman who was accused of witchcraft and executed by hanging in New England during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was fully exonerated fewer than twenty years later.
Mary Towne Eastey was a defendant in the Salem witch trials in colonial Massachusetts. She was executed by hanging in Salem in 1692.
Nanepashemet was a sachem and bashabe or great leader of the Pawtucket Confederation of Abenaki peoples in present-day New England before the landing of the Pilgrims. He was a leader of Native peoples over a large part of what is now coastal Northeastern Massachusetts.
Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake Hallett was an early settler in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1640 Fones, with her then-husband Robert Feake, were founders of Greenwich, Connecticut.
Naumkeag is a historical tribe of Eastern Algonquian-speaking Native American people who lived in northeastern Massachusetts. They controlled territory from the Charles River to the Merrimack River at the time of the Puritan migration to New England (1620–1640).
Masconomet, spelled many different ways in colonial deeds, was sagamore of the Agawam tribe among the Algonquian peoples during the time of the English colonization of the Americas. He is known for his quitclaim deed ceding all the tribal land, which extended from Cape Ann to the Merrimack River, as far inland as North Andover, Massachusetts and Middleton, Massachusetts, and as far to the southwest as the Danvers River, to John Winthrop the Younger, his heirs and all the settlers of eastern Essex County for a sum of 20 pounds, about 100 dollars.
John Wilson was a Puritan clergyman in Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and the minister of the First Church of Boston from its beginnings in Charlestown in 1630 until his death in 1667. He is most noted for being a minister at odds with Anne Hutchinson during the Antinomian Controversy from 1636 to 1638, and for being an attending minister during the execution of Mary Dyer in 1660.
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 1633. 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.
Wenepoykin (1616–1684) also known as Winnepurkett, Sagamore George, George No Nose, and George Rumney Marsh was a Native American leader who was the Sachem of the Naumkeag people when English began to settle in the area.
Mathew Waller was an early settler of New London, Connecticut Colony. He was among the six hired in 1650 by John Winthrop Jr.–the founder of New London –to build the town's first gristmill. Before settling in New London, Waller lived in Salem and Providence Plantations.
6 Winthrop Papers 3:260
7 Hubbard: Hist. of N. Eng. (1848 ed.) p. 171