William Morrell (fl. 1625) was a British Anglican clergyman and early American poet.
Morrell went to Massachusetts in 1623 with the company sent out by the Plymouth council, under the command of Captain Robert Gorges, son of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. He bore a commission from the ecclesiastical court to exercise superintendence over the churches that were, or might be, established in the colony. The attempt by this company to form a settlement at Wessagussett (now Weymouth) was unsuccessful. After Gorges's departure Morrell remained a year at Plymouth out of curiosity to learn something of the country, but made no use of his commission, nor even mentioned it until just before he sailed for England. He wrought the result of his observations into some elegant Latinhexameters, which he translated into English heroic verse, and published under the title of New-England, or a briefe Enarration of the Ayre, Earth, Water, Fish, and Fowles of that Country. With a Description of the. . .Habits and Religion of the Natives, in Latine and English Verse, 4to, London, 1625. The English version, which is frequently harsh and obscure, is preceded by a poetical address to the king. A copy of this rare tract, which is dedicated to the lords, knights, and gentlemen, adventurers for New England, is in the British Museum; it was reprinted in 1792 in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1st ser. vol. i. pp.125–39. In a postscript Morrell announced his intention of publishing another book on New England.
The Mayflower Compact, originally titled Agreement Between the Settlers of New Plymouth, was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the men aboard the Mayflower, consisting of Separatist Puritans, adventurers, and tradesmen. Although the agreement contained a pledge of loyalty to the King, the Puritans and other Protestant Separatists were dissatisfied with the state of the Church of England, the limited extent of the English Reformation and reluctance of King James I of England to enforce further reform.
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.
Tisquantum, more commonly known as Squanto, was a member of the Patuxet tribe best known for being an early liaison between the Native American population in Southern New England and the Mayflower Pilgrims who made their settlement at the site of Tisquantum's former summer village. The Patuxet tribe had lived on the western coast of Cape Cod Bay, but they were wiped out by an epidemic infection, likely brought by previous European explorers.
Sir Ferdinando Gorges was a naval and military commander and governor of the important port of Plymouth in England. He was involved in Essex's Rebellion against the Queen, but escaped punishment by testifying against the main conspirators. His early involvement in English trade with and settlement of North America as well as his efforts in founding the Province of Maine in 1622 earned him the title of the "Father of English Colonization in North America," even though Gorges himself never set foot in the New World.
The Dominion of New England in America (1686–1689) was an administrative union of English colonies covering all of New England and the Mid-Atlantic Colonies, with the exception of the Delaware Colony and the Province of Pennsylvania. The region's political structure was one of centralized control similar to the model used by the Spanish monarchy under the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The dominion was unacceptable to most colonists because they deeply resented being stripped of their rights and having their colonial charters revoked. Governor Edmund Andros tried to make legal and structural changes, but most of these were undone and the Dominion was overthrown as soon as word was received that King James II had left the throne in England. One notable change was the forced introduction of the Church of England into Massachusetts, whose Puritan leaders had previously refused to allow it any sort of foothold.
Roger Conant was an New England colonist and drysalter credited for establishing the communities of Salem, Peabody, Beverly and Danvers, Massachusetts.
Lygonia was a proprietary province in pre-colonial Maine, created through a grant from the Plymouth Council for New England in 1630 to lands then under control of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. The province was named for his mother, Cicely (Lygon) Gorges. It was one of the early provinces of Maine and was absorbed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony by 1658.
Thomas Dermer was a 17th-century navigator and explorer. Thomas Dermer explored the eastern coastline of America from 1614 to 1620. He was associated with Captain John Smith, The Newfoundland Company, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Jamestown, The Plymouth Company, and The Merchant Adventurers. Dermer, working side by side with Squanto, is credited with starting to normalize the relations between the Native Americans and Europeans. He was known to the Pilgrims from copies of his letters, that they had obtained. The Pilgrim colony directly benefited from the diplomatic ground work of Dermer and Squanto.
George Weymouth (Waymouth) was an English explorer of the area now occupied by the state of Maine.
Events from the 1620s in England. This decade sees a change of monarch.
Capt. Christopher Levett was an English writer, explorer and naval captain, born at York, England. He explored the coast of New England and secured a grant from the king to settle present-day Portland, Maine, the first European to do so. Levett left behind a group of settlers at his Maine plantation in Casco Bay, but they were never heard from again. Their fate is unknown. As a member of the Plymouth Council for New England, Levett was named the Governor of Plymouth in 1623 and a close adviser to Capt. Robert Gorges in his attempt to found an early English colony at Weymouth, Massachusetts, which also failed. Levett was also named an early governor of Virginia in 1628, according to Parliamentary records at Whitehall.
The New England Colonies of British America included Connecticut Colony, the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Massachusetts Bay Colony, Plymouth Colony, and the Province of New Hampshire, as well as a few smaller short-lived colonies. The New England colonies were part of the Thirteen Colonies and eventually became five of the six states in New England, with Plymouth Colony absorbed into Massachusetts and Maine separating from it.
Wessagusset Colony was a short-lived English trading colony in New England located in Weymouth, Massachusetts. It was settled in August 1622 by between 50 and 60 colonists who were ill-prepared for colonial life. The colony was settled without adequate provisions, and was dissolved in late March 1623 after harming relations with local Indians. Surviving colonists joined Plymouth Colony or returned to England. It was the second settlement in Massachusetts, predating the Massachusetts Bay Colony by six years.
Richard Vines was an English colonial explorer of northern New England, and an early administrator and deputy governor of the Province of Maine.
The English overseas possessions, also known as the English colonial empire, comprised a variety of overseas territories that were settled, conquered, or otherwise acquired by the former Kingdom of England during the centuries before the Acts of Union of 1707 between the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland created the Kingdom of Great Britain. The many English possessions then became the foundation of the British Empire and its fast-growing naval and mercantile power, which until then had yet to overtake those of the Dutch Republic, the Kingdom of Portugal, and the Crown of Castile.
English colonist William Vassall (1592–1656) is remembered both for promoting religious freedom in New England and commencing his family's ownership of slave plantations in the Caribbean. A patentee of the Massachusetts Bay Company, Vassall was among the merchants who petitioned Puritan courts for greater civil liberties and religious tolerance. In 1647, he and John Child published New-England’s Jonas cast up in London, a tract describing the efforts of colonial petitioners. By early 1648, Vassall moved to Barbados to establish a slave-labor sugar plantation. He and his descendants were among the Caribbean's leading planters, enslaving more than 3,865 people before Britain abolished slavery in 1833.
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.
William Collier was an English colonist in Massachusetts. He came to Plymouth Colony in 1633 as one of the few London-based Merchant Adventurers, a colony investment group, to settle in New England. He was often elected as an Assistant Governor in the thirty-some years between 1634/5 and 1665. He was on the side of the government leaders in the historic 1645 dispute with liberal religious leader William Vassall. During his long life involved in public service, he served on the Council of War and served at times as a commissioner of the United Colonies, a New England colonies military alliance primarily for defense against Indian attack.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : "Morrell, William". Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
