WINTHROP, JOHN (1606-1676), known as John Win throp the Younger, son of the preceding, born at Groton, formerly a small rural village lying about midway between Wadleigh and Sudbury in Suffolk, England, Feb. 12, 1606. He attended the Bury St. Edmunds grammar school and Trinity college, Dublin, studied law for a short time after 1624 at the Inner Temple, London, accompanied the expedition of the duke of Buckingham for the relief of the Protestants of La Rochelle. In 1631 he fol lowed his father to Massachusetts and was an "assistant" in 1635, 1640, 1641 and from 1644 to 1649. He was the chief founder of Agawam (now Ipswich), Mass., in 1633 ; went to England in and returned the following year as governor (for one year) of Connecticut, under the Saye and Sele patent, sending out the party which built the fort at Saybrook. He was again in England in 1641-43, and on his return to Massachusetts established iron works at Lynn and Braintree. He became magistrate of Connecti cut in 1651; in 1657-58 was governor of the colony; and in 1659 again became governor, and was annually re-elected until his death in Boston on April 5, 1676. In 1662 he obtained in England the charter uniting the colonies of Connecticut and New Haven.
In 1675 Winthrop was further honoured by being chosen a com missioner of the United Colonies of New England. In England he received the additional distinction of election to membership in the newly organized Royal Society.
His correspondence with the Royal Society was published in series I vol. xvi. of the Massachusetts Historical Society's Proceedings. See T. F. Waters' Sketch of the Life of John Winthrop the Younger (Ipswich, Mass., 1899) ; John Winthrop by E. T. James (London, 1925) ; John Winthrop, Jr. by F. J. Kingsbury—Amer. Antiq. Soc. (Worcester, 1898).
Winthrop's son, FITZ-JOHN WINTHROP (1638-1707), was edu cated at Harvard, though he did not take a degree ; served in the Parliamentary Army in Scotland under Monck, and returned to Connecticut in 1663. As major-general he commanded the unsuc cessful expedition of the New York and Connecticut forces against Canada in 1690; from 1693 to 1697 he was the agent of Connecti cut in LondOn; and from 1698 to 1707 was governor of Connecti cut.