WINTHROP, John, American colonial governor: h. Edwardston. near Groton, Suffolk, England (0. S.) 12 S88; U. on, Mass.
(0. S.) 26 March It .134' mina, tt Trinity College, Cambridge, ,brtd.t1 law and, according to the les v of F I Mather, was commissioned at so a joseli.e o. the peace. His earlier years were spent on his estate of Groton Manor, hut his Puritan tendencies and the current of his political sympathies pres ently interested him in plans for colonization in America. When in 1629 a charter was ob tained creating a corporation under the name of the 'Governor and Company of the Massa chusetts Bay in New England,' the piety, learn ing and talents of Winthrop led to his election as governor. Converting his hereditary estate, yielding an annual income of 1600 or f.700, into money, he set sail in the Arabella from i Yarmouth in the spring of 1630, with a com pany of about 900 persons. On the voyage he composed a small treatise, entitled 'A Model of Christian Charity.' On 12 June (0. S.) they arrived at Salem. Mass., and the government was immediately transferred to him by Endi cott, who had been the acting governor for two years by authority of the London com pany, before the transfer of the charter to New England. He was re-elected every year until 1634, when his popularity had somewhat declined, partly on account of his long con tinuance in office. In 1636, when Sir Henry Vane was elected governor, Winthrop was chosen deputy governor, and during this and the follwing year occurred the celebrated con troversy in regard to Mrs. Hutchinson and her doctrines. It this matter Vane and Winthrop were on opposite sides, and in the election of 1637 the latter was chosen governor over Vane. The inhabitants of Boston. however, were friendly to Vane and Mrs. Hutchinson, and Winthrop was at first slighted by his neighbors. Subsequently he engaged in a controversy with his defeated opponent in regard to the alien law passed by the general court. He was re
elected every year until 1640; and in 1642 the troubled state of the colony induced the set tlers to call him again to the head of the government. He was again elected in 1643, in the two following years was made deputy governor, and in 1646 governor again, which oflice he continued to hold the remainder of his life. In his principles Winthrop was opposed to an unlimited democracy; and when the peo ple of Connecticut were forming a government, he wrote them a letter in which he said that 'the best part of. a community is always the least, and of that best part the wiser part is always the lesser.' But he was attached to civil liberty, disinterested, pure and conscien tious. *It would be erroneous,* says Palfrey. in speaking of the Commonwealth of Massa chusetts, 'to pretend that the principles upon which it was established were an original con ception of Winthrop's mind; but undoubtedly it was his policy, more than any other man's, that organized into shape, animated with prac tical vigor, and prepared for permanency, those primeval sentiments and institutions that have directed the course of thought and action in New England in later times.' Winthrop kept a journal containing an account of the trans actions in the colony down to the year 1649. The first two books were first published in 1790, and the script of the third, which was for a lo st, was found in 1816 in the tower of uth Church. The three were pub.ish re%:- d edition, entitled 'The His I. land from 1630 to 1649' (wi Savage, 1825-26).
Consult 'Collections of the Massachusetts His torical Society' (3d series, Vols. IX and X); Earle, A. IL, 'Margaret Winthrop' (New York 1895); Twitchell, J. Ii, 'John Winthrop' (in 'Makers of America Series,' New York 1891); Whitmore, 'Notes on the Winthrop Family and its English Connections' (1864) • Winthrop, R. C., Life and Letters of John Winthrop' (Boston 1861-67).