WINTHROP. John, American colonial governor, son of Gov. John Winthrop, of the Massachusetts Bay Colony: b. Groton Manor, Suffolk, England, 12 Feb. 1606; d. Boston, Mass, 5 April 1676. He was educated at Bury Saint Edmund's Grammar School, at Trinity College, Dublin, and at the Inner Tem ple, London, where he studied law. He ob tained a commission in the army, and served with Buckingham in the expedition for the re lief of the Huguenots near La Rochelle, France, in 1627, went in the following year to Turkey as an attaché of the British embassy, traveled in various countries of Europe, in 1631 joined his father in Massachusetts, where he became governor's assistant, and in 1633 settled at Ips wich, of which he was one of the principal founders. Obtaining a commission under a grant to the Earl of Warwick, he founded Saybrook, at mouth of the Connecticut River, in 1635. built there a fort, and was made titular governor. In 1645 he removed his family from
Boston to Peqnot Harbor, and in the following year founded New London. After the union of Saybrook with Connecticut he became a magistrate of the increased colony (1651), and from 1657 to the end of his life served almost continuously as its governor. He was bearer to Charles I I (16621 of a loyal address from the Connecticut government, and received from the king a suitable charter for the colony. Under an equally favorable charter he secured the union of the Connecticut and New Haven colonies. He was one of the commissioners of the United Colonies of New England in 1675. A student of physics and chemistry, through his scientific attainments he became a member of the Royal Society, to whose 'Transactions' he was a contributor Consult Waters. T. F., 'Sketch of the Lite ui John %%inthrop, the Younger' (Lambridge.