John Winthrop

John Winthrop (1588–1649) was the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Winthrop was born in Edwardstone, Suffolk.^[1] He was an English lawyer from a rich landowning family. He led a large group of Puritans from England in 1630. Winthrop served as governor to the newly formed Massachusetts Bay Colony and held that position for twelve years.^[2] He was one of the chief founders of New England. He saw the colony as a Puritan "City upon a hill" and a model to western Christianity.^[3]

1. ↑ "The Encyclopedia of North American Indian Wars, 1607–1890: A Political, Social and Military History, ed. Spencer C. Tucker (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2011), p. 853
2. ↑ Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society, Vol. I (John Miller, 1827), p. 53, note 1
3. ↑ Giles B. Gunn, Early American Writing (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), p. 107