John Winthrop

John Winthrop was born in 1588 in Edwardstone, Suffolk, England, into a family of landowners. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, practiced law in London and managed his family estate at Groton. A devout Puritan, he grew discouraged by the state of the Church of England and by economic troubles, and in 1629 he was elected governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, which planned a colony in New England. In 1630 he led a fleet of eleven ships carrying about 700 settlers across the Atlantic. Before or during the voyage he delivered a sermon, A Model of Christian Charity, which describes the community they hoped to build as 'a city upon a hill', watched by all. The settlers founded Boston, and Winthrop served as governor for twelve of the colony's first twenty years. He took part in the trial and banishment of Anne Hutchinson. His journal is a major source for the early history of New England. He died in Boston in 1649.

John Winthrop is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Puritan leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and a Congregationalist. Source: Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography (via Wikisource)

See also: William Bradford · Edward Winslow