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William Blackstone
One of the first to settle on the peninsula later named Boston. He encouraged Winthrop to move the settlement there.
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Anne Browne
John Winthrop's mother. She died in England the year before he emigrated.
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Charles I
Despotic king of England from 1625 until he was executed by Parliament in 1649.
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Tomasine Clopton
Winthrop's second wife. She died along with her infant child one day after their first wedding anniversary.
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Elizabeth I
Protestant queen of England from 1558–1603.
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Mary Forth
Winthrop's first wife and the daughter of a Essex nobleman. They married in 1605, and she bore him six children before she died in 1615.
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John Endecott
One of the Massachusetts Bay colony's main leaders. Endecott was a soldier by training who had a quick temper. On one occasion he assaulted a colonist who had not shown him proper respect.
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Thomas Dudley
Deputy governor under Winthrop. Dudley briefly served as governor in 1634–1635 and 1640–1641. He served in England as steward for the Earl of Lincoln.
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Anne Hutchinson
Hutchinson's beliefs in Arminianism and Antinomianism and her weekly study sessions where she taught those beliefs to dozens of Bostonians touched off the greatest showdown between civil and religious authority in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
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Isaac Johnson
One of the leaders of the original expedition and the largest sharholder in the Massachusetts Bay Company. His wife was the highest born Puritan to emigrate in Winthrop's party, and the emigrant's flagship was named for her. Their death in Charlestown prompted Winthrop to move the settlement to Boston.
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Samuel Maverick
One of the first settlers of Massachusetts Bay. Maverick Built an elaborate house on the Mystic River. His elaborate house on the Mystic River convinced Winthrop that people could thrive in New England.
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Margaret Tyndal
Winthrop's third wife and close confidant, from 1618 until her death in 1647. She was the daughter of the wealthy landowner Sir John Tyndal of Great Maplested in Essex.
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Nathaniel Ward
A lawyer in Massachusetts Bay tasked with drawing up its first legal code. Ward had practiced law for thirty years in the Old World, and he arrived in the new colony in 1634 when he was fifty-five years old. He settled in Ipswich, where he served as pastor for two years. Ward wrote the Body of Liberties.
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Roger Williams
A charming and persuasive pastor who entered into a showdown with Winthrop and other members of the General Court on charges of heresy.
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Adam Winthrop
A London cloth merchant and John Winthrop's grandfather. He bought the family's Groton estate in 1544.
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Adam Winthrop, Jr.
A lawyer and John Winthrop's father. Moved the family to the Groton estate after Adam Sr. died, where he supervised John Winthrop during his first years running the estate.
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John Winthrop, Jr.
John Winthrop's son, born in 1606. He later served as governor of Connecticut.
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Henry Vane
Supporter of Anne Hutchinson and governor in 1636, as a replacement for Winthrop.