clearly that Congregationalism was the best and only mode of planting and propagating Christianity in this part of the country and in those old Puritan times, and he was henceforth a Congregationalist until his death. Bancroft says of him: “It was principally the calm decision of Winthrop which sustained the courage of his companions.” Palfrey concludes a notice of him, in his “History of New England,” as follows: “Certain it is that, among the millions of living men descended from those whom he ruled, there is not one who does not, through efficient influences, transmitted in society and in thought along the intervening generations, owe much of what is best within him and in the circumstances about him to the benevolent and courageous wisdom of John Winthrop.”
He kept a careful journal of all that was done by himself and others, which he designed to have revised and perfected at his leisure; but no leisure ever came to him. The first volume was published from family manuscripts (Hartford, 1790). The continuation was discovered in 1816 in the tower of the Old South church in Boston, and placed in the hands of James Savage, who published the whole journal as “The History of New England from 1630 to 1649, by John Winthrop,” with notes (2 vols., Boston, 1825-'6; 2d ed., with additions, 1853). It furnishes the most authentic record of the early days of Massachusetts. Among other writings is an essay entitled “Arbitrary Government described; and the Government of the Massachusetts vindicated from that Aspersion.” It was written by him in 1644, but it saw the light only in 1869. His “Modell of Christian Charity,” written on board the “Arbella,” on his way to this country, is printed in the “Massachusetts Historical Collections.” His “Life and Letters” were published by Robert C. Winthrop (2 vols., Boston. 1864-'7). There is a portrait of him, ascribed to Vandyck, in the senate-chamber of Massachusetts, and reproduced in the accompanying steel engraving; a statue by Richard Greenough in the U. S. capitol at Washington, another in Boston and one in the chapel at Mount Auburn cemetery, seen in the illustration on page 573. —
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His eldest son, John, known as John Winthrop the younger, b. in Groton Manor, 12 Feb., 1606; d. in Boston, Mass., 5 April, 1676, after being educated at Bury St. Edmunds school and Trinity college, Dublin, entered the Inner Temple, but, finding the study of law little to his taste, obtained temporary employment in the naval service and sailed under the Duke of Buckingham in the unfortunate expedition for the relief of the Protestants of Rochelle. A little later he made a prolonged tour of Europe, passed some time in Padua, Venice, and Constantinople, returning home in 1629, to find his friends busy with the great Massachusetts enterprise, in which he was soon actively enlisted. In 1631 he followed his father to New England, and he was shortly afterward elected an assistant of the Massachusetts colony, which post he retained for eighteen successive years. In 1633 he took the chief part in the settlement of Ipswich, Mass., where he acquired a considerable estate. In 1634 he went to England on public business, and he returned, in 1635, with a commission from Lords Say, Brooke, and others, empowering him to build a fort at the mouth of Connecticut river, and constituting him governor of that region for one year from his arrival. At the expiration of this term he preferred to return to Massachusetts, where he busied himself in scientific researches, in trying to develop the mineral resources of the colony, and in building salt-works. The journal of Gov. Winthrop the elder speaks of his son John at this period as possessing in Boston a library of more than 1,000 volumes, several hundred of which are still preserved, and bear testimony to the learning and broad intellectual tastes of their original owner. In 1640 he obtained a grant of Fisher's island, which was subsequently confirmed by royal patent. In 1641 he went again to England on a long absence, bringing back with him, in 1643, workmen and machinery with which he established iron-works at Lynn and Braintree. In 1646 he began the plantation at Pequot, better known as New London, and, having gradually acquired much landed property in that neighborhood, he transferred thither his principal residence in 1650, exchanging the duties of a Massachusetts for those of a Connecticut magistrate. In 1657 he was elected governor of Connecticut, and, with a single year's exception, he held that office till his death, nineteen years later. From the autumn of 1661 till the spring of 1663 he was chiefly in London on business of the colony, where he became widely known as an accomplished scholar, one of the earliest and most active members of the Royal society, and the personal friend of many of the chief natural philosophers of Europe, his correspondence with whom is in print. The ability and tact that he displayed at the court of Charles II. resulted in his obtaining from that monarch a charter uniting the colonies of Connecticut and New Haven, with the most ample privileges, under which the freemen of that colony became entitled to all the rights and immunities of Englishmen. In this charter Winthrop was named first governor, and in the administration of it he passed his remaining years. His death occurred in Boston, where he had gone to attend a meeting of the commissioners of the united colonies and where he was buried in his father's tomb. He had not the latter's heroic cast of character, and his tastes were rather those of a student than a statesman; but he was a man of singularly winning qualities and great moderation, whose Puritanism was devoid of bigotry or asceticism, and who knew how to retain the esteem of those from whom he differed most widely in opinion. By Indians he was revered for his justice, and by Quakers gratefully remembered for his lenity. In chemistry and medicine he was particularly skilled, and in the dearth of medical practitioners in the colony his advice was sought far and wide. He married, in 1631, his cousin Martha, daughter of Thomas Fones, of London, and step-daughter of Rev. Henry Painter; she died in Ipswich, without surviving issue, in 1634. He married, in 1635, Elizabeth, daughter of Edmund Reade, of Wickford in Essex, and step-daughter of the famous Hugh Peters; this lady, so lovingly alluded to in the letters of Roger Williams, died in Hartford in 1672, leaving two sons and five daughters. Much of the correspondence of her husband and sons is printed in the publications of the Massachusetts historical society. — The second John's
