Gookin, Daniel, Sr., 1582 - 1663

Daniel Gookin was the son of John Gookin of St. Augustine, Kent, England.  In 1616, Gookin and his family removed to Carrigaline in Munster, Ireland and by the 1620s became a transporter of Irish cattle, goats, and human passengers to the Colony of Virginia and started a small settlement on land he held a patent to there from the Virginia Company.  In 1622, he became a shareholder in the New England Company.  After the collapse of his Virginia enterprise, he petitioned the king for a patent to land on the Island of Saint Brandan, a land to be yet discovered, and for free exportation of live cattle in early 1631.  Gookin’s son Daniel (c. 1612-1687) was a soldier and magistrate in Virginia and in Massachusetts.  With the Rev. John Eliot, he advocated for Native peoples during the difficult years of King Philip’s War and became superintendent to the Praying Indians. Frederick W. Gookin, Daniel Gookin, 1612-1687: Assistant and Major General of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (Chicago: Frederick W. Gookin, 1912), 38-54.