Winthrop, John, 1588 - 1649

John Winthrop was from a wealthy landowning family from Groton in Suffolk, England.  He attended Cambridge University only briefly, studied law at Gray’s Inn, and became a justice of the peace. After converting to Puritanism, he joined the New England Company investors seeking to start a settlement near Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts.  By 1629, Winthrop had assembled eleven ships to carry settlers across the ocean the following year to begin the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  There he served as its governor for twelve of its first twenty years.  Encyclopedia.com.