Stoughton, William, 1631 - 1701

William Stoughton was the son of Israel Stoughton and Elizabeth Clarke.  He and his family immigrated to Dorchester, Massachusetts.  Stoughton graduated Harvard in 1650 and returned to England shortly thereafter.  A fellow at New College, Oxford, he received an M.A. in 1653 and was subsequently appointed minister of the parish of Rumboldswycke in Sussex. Stoughton was back in Massachusetts in 1662, where he became a farmer and magistrate at Dorchester.  He was elected to the Massachusetts General Court (1671-1686) and served as a commissioner of the United Colonies (1674-1676, 1680-1686).  From 1677 to 1679, he was one of the Colony’s agents in London.  Upon his return, he served as deputy president in the Dominion of New England.  In 1692 he was appointed lieutenant governor, and in that capacity served as the chief judge and prosecutor of the Salem witch trials.  He later became acting governor of Massachusetts from 1694 to 1699.  Stoughton was a land speculator in the Nipmuck Country and Merrimack River Valley.  ANBO.  Martin, Profits in the Wilderness, 89-100.