No. 3.
MEMORIAL OF THE WINTHORPE FAMILY.
This gentleman (Samuel Winthorpe, Esq. of Antigua) was the son of John Winthorpe, of Groton Hall, co. Suffolk, Esq., by his wife, Margaret, dau. of Sir John Tindall, Knt., master in Chancery, and ancestor of the present Chief Justice Tindall. Mr. Winthorpe’s family had early embraced the Protestant religion, and were among the most stanch supporters of that creed; and in those dark days, when Popery once again reared its head in England, the grandfather of this John Winthorpe attended the martyr Philpots to the stake, as one of his latest friends. In after years, Mr. J. Winthorpe, fearing religious persecution, sold off all his property, (bringing him in 500l. or 600l. per annum, a great sum in those days,) and emigrated to New England, then a forest waste, where, in process of time, he became its first governor, and from whence he kept up a private correspondence with Oliver Cromwell, then Protector of the Commonwealth. Besides Samuel Winthorpe, the ancestor of the Antiguan branch of the family, he had two sons,
i. Stephen, a colonel in the army, appointed by Cromwell to a command in Scotland, and was afterwards a member of his parliament, died in 1659, the year prior to the Restoration, and
ii. John, who succeeded his father in the government of New England, and was a regular correspondent and distinguished member of the Royal Society in Old England, died 5th April, 1676, aged 70.
Samuel Winthorpe, Esq., visiting Holland, espoused there a Dutch lady, (whose name we have not been able to ascertain,) with whom he immediately afterwards emigrated to Antigua, and died there about 1675. He left by his wife a numerous progeny of sons and daughters, among whom, Samuel, Joseph, and Henry, inherited a large estate from their father, but who (by means, it is said, little creditable to the parties concerned to relate) were deprived of their patrimony, and, consequently, their place and station in that insular community. The daughters married into some of the best Antiguan families, and became the ancestresses of the Williams, Thomas, and Ffry families. For further particulars of the Winthorpe family, the reader may consult “Mathew’s History of New England,” and “Farmer’s Genealogical Register” of that settlement, as well as later works upon the United States of North America.