Robert Feake (1602-c.1661) was an early New England settler, soldier, goldsmith, and founder of what is now Greenwich, Connecticut.
Robert Feake (1602-c.1661) was an early New England settler, soldier, goldsmith, and founder of what is now Greenwich, Connecticut.
Feake was a goldsmith and likely came to New England with the Winthrop fleet of 1630. Governor John Winthrop named Mount Feake in Waltham after Feake in 1632, and Feake Island (Fetch's Island) in Virginia is also named after him. Around 1633 Feake married Elizabeth Fones, the widow of Henry Winthrop, the Governor's son. [1] [2] [3] Feake served as a lieutenant in the militia and lived in Watertown and was also involved in the settlement of Dedham in 1636. There is no record of him ever visiting Dedham, and he presumably was only asked to join the petition to the Great and General Court for his political influence. [4] In return he was granted additional lands in Dedham. [4]
In 1640 Robert and Elizabeth Feake left Massachusetts and became prominent figures in the history of Greenwich, Connecticut where they helped found the town and built the Feake-Ferris House (c. 1645) near Greenwich Point (originally Elizabeth's Neck) which still stands, as one of the oldest buildings in Connecticut. Feake encountered financial and mental health problems and eventually left his family and likely returned to England. His wife divorced him and remarried under Dutch law in New Netherland despite divorce being prohibited in the English colonies of Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Feake's daughter, Elizabeth, married John Underhill (captain) and daughter, Hannah, married John Bowne. Prominent descendants include John Alsop, Robert Feke, and Margaret Suckley. [5]
Feake appears in various non-fiction and fictional books including The Winthrop Woman . [6]
Feake's House in Greenwich is open to the public once a year.
Anya Seton, born Ann Seton, was an American author of historical fiction, or as she preferred they be called, "biographical novels".
Theophilus Eaton was a wealthy New England Puritan merchant, diplomat and financier, who took part in organizing and financing the Great Puritan Migration to America. He was a founder of Massachusetts Bay Colony, and a founder and eventual governor of New Haven Colony. He also cofounded Boston, Massachusetts, Greenwich, Connecticut and Eaton's Neck in New York.
John Underhill was an early English settler and soldier in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Province of New Hampshire, where he also served as governor; the New Haven Colony, New Netherland, and later the Province of New York, settling on Long Island. Hired to train militia in New England, he is most noted for leading colonial militia in the Pequot War (1636–1637) and Kieft's War which the colonists mounted against two different groups of Native Americans. He also published an account of the Pequot War.
The Winthrop Fleet was a group of 11 ships led by John Winthrop out of a total of 16 funded by the Massachusetts Bay Company which together carried between 700 and 1,000 Puritans plus livestock and provisions from England to New England over the summer of 1630, during the first period of the Great Migration.
Robert Charles Winthrop was an American lawyer, philanthropist, and Whig Party politician who represented Massachusetts in the United States House and Senate from 1840 to 1851. He served as the 18th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and was a political ally and colleague of Daniel Webster. After a rapid rise in Massachusetts and national politics and one term as speaker, Winthrop succeeded Webster in the Senate. His re-election campaign resulted in a long, sharply contested defeat by Charles Sumner. He ran for Governor of Massachusetts in 1851 but lost due to the state's majority requirement, marking the end of his political career and signaling the decline of the Massachusetts Whig Party.
John Alsop Jr. was an American merchant and politician from New York City. As a delegate for New York to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776, he signed the 1774 Continental Association.
John Winthrop the Younger was an early governor of the Connecticut Colony, and he played a large role in the merger of several separate settlements into the unified colony.
John Bowne (1627–1695), the progenitor of the Bowne family in America, was a Quaker and an English immigrant residing in the Dutch colony of New Netherland. He is historically significant for his struggle for religious liberty.
Arbella or Arabella was the flagship of the Winthrop Fleet on which Governor John Winthrop, other members of the Company, and Puritan emigrants transported themselves and the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company from England to Salem between April 8 and June 12, 1630, thereby giving legal birth to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. John Winthrop is reputed to have given the famous "A Model of Christian Charity" sermon aboard the ship. Also on board was Anne Bradstreet, the first European female poet to be published from the New World, and her family.
The Winthrop Woman is Anya Seton's 1958 historical novel about Elizabeth Fones, a settler of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and a founder of Greenwich, Connecticut.
Thomas Carter was an American colonist and Puritan minister. Educated at Cambridge, he left England and emigrated to the American colonies during the Puritan Great Migration. Carter was ordained as a Puritan minister in 1642, becoming the first person in the American colonies to receive a Christian ordination. He served as a church elder and minister in Dedham, Watertown, and Woburn. A prominent religious figure in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Carter was one signers of the Dedham Covenant and one of the founders of Woburn.
Groton is a village and civil parish in the Babergh district, Suffolk, England, located around a mile north of the A1071 between Hadleigh and Sudbury. In 2021 the parish had a population of 299.
Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake Hallett was an early settler in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1640 Fones, with her then-husband Robert Feake, were founders of Greenwich, Connecticut.
Emily Wilder Leavitt (1836–1921) of Boston, Massachusetts, who doubled as an historian and professional genealogist, was one of the first female members of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Daughter of an acting mayor of Boston, Miss Leavitt managed to make a living writing the histories of early New England families, compelling her to scour the region's early records.
The Thomas Lyon House, at 1 Byram Road, was built ca. 1739 and is considered to be the oldest unaltered structure in Greenwich, Connecticut. The restoration of the house, a Colonial saltbox, is the primary project of the Greenwich Preservation Trust, a not-for-profit organization that grew out of the Thomas Lyon House Committee formed by the Byram Neighborhood Association. Its heritage dates back to the family of Thomas Lyon (1621–1690), one of the earliest settlers of Fairfield County, and particularly his son, Thomas Lyon (1673–1739) who, with his wife Abigail and their children, were the initial occupants. The house stayed in the family line of Abigail and Thomas Lyon in to the 20th century.
Fitz-John Winthrop, was the governor of the Colony of Connecticut from 1698 until his death on November 27, 1707.
Henry Winthrop (1608–1630) was the second son of John Winthrop, founder and Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In addition to his taking part in his father's Great Migration to America in 1630, Henry is part of American history for being the first husband of Elizabeth Fones, who would later be a founding settler of what is now Greenwich, Connecticut, but also be at the center of scandal in colonial America, as captured in the popular novel, The Winthrop Woman.
Waitstill Winthrop was a colonial magistrate, military officer, and politician of New England.
George Phillips was an English-born Puritan minister who led, along with Richard Saltonstall, a group of English settlers up the Charles River to settle in what is now Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1630.
The Feake–Ferris House is a historic structure at 181 Shore Road in Old Greenwich, Connecticut. The building was purportedly built around 1645 and was expanded over time to its present saltbox shape.