John Winthrop First Governor of the Masschusetts Colony

THE COMING MAN 13
These Suffolk Winthrops were a family of substance
and honourable repute for several generations anterior
to that in which this history arises \ of whom much
might be told, had we time, to show, in the lineage of
the man we are to speak of, the preparation of his
character and his career.
Adam Winthrop (3d) died in 1623 Anne j Browne,
his wife, in 1629, only a year before her son embarked
for America. Their tomb is still to be seen in
Groton churchyard. The time-blurred Latin inscription
ends with —
BEATI .
SUNT
. PACIFICI . NAM . II . DEI .
VOCABUNTUR.
FILII
Ere our tale is concluded, we shall find reason to
judge that the same Beatitude was part of the inheritance
they bequeathed.
Of John Winthrop's boyhood nothing whatsoever,
except his own Later mention of a juvenile peccadillo,
— which, on the whole, we are glad to hear of, — and
of his religious state at the ages of ten and twelve, is
at this time discoverable. Of the kind of lad he was,
of his sports, of how and where he was schooled, not
even Adam Winthrop's gossiping and very miscella-
neous diary affords a hint. If it be supposed that
during this period he remained at his father's house
amid the quiet Suffolk landscapes, he must have seen
and heard much in the company which the abounding
hospitalities of Groton Manor brought thither, to
form his mind and induce that reflectiveness and