Winthrop's Journal

"Anno Domini 1630, March 29, Easter Monday. Riding at the Cowes, near the Isle of Wight, in the Arbella, a ship of three hundred and fifty tons."

So begins one of the most famous journals ever written, a journal which remains a treasure mine of information for historians of New England. John Winthrop, the writer of the journal, was a well-educated upper-class Englishman. Although a moderately successful lawyer, he left it all to join the Massachusetts Bay Company. Motivating his decision was a personal inclination toward Puritanism and distress over the religious condition of Europe.

Eventually, the Puritans settled in the New World. There Winthrop was for nine years a governor and for ten years deputy-governor. John Winthrop maintained his sporadic journal entries until 1649.