Although we may think that he was narrow
in some things, he was a man of calm judgment and even temper, and
was in many ways a good Governor. From the day he set forth from
England to the end of his life he kept a diary, and it is from
this diary that we learn nearly all we know of the early days of
the colony.
It was in June of 1630 that Winthrop and his company landed at
Salem, and although there were already little settlements at Salem
and elsewhere this may be taken as the real founding of Massachusetts.
Almost at once Winthrop decided that Salem would not be a good
centre for the colony, and he moved southward to the Charles River,
where he finally settled on a little hilly peninsula. There a
township was founded and given the name of Boston, after the town
of Boston in Lincolnshire, from which many of the settlers had
come.
Although these settlers had more money and more knowledge of
trading, the colony did not altogether escape the miseries which
every other colony had so far suffered. And, less stout-hearted
than the founders of Plymouth, some fled back again to England.
But they were only a few, and for the most part the new settlers
remained and prospered.
These newcomers were not Separatists like the Pilgrim Fathers but
Puritans. When they left England they had no intention of separating
themselves from the Church of England.
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