| Richard Bellingham | |
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| In office 1641 – 1642 1654 – 1655 1665 – 1672 |
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| Preceded by | Thomas Dudley (1641) John Endecott (1654 & 1665) |
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| Succeeded by | John Winthrop (1642) John Endecott (1655) John Leverett (1672) |
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| Born | 1592 Boston, Lincolnshire, England |
| Died | December 7, 1672 Boston, Massachusetts |
Richard Bellingham (1592 - December 7, 1672) was a colonial magistrate, lawyer, and several-time governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Richard Bellingham was probably born in Boston, England, the son of William Bellingham and Frances Amcotts. He became a lawyer, and represented his town as Member of Parliament in 1628 and 1629, while also serving as city recorder. He immigrated to the Puritan colonies in 1634, and settled in.
In 1641 Bellingham was elected Governor of Massachusetts running against John Winthrop, the colony's founding governor. He served in office for one term (one year), to be replaced when Winthrop won reelection in 1642. Bellingham was again elected Governor in 1654, and finally elected once again in May 1665 after the death of Governor John Endecott.[1] Bellingham served a total of ten years as Governor and thirteen as Deputy-Governor.
In 1641, Bellingham was involved in a small scandal for officiating at his own second marriage ceremony, and in 1665, he ignored a summons by Charles II to return to England. Bellingham pacified the angered sovereign by sending over a ship full of masts as a gift (New England was a valuable source of timber for the Royal Navy). He died in Boston, Massachusetts in 1672 during a term as governor.
Though known as a hard, obdurate, and sometimes eccentric man, he was apparently well-respected in the colony. He was immortalized as a character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, as was his sister, Anne Hibbins, who would be executed as a witch in 1656.
Richard Bellingham married in England, as his first wife, Elizabeth Backhouse. After her death, he married Penelope Pelham, sister of Herbert Pelham.[2] He died on 7 December, 1672 aged 80 and left several children. He is interred at the Granary Burying Ground, in Boston, Massachusetts.
| Government offices | ||
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| Preceded by Thomas Dudley |
Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony | Succeeded by John Winthrop |
| Preceded by John Endicott |
Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony | Succeeded by John Endicott |
| Preceded by John Endicott |
Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony | Succeeded by John Leverett |
References
- ^ Bridgeman, Thomas (1856). The Pilgrims of Boston and their Descendants. New York: D. Appleton and Company. pp. 44–45. http://books.google.com/books?id=oPQWAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+pilgrims+of+boston. Retrieved 29 April, 2009.
- ^ s:Pelham, Herbert (DNB00)
External links
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