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| Elizabeth Fones |
My tenth great-grandmother, Elizabeth Fones, is among the most well-known of my early ancestors, and her life has inspired numerous books and articles in the centuries since her death. As I learned more about her story, I was struck by what a remarkable survivor she was, demonstrating a level of courage, independence, and resilience that was extraordinary for a woman living in the seventeenth century. Her choices often defied the rigid expectations of her time, and it is no surprise that her legacy continues to resonate today.
Elizabeth was born on January 21, 1610 in Groton, Suffolk. This is in the east of England, between London and Norfolk. Her parents were Thomas Fones and Anne Winthrop. Thomas was an apothecary, rather like a pharmacist, who ran a successful shop in London.
Thomas ran an apothecary at the sign of the Three Fawns on Old Bailey Street, recorded there in 1628. In the apothecary, he prepared herbal preparations to help people heal from, deal with, or prevent illnesses. His daughter Elizabeth and an apprentice worked with him and learned the art. In addition to his pharmacy responsibilities, Thomas offered general medical advice and a range of services such as surgery and midwifery. He also operated a retail shop selling ingredients for medicines, tobacco and patent medicines. By the 15th century, his profession had gained the status of skilled practitioner. Such work marked the beginnings of chemistry and pharmacology. [Source: The Frost Genealogy published by The New England Historic Genealogical Society via Wikitree]
The Fones family lived in rooms above the shop in London. They were materially successful, and Elizabeth was well educated.
Anne's father, Adam Winthrop, Jr., was raised in the manor at Groton before taking up the mantle in his family's clothing business. Adam and his wife, Anne Browne, had three daughters, Anne, Jane, and Lucy, and one son, John Winthrop.
Elizabeth's mother, Anne Winthrop, was the daughter of Adam Winthrop, a London clothier. Adam had inherited this trade from his father, Adam Winthrop, Sr., an enterprising and socially ambitious man who greatly raised the family's fortunes.
He [Adam] was born in Lavenham, Suffolk, and came to London in 1515 where he was apprenticed to a clothworker. He became a Freeman of the City in 1526 and was successful in his trade. However, he was noted for being, "a little too enterprising for his own immediate good" and in 1543 he served time in the Fleet Prison, paying £600 for his release: "His offense was negotiating with foreigners contrary to an edict of the King of England". Despite the fine, in the following year (1544) he purchased the Manor of Groton, a church property seized by King Henry VIII. He was granted a coat of arms in 1548 and in 1551 he was named Master of the Clothworkers Company. [Source: American Aristocracy]
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| A contemporary view of Groton Manor in Suffolk |
The union of the Winthrop and Fones families with the marriage of Thomas and Anne united two very successful and upwardly mobile merchant class London families. However, they had become Puritans, and their radical religious beliefs set their children on a new path.
Elizabeth was the eldest surviving child of Thomas Fones and Anne Winthrop. Their first child, Dorothy Fones, was born in October 1608 and died just two months later. Elizabeth was born in 1610, and four more Fones babies were born in the following years: Martha, Ann, Samuel, and John. In 1619, when Elizabeth was just nine years old, her mother died. Thomas Fones, busy with his apothecary business in London, enlisted his eldest children, Elizabeth and Martha, to help out in his shop. Elizabeth learned responsibility and resourcefulness young. However, ten years later, at the age of 19, she threw caution to the wind and committed to a reckless and unsanctioned love affair that would change her life.
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| Graphic showing the marriages of the Winthrop and Fones cousins |
Born in 1608, Henry Winthrop was the second son of John Winthrop and his first wife, Mary Forth. John was Anne Winthrop Fones' brother, and this made Henry and Elizabeth first cousins. The Winthrop family was wealthy, and at the age of 21, Henry took his funds to Barbados, where he hoped to start a tobacco plantation. That venture did not come together as planned, and Henry returned to England in 1629, where he fell head over heels for his cousin, Elizabeth Fones. The two started an intense romance that their families disapproved of, but could not seem to extinguish. On April 2, 1629, Thomas Fones wrote to John Winthrop, saying, "your sonne hath wooed and wonne my daughter Besse for a wyfe and they both pretend to have proceeded so far that there is no recalling of yt at least promise of Mariage and all without my knowledg or consent what grief this is to me I leaue yt to your consideracion being no fitt mach for ether of them. I will not multiply argumentes agaynst my Nephew being your sonne but his hart I see is much to bigg for his estates."
After signing his name to the letter, Henry again took up his pen and added a postscript, saying, "I cannot write yow the many trobles of my mind what to do for my Nephew sayes playnly yf he cannot have my good will to have my daughter he will have her without: and though I have entreated him to forbeare my howse a while he will not but comes and stayes at vnfitting howres he lay here till last night: I am sure he is in debt for his owne occasions, I doubt far and I feare engaged for others whose company he vseth and they have had thinges so common betweene them of whom formerly I have given him frendly warning but I am weak and cannot I see now be master in myne owne howse and tis hard medling betweene the barke and the tree for yf he were not so neare allied to me and the sonne of him whom I so respect I could hardly beare such braving oppositions in mine owne howse: but I long to heare from yow for I doubt he will draw hir forth of mine owne howse and soddaynly marry hir without any Scrupules." [source: Massachusetts Historical Society]
In plain English, Henry and Elizabeth had betrothed themselves without permission from their families and refused to back down when Thomas Fones disapproved. Henry was visiting Elizabeth at her father's house at all hours, perhaps staying the night, and vowing that he would marry Elizabeth with or without the permission of her father. In his letter, Thomas also said that Henry had been incurring debt to procure flashy clothes. In their youth and passion, Elizabeth and Henry were behaving recklessly. Thomas wrote this letter from his deathbed, too sick to fully take charge of the situation, and he died on April 15, just eleven days later. Thomas Fones had remarried in 1621, to Priscilla Burgess, but his will gave responsibility for his daughters Elizabeth and Martha to John Winthrop. He put their uncle in charge of the young women's affairs until they were age 21 or married. Taking up this mantle, Winthrop decided to allow the marriage of Henry and Elizabeth, and they were wed ten days after Thomas' death, on April 25, 1629 at the Church of St. Sepulchre-without-Newgate, in London.
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| St. Sepulchre in London. I took this photo in April 2025. |
In coming years, there were two more unions between these families. In 1631, Elizabeth's younger sister, 20-year old Martha Fones, married Henry's elder brother, her cousin John Winthrop, Jr. In 1630, Henry and John Winthrop's younger brother, Forth Winthrop, became engaged to Elizabeth and Martha Fones' stepsister Ursula Sherman, the daughter of Priscilla Burgess Fones, the second wife of Thomas Fones. Sadly, Forth died suddenly, at the age of 20, before the wedding could take place.
The marriage of Henry Winthrop and Elizabeth Fones took place during a time of heightened discontent among Puritans in England. Puritans had been emigrating to the colonies in New England in small groups since 1620, when the Mayflower passengers founded Plymouth. This emigration escalated dramatically with the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Company.
In 1629 the Massachusetts Bay Company had obtained from King Charles I a charter empowering the company to trade and colonize in New England between the Charles and Merrimack rivers. The grant was similar to that of the Virginia Company in 1609, the patentees being joint proprietors with rights of ownership and government. The intention of the crown was evidently to create merely a commercial company with what, in modern parlance, would be called stockholders, officers, and directors. By a shrewd and legally questionable move, however, the patentees decided to transfer the management and the charter itself to Massachusetts. By this move, they not only paved the way for local management, but they established the assumption that the charter for a commercial company was in reality a political constitution for a new government with only indefinable dependence upon the imperial one in England. [source: Britannica.com]In the summer of 1629, a preliminary fleet of six ships, carrying about 300 emigrants, livestock, and supplies, sailed from England to Salem to make preparations for the Massachusetts Bay Company. On October 20, 1629, John Winthrop was elected governor, upon his assurance that he would relocate to Massachusetts with a larger group in 1630. Plans were underway for a massive migration, with ships scheduled to set sail in March 1630.
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| John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts |
The planned departure in March 1630 was delayed by poor weather, but John Winthrop finally set sail aboard the ship Arbella, leaving from the Isle of Wight, on April 8, 1630. The Arbella was accompanied by at least three other ships, including Talbot, which bore John's son Henry Winthrop. A total of eleven ships, carrying approximately 700 to 1,000 people, made their way from England to the colonies in the coming months, in a mass migration aboard ships known as the Winthrop Fleet.
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| A painting of the Winthrop Fleet at sea [Source: The Winthrop Society] |
Elizabeth was heavily pregnant when her husband and father in law sailed for the colonies. She stayed behind in England when they departed. Henry and Elizabeth's daughter, Martha Johanna Winthrop, was born in Groton on May 9, 1630, while the Arbella and Talbot were still at sea. Tragically, Henry would never get to meet his daughter.
On July 30, John Winthrop wrote a letter to his wife, Margaret Tyndall Winthrop, who had remained in England.
We have met with many sad and discomfortable things, as thou shalt hear after; and the Lord's hand hath been heavy upon myself in some very near to me. My son Henry! My son Henry! Ah poor child! Yet it grieves me much more for my dear daughter. The Lord strengthen and comfort her heart, to bear this cross patiently. I know thou wilt not be wanting to her in this distress. Yet for all these things (I praise my God,) I am not discouraged; nor do I cause to repent or despair of those good days here, which will make amends for all. [Source: Life and Letters of John Winthrop by Robert C. Winthrop (1869)]The news must have devastated Elizabeth, who had married Henry for love, and now faced a life without him. John Winthrop made arrangements to bring his wife Margaret to Massachusetts, along with Elizabeth and her infant daughter Martha. All three arrived safely on 2 November 1631 aboard the Lyon. Elizabeth's sister, Martha Fones Winthrop and her husband John Winthrop, Jr. also emigrated to the colonies in 1631, arriving in October, just a month before Elizabeth.
Once in Massachusetts, John Winthrop arranged for Elizabeth to remarry, and she wed Robert Feake in early 1632. In England, Robert had been a goldsmith and jeweler who was trained by his father, James Feake, in that trade. Upon emigrating to the Massachusetts Bay Company, likely in early 1631, Feake established himself in the settlement of Watertown. He was educated and had financial resources, but he had also found favor with John Winthrop, which must have worked to his advantage. In Watertown, Robert became a landowner and militia officer, and he served as a selectman. It is not clear whether he and Elizabeth had a romantic rapport of any kind, or whether they were each making the best of their circumstances, but together they had five children over the next 15 years.
Elizabeth Feake (b. 1633; d. 1675; m. John Underhill)
Hannah Feake (b. 1637; d. 1677; m. John Bowne)
John Feake (b. 1638; d. 1724; m. Elizabeth Prior)
Robert Feake, Jr. (b. 1642; d. 1669)
Sarah Feake (b. 1647; d. 1647)
In 1640, Elizabeth and Robert joined with Daniel Patrick to purchase land from Native Americans in the area that would become Greenwich Point, Connecticut. They called it "Elizabeth's Neck," and they are recognized today as founders of Greenwich. However, by 1640, Robert was unwell. His malady is not named specifically in historical records, but it seems to have been a mental illness, and he experienced a steep decline between 1640 and 1647. In April 1642, when Elizabeth and Daniel Patrick signed an act of submission to Dutch jurisdiction for the Greenwich settlement, Robert was not present. Elizabeth signed the act of submission without him, and it was said that Robert was absent due to illness, perhaps even having traveled to Boston or to England for treatment of some kind.
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| Elizabeth's Neck, now known as Greenwich Point, across the cove from downtown Greenwich [Source: Greenwich Historical Society] |
Reports of Robert's status, and Elizabeth's actions between 1640 and 1647 are inconclusive, but there were whispers that Robert had become disassociated from reality and obsessed with the spiritual, to the point that he could no longer care for his property or family.
Testimony was later given in court by John Bishop, Richard Lawe, and Francis Bell that Robert Feake “was a man whose God-fearing heart was so absorbed with spiritual and heavenly things that he little thought of the things of this life, and took neither heed nor care of what was tendered to his external property,” and so allowed his wife to dominate him.” [Source: Moser Genealogy]
Later, there would be suspicions that mental illness ran in the family, as Robert's aunt, Mary Feake, was institutionalized due to insanity in England. Some wondered if the fumes created by melting metals in the jewelry trade had affected the health of Feake family members.
In the 1640s, with her husband unable to fulfill his role at home, Elizabeth grew close to the family's property manager, William Hallett, and at some point they embarked on an affair. Whether Robert knew of this affair and if it exacerbated his disconnect from reality is not known, although it was a rumor at the time. There are a lot of different ways this period in Elizabeth's life can be viewed. Some have written of her as a determined survivor who made plans to care for herself and her children in the absence of a stable husband, and as a woman stuck in a loveless, declining marriage who found love again with the man caring for her property. Others have criticized her for being unfaithful to Robert Feake, and perhaps abandoning him during difficult times, when he needed care. We do not know exactly what happened in the Fones-Feake marriage, nor what specifically was amiss with Robert Feake's health. The outcome, however, was that in early 1647, Robert Feake returned to England, leaving his family in Connecticut. This was not a permanent move, but it was the end of his marriage and his time in Greenwich. In 1661, he was back in Watertown, penniless and ill, and the city had to pay people to care for him because he was incapable of looking after himself.
By 1647, Elizabeth was firmly in a relationship with William Hallett. Their first child, William Hallett, Jr. was born in October 1648. Regardless of how her marriage to Robert Feake had broken down, the fact remained that during the beginning of her relationship with William, Elizabeth was still married to Robert. This scandalized their community and made Elizabeth and William pariahs. There is much speculation as to when Elizabeth and William were actually married. The Compendium of American Genealogy states that William Hallett was married to Elizabeth (Fones) Feake, the divorced wife of Robert Feake, in 1647. However, there are questions about this, and about whether Elizabeth was ever legally divorced.
The other issue upending Elizabeth's life in 1647 was that her son-in-law, Thomas Lyon, the husband of her eldest child, Martha Winthrop, decided to take this moment of uncertainty to lay claim to Elizabeth's property, in collaboration with Tobias Feake, Robert Feake's nephew.
...Elizabeth Feake and William Hallett tried to sell a piece of property jointly owned by Robert Feake and Daniel Patrick. Thomas Lyon and Tobias Feake viewed that property as theirs. They began to spread salacious rumors about Elizabeth and William, claiming they had no right to sell the land. Lyon had moved into the Feake household, and wrote a letter to John Winthrop, his wife’s grandfather, claiming William had gotten Elizabeth pregnant. He also wrote to the English authorities in the New Haven Colony. Tobias Feake chimed in with the claim that William Hallett did not have a legitimate right to sell the property. The magistrates in Stamford issued an edict: If Elizabeth wanted to stay in Greenwich and keep her property, William Hallett would have to leave. If she left Greenwich, the Puritan authorities in Stamford would seize her children and her real estate. [Source: New England Historical Society]
Elizabeth and William fled together to New London, Connecticut, and took shelter with her cousin, John Winthrop, Jr. In their absence, Peter Stuyvesant, the leader of New Amsterdam, seized their property. John Winthrop, Jr., worked directly with Stuyvesant on behalf of his cousin, and finally reached an agreement with him that allowed Elizabeth and William to return to their land in Greenwich in 1649. In 1650, they had another son, Samuel Hallett.
In April 1642, Elizabeth and Daniel Patrick had signed an act of submission to the Dutch for the Greenwich settlement. However, the English also had their eye on this land. Between 1640 and 1650, the area was plagued with disputes between English and Dutch interests and battles with the native peoples in the area. The native Siwanoy and Munsee tribes were part of the broader Lenape nation. Multiple raids and many murders occurred due to tension between the natives and the white settlers. In 1650, the Dutch relinquished Greenwich, and the town was formally incorporated into the English-controlled New Haven Colony. It later became a separate township. Elizabeth and William did not feel welcome or safe under English rule, and they left Greenwich to move into Dutch territory on Long Island. Peter Stuyvesant granted them 12 acres in present day Astoria, Queens, near Hellgate.
Over time, William and Elizabeth Fones Winthrop Feake Hallett amassed a 2,200-acre plantation in Astoria from Bowery Bay to Sunswick Creek. [Source: New England Historical Society]
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| The area where Elizabeth and William owned property in Astoria |
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| The Feake-Ferris House in Greenwich |
I descend from Elizabeth's daughter Hannah Feake, who married John Bowne in 1656. Hannah and John became Quakers and were enormously influential in New York and within the Quaker community. They both, separately, undertook missionary trips to England and Holland to advocate for Quakers, and were skilled organizers for their cause.
- Insubordinate Spirit: A True Story of Life and Loss in Earliest America, 1610–1665 by Missy Wolfe (A modern, well‑researched biography focusing on Elizabeth Fones’s life.)
- The Winthrop Woman by Anya Seton (A historical novel based on Elizabeth’s life)
- The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop by Edmund S. Morgan
- John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father by Tom Lewis
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