dated 10 March 1649 (Hutchinson, Massachusetts, i. 142). To meet the necessities of the time he established in 1652 a mint, which, contrary to law, continued to coin money until the charter of the colony was abrogated in 1685. In 1658 the court granted him, ‘for his great service,’ the fourth part of Block Island. At this time he was also elected president of the body of colonial commissioners. In 1660 the court was asked to confirm a grant of land which the Indians, mindful of his just dealing, had presented to his eldest son John.
Soon after the Restoration the struggle began in Massachusetts to save the charter and the government. Endecott drew up, in the name of the general court of Boston, a petition to the king praying for his majesty's protection and a continuance of those privileges and liberties which they had hitherto enjoyed. The ‘open capitall blasphemies’ of the quakers and their incorrigible contempt of authority were also set forth (Cal. State Papers, Col. Ser., America and West Indies, 1661–8, pp. 8–10). Charles returned vaguely favourable answers, desired Endecott to make diligent search for the regicides, Whalley and Goffe, and ordered all condemned quakers to be sent to England to be dealt with there (ib. pp. 11, 27–8, 33–4, 55). In 1662 the king expressed his willingness to take the plantation into his care provided that all laws made during the late troubles derogatory to the king's government be repealed, the oaths of allegiance duly observed, and the administration of justice take place in the king's name. He further suggested that ‘as the principal end of their charter was liberty of conscience’ the Book of Common Prayer and its ceremonies might very well be used by those desirous of doing so (ib. pp. 93–4). In April 1664 the king thought fit to send four commissioners to the colony, but without the least intention or thought, so he declared, of violating or in the least degree infringing their charter (ib. p. 201). When, however, the commissioners proceeded to sit in judgment upon the governor and court, the latter published by sound of the trumpet their disapprobation, and forbade every one to abet such conduct. The commissioners had therefore to depart, threatening against the authorities of Massachusetts the punishment ‘which many in England concerned in the late rebellion had met with.’ Endecott addressed a strongly worded protest against this attempt to override their privileges to Secretary Sir William Morrice, 19 Oct. 1664, and again petitioned the king (ib. pp. 247–9). In his reply to the general court, 25 Feb. 1664–5, Morrice complained of Endecott's ‘disaffection,’ and stated that the king would ‘take it very well if at the next election any other person of good reputation be chosen in his place’ (ib. p. 282). Before the effect of this recommendation could be ascertained Endecott had died at Boston, 15 March 1664–5, aged 77, and was buried ‘with great honour and solemnity’ on the 23rd. Tradition assigns the ‘Chapel Burying-ground’ as the place of his interment, but the tombstone has long been destroyed, it is supposed by British soldiers during the American war. At the time of his death Endecott had served the colony in various relations, including the very highest, longer than any other one of the Massachusetts fathers.
Endecott was twice married. His first wife, Ann Gower, who was a cousin or niece of Matthew Cradock, died soon after coming to the colony, it is believed childless; and he married secondly, 18 Aug. 1630, Elizabeth Gibson of Cambridge, England, by whom he had two sons, John, born about 1632, and Zerubbabel, born about 1635, a physician at Salem. A portrait of Endecott, said to have been taken the year he died, is in possession of the family, and has been copied and often engraved. He and his descendants to the fourth generation wrote the second syllable of the name with ‘e,’ but the ‘i’ has prevailed since.
[Savage's Genealogical Dictionary of First Settlers of New England, ii. 120–3; C. M. Endicott's Life of J. Endecott, fol. 1847, of which an abstract (with portrait) is given in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, i. 201–24; Moore's Lives of the Governors of New Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, 1851, pp. 347–66; Salisbury's Memorial in Proceedings of American Antiquarian Society, 1873, pp. 113–54; The Fifth Half Century of the Landing of J. Endecott at Salem (Essex Institute Historical Collections, 18 Sept. 1878); Hubbard's General History of New England (8vo, Boston, 1848); Young's Chronicles of First Planters of Massachusetts Bay, p. 13; Felt's Annals of Salem, 2nd edit.; Felt's Paper in New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xii. 133–7; Felt's Who was the First Governor of Massachusetts?; Winthrop's History of New England (Savage), 2nd edit. ii. 200–3; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography, ii. 355; Johnson's Wonder-working Providences of Zion's Saviour in New England, bk. i. chap. ix.; Birch's Life of Hon. Robert Boyle, pp. 450–2; Joseph Smith's Bibliotheca Antiquakeriana, p. 168; Cal. State Papers, Colonial Ser. (America and West Indies), 1574–1660, 1661–8.]
ENFIELD, EDWARD (1811–1880), philanthropist, third son of Henry Enfield, town clerk of Nottingham, and grandson of
