Elizabeth Winthrop FONES

Female 1610 - 1673  (63 years)


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  • Name Elizabeth Winthrop FONES  [3, 4, 5
    • Elizabeth Fones married (1) her cousin Henry Winthrop (son of Governor JOHN WINTHROP, whose sister Anne was Elizabeth's mother), 25 April 1629, who then left her to accompany his father to Massachusetts Bay, and immediately died swimming ashore there. She joined the Winthrop family in Massachusetts Bay as a very young widow with an infant.
      She married 2nd Robert Feake between 2 November 1631 and 27 January 1631/2 in Boston, MA. They had five children: Elizabeth Underhill, Hannah Bowne, John, Robert, & Sarah.
      George E. McCracken went into great detail on Robert Feake, and particularly on the matter of his "divorce," arguing that the couple had in fact received only a legal separation, and that Elizabeth (Fones) (Winthrop) Feake was not free to remarry. In 1966 Donald Lines Jacobus reviewed the same problem, and came to the conclusion that Robert Feake and his wife did obtain a divorce from the Dutch government, that she had married William Hallett by August 1649, and that the marriage was performed by John Winthrop Jr., her former brother-in-law.
      Source: Anderson's Winthrop Fleet.

      Elizabeth is buried with her 3rd husband William Hallett at Hallett's Cover in the Hallet Burying Ground on Long Island. They had two sons, William & Samuel.

      Her biography by Missy Wolfe: Insubordinate Spirit: A True Story of Life and Loss in Earliest Americs, 1610-1665 (Guilford CT: gpp, 2012). See also a video "That Winthrop Woman," published by

      [1]
    • Governor John Winthrop, after loosing his son, Henry, was faced with the prospect of having ultimately to support his widowed daughter-in-law and her child, the thrifty governor naturally looked about for suitable candidate to be her second husband, and when his eye lighted upon a young man of pious character, goodly estate, and great promise, the future Governor William Codington, he attempted to interest him in the widow. Shortly afterwards William Coddington went to England and visited the widow but he married, instead, another. Thus Elizabeth was still a widow when on Nov. 2, 131, she arrived in the Bay with her daughter as passengers on the ship "Lyon". In less than three months, however, she had found her second husband, Robert Feake, and had married him. [2]
    • Elizabeth chose to come to New England and she soon remarried. Her second husband, Robert, Feake, was described as 'a man whose God-fearing heart was so absorbed with spiritual and heavenly things that he had 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. In 1642 ' in the absence and illness of her husband' she signed the act of submission to the Dutch required in the settlement of Greenwich, Connecticut. When her husband's health declined o the point where he could not manage his own affairs, an agreement was apparently made with William Hallett to care for him. Robert's behavior was reported by his step-son-in-law Thomas Lyon, who had married Elizabeth's daughter, Martha Johanna Winthrop, as distracted and 'going away sodingly.' In 1647 Robert abruptly returned to England and although he later came back it was considered a desertion, and in April 1648 Lyon wrote to his grandfather-in-law, Gov. Winthrop of Massachusetts, that his mother-in-law was carrying on with a man (William Hallett) she claimed she had married and by whom she was pregnant. The existence and legality of the marriage was questioned, but records show that she had obtained a divorce according to Dutch law by May 1647. By July 1648 Elizabeth, William Hallett, her child by him and children by earlier husbands sought refuge in Pequot (New London) with John Winthrop the Younger, who was both her first cousin and her brother-in-law. When the Connecticut Court issued a warrant they removed to New Amsterdam, but before they left it is thought likely that John Winthrop a magistrate legally married Elizabeth and William. [3]
    Nickname Bess 
    Birth 21 Jan 1609/10  Groton, co Suffolk, England Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 3
    Gender Female 
    Death 1 Feb 1673  Astoria, Queens County, New York Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Burial Hallett's Burying Ground,Astoria, Queens Co., New York Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Person ID I75966  Main Tree
    Last Modified 21 Mar 2018 

    Father Thomas FONES,   b. 24 Mar 1573, Caine, Wiltshire, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 15 Apr 1629, Groton, Suffolk, England Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 56 years) 
    Relationship Birth 
    Mother Anne WINTHROP,   b. 16 Jan 1585, Edwardstone, Suffolk, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 16 May 1618, Groton, Suffolk, Enlgnad Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 33 years) 
    Relationship Birth 
    Marriage 25 Jan 1604  St. Peters Church, London England Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Family ID F30698  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family 1 Henry WINTHROP,   b. 10 Jan 1607, Groton Manor, co Suffolk, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 2 Jul 1630, Drowned Salem, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 23 years) 
    Marriage 25 Apr 1629  [1, 3
    Children 
     1. Martha Johanna WINTHROP,   b. 9 May 1630, Groton Manor, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. Abt 1654, Stamford, Fairfield County, Connecticut Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 23 years)  [Birth]
    Family ID F30697  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 18 Mar 2018 

    Family 2 Robert FEAKE,   b. Abt 1602, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 1 Feb 1660/1, Died at the house of Samuel Thatcher in Watertown, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 59 years) 
    Marriage Between 2 Nov 1631 and 27 Jan 1631/2  New England Find all individuals with events at this location  [3
    Children 
    +1. John FEAKE,   b. Abt 1639, Prob. Watertown, Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this locationd. May 1724, Oyster Bay Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 85 years)  [Birth]
    Family ID F30700  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 18 Mar 2018 

    Family 3 William HALLETT,   b. Abt 1616, Bridport, Dorset, England Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 17 Apr 1706, Astoria, Queens County, New York Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 90 years) 
    Marriage Between Mar 1648 and Feb 1649  [3
    Children 
     1. William HALLETT,   b. 1652   d. 18 Aug 1729, Hallett's Cove Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 77 years)  [Birth]
     2. Samuel HALLETT,   b. 1652   d. 27 Dec 1724, Newton, Middlesex Co., Massachusetts Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 72 years)  [Birth]
    Family ID F30701  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 18 Mar 2018 

  • Event Map
    Link to Google MapsBirth - 21 Jan 1609/10 - Groton, co Suffolk, England Link to Google Earth
     = Link to Google Earth 

  • Sources 
    1. [S02329] Find A Grave Website.

    2. [S01781] The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Ancestry.com: Genealogies of Long Island Families, (Name: Name: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. 1987;;).

    3. [S8841] American Ancestor.org, Early New England Families, 1641 - 1700, Vol. 1.

    4. [S6750] Robert B. Miller, of Brooklyn, NY and A.B. Lyons, M.D. of Detroit, Michigan, "Lyon Memorial" New York Families Descended from the Immigrant Thomas Lyon, Of Rye .

    5. [S7003] Northern New York American Canadian Genealogical Society: Lifelines, Vol. 31, Issues 1 and 2, Nos. 60 and 61.