John Underhill was an early English settler and soldier in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Province of New Hampshire, where he also served as governor; the New Haven Colony, New Netherland, and later the Province of New York, settling on Long Island.
Background
Underhill was born on October 7, 1597 in England, one of three children of John Edward Underhill (1574–1608) and Leonora Honor Pawley. His great-grandfather Sir Hugh Underhill was Keeper of the Wardrobe for Queen Elizabeth at Greenwich, and his grandfather Thomas Underhill held the same position at Kenilworth Castle for Elizabeth's favorite, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. His family escaped to the Netherlands after a failed plot by the Earl of Essex to overthrow the Queen. Following his father's death, John Underhill and his siblings lived with their mother and a group of Puritan exiles in the Netherlands.
Education
In the Netherlands Underhill received military training as a cadet in the service of Philip William, the Prince of Orange.
Career
In 1630 Underhill went to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America, where he organized the militia as one of its captains. He became a selectman of the town in 1634. The Puritans had little love of the military, however, and Underhill constantly had to fight for supplies. The Indian Wars came in 1637. Underhill fought in Massachusetts and in the Pequot wars in Connecticut. Returning to Boston in 1638, he became embroiled in a religious dispute and was branded an antinomian, disfranchised, disarmed, and discharged. He returned to England and wrote a book dealing with the Pequot wars. By 1639 Underhill was in Boston again, where he was arrested and tried before the General Court for making contemptuous speeches. Found guilty, he was banished and fled to Dover, New Hampshire, just in time to avoid trial for adultery. At Dover he became governor of the colony and stoutly resisted Massachusetts' claims to the region. However, he begged forgiveness of the Boston church for adultery and even returned to make a public confession; but he was adjudged insincere and excommunicated. Finally he was reinstated in the church, and in 1641 the sentence of banishment was removed. At the invitation of the New Haven Court, Underhill moved to Stanford, Connecticut, in 1643 as captain of militia but quickly resigned to take employ with the Dutch in New Amsterdam (New York) to fight the Native Americans in that region. He settled on Long Island and became a member of the Council of New Amsterdam, but when he denounced Governor Peter Stuyvesant as a tyrant, he was almost tried for sedition. Moving to Rhode Island, he was commissioned a privateer in 1653 and seized the property of the Dutch West Indies Company at Hartford, Connecticut During the Anglo-Dutch War of 1665-1667, Underhill fought with the British to conquer New Amsterdam, and there in 1665 he became surveyor of customs for Long Island. Later he served as high constable and undersheriff of North Riding, Yorkshire, Long Island. He died on September 21, 1672.
Achievements
Connections
Underhill married a Dutch girl, Helena (Heylken) de Hooch on 12 December 1628 in the Kloosterkerk, The Hague, Holland. They had one child born in the Netherlands before emigrating, Deborah Underhill, and two other children after emigrating. Following the death of his first wife and his mother in 1658, Underhill married his second wife Elizabeth Feake on 2 December 1658, in Oyster Bay.