Background
John Winslow was born on May 10, 1703, in Marshfield, Massachusetts, a great-grandson of Gov. Edward Winslow of the Plymouth colony, a grandson of Gov. Josiah Winslow, and the second son of Isaac Winslow and Sarah Wensley.
John Winslow was born on May 10, 1703, in Marshfield, Massachusetts, a great-grandson of Gov. Edward Winslow of the Plymouth colony, a grandson of Gov. Josiah Winslow, and the second son of Isaac Winslow and Sarah Wensley.
John got a poor education and could never write a literate letter without a scribe's aid.
By his thirty-eighth year he had held a few local posts in Plymouth, including a captaincy of militia. His military career began in 1740, when the Massachusetts council appointed him captain of a company in the West Indian expedition, led by Edward Vernon, and he was subsequently taken into British pay with Gooch's American regiment. He served at Cartagena and in 1741, for he was an excellent recruiting officer, returned to Massachusetts for reinforcements. After Gooch's was reduced he was given, in 1744, a company in Handasyd's regiment, from which he immediately exchanged into Phillips's regiment in Nova Scotia. There he served without distinction until 1751, when he exchanged with George Scott, a half-pay captain in Shirley's reduced regiment, and returned home to look after his estates. For two years he represented Marshfield in the General Court.
In 1754 Governor Shirley sent him, as major-general, to take a regiment of 800 men up the Kennebec River, with the double object of maintaining the Indian alliance and of building forts. Winslow had an interest of his own in the region, for the long dormant Plymouth colony patent there, in which he had connections, had lately been revived. He built Fort Western (now Augusta) as a trading-post for the proprietors, and Fort Halifax (named Winslow in 1771). His men penetrated far enough northwest to make the route seem feasible for some future attack on Quebec.
The next year Shirley appointed him lieutenant-colonel of one and commandant of both the New England battalions raised under British pay for the reduction of French forts on Chignecto Isthmus in conjunction with regulars. The whole force was under Robert Monckton. The vexed question of rank so embittered relations between the two that Monckton failed to give Winslow sufficient credit for his part in the capture of Forts Beauséjour and Gaspereau. When Gov. Charles Lawrence of Nova Scotia decided upon the expulsion of the French inhabitants, the brunt of carrying out the task fell upon Winslow's shoulders.
In 1756 Shirley brought him back to command the provincial army raised in New England and New York for the reduction of Crown Point, but his best efforts and his most sentimental hopes could not fit that ungainly force for action before August 22, and then Lord Loudoun, commander-in-chief, refused to hazard its destruction. Winslow remained at Lake George throughout the autumn, cooperating wholeheartedly with the British troops. Except for a brief command of militia in 1757, it was his last military service.
Winslow represented Marshfield again in the General Court in 1757- 1758, and 1761- 1765. He found a place on a few minor committees, but was instrumental in surveying and supervising the Kennebec River development and was a commissioner on the St. Croix boundary in 1762. About 1766, he moved to Hingham, Massachusetts, where he died on April 17, 1774.
On February 16, 1725, John Winslow married Mary Little, a descendant of Pilgrim Richard Warren. They had three sons.
In 1772, he married Bethiah Barker, they did not have children.
Isaac Winslow, Sr. was married to Prence, by who he had two children. Isaac Winslow, Sr. was married to Sarah Wensley, the couple had six children.
Robert Monckton was an officer of the British Army and also a colonial administrator in British North America.
