BORN: April 16, 1597/Droitwich, Worcestershire, England
DIED: Between March 12, 1673/4 and May 21, 1674/[Boston, Massachusetts]

John Winslow was born at Droitwich, England, in 1597. His brothers, Edward and Gilbert, had been passengers on the Mayflower, arriving in Plymouth in 1620. John Winslow was a passenger on the Fortune, arriving in 1621. Two other Winslow brothers, Kenelm and Josiah, also settled in New England, arriving before 1632.

John Winslow married Mayflower passenger Mary Chilton sometime before the 1627 Division of Cattle, when their names appear together.

John and Mary Winslow had ten children: John, Susanna, Mary, Edward, Sarah, Samuel, Joseph, Isaac, an unnamed child who died young, and Benjamin. The youngest of these, Benjamin, is the only child whose birth is listed in the Records of Plymouth Colony.

Sometime after the birth of Benjamin, James and Mary Chilton Winslow moved to Boston. The place of their first residence is not known. On the 16th of June, 1671, John and Mary transferred their church membership from Plymouth to the Third Church in Boston (Third Church is now called Old South Church; the present Old South Meeting House was built about 50 years after Mary Chilton’s death).

On the 19th of September, 1671, John Winslow bought, for the sum of 500 pounds in New England silver money, “the Mansion or dwelling-house of the Late Antipas Voice with the gardens wood-yard and Backside as it is scituate lying and being in Boston aforesaid as it is nowe fenced in And is fronting & Facing to the Lane going to mr John Jolliffes.” The Winslows lived in this house until the death of John Winslow in 1674 and Mary Chilton Winslow in 1679. The house (which would have been on Spring Lane) no longer exists.

At the time of his death, John Winslow was one of the wealthiest merchants in Boston.

At some point in his life, John Winslow became a slave owner. On March 12, 1673, he provided in his will “that my Negro Girle Jane (after she hath served twenty yeares from the date hereof) shall be free: and that she shall service my wife during her life and after my wifes decesase she shall be disposed of according to the discression of my overseer hereafter named or any two of them.”