Daniel Gookin

Danyell "Daniel" Gookin (1612 – 19 March 1687) was a Munster colonist, settler of Virginia and Massachusetts, and a writer on the subject of American Indians.

In early 1641 Daniel Gookin, his wife Mary, and their infant son Samuel set sail for Virginia and took up residence at the Nansemond plantation.

[2] However, Governor Berkeley, an adherent to the Church of England, gave them a frigid reception, and at the next meeting of the Assembly in March 1642/3, an act of conformity was passed.

In July 1648, the Gookin family removed to Cambridge, where he was appointed Captain of the Trained Band, a position he held for the next forty years.

Cromwell asked that Daniel urge his fellows at Boston to become planters in Jamaica; however, Gookin was unsuccessful at gaining colonists, and returned to England.

When King Charles II returned to Dover, Daniel fled to New England with the regicides General Edward Whalley and Colonel William Goffe.

The regicides took up residence at Cambridge, which provoked the English government to appoint a board of commissioners to visit New England and ensure loyalty to the crown.

The controversy was managed by the Massachusetts General Court who, largely due to the efforts of Gookin and Thomas Danforth, failed to accomplish their goals.

A committee on which Daniel Gookin served was appointed to view the land and to report "whether it be capable of making a village, and what number of families may be there accommodated, and if they find it fit for a plantation."

The General Court accepted this report and appointed Captain Gookin of Cambridge, Daniel Henchman of Boston, Thomas Prentice of Woburn, and Lieutenant Richard Beers of Watertown to plan for a settlement.

After purchasing the land from the natives for "twelve pounds lawful money," lots were assigned, and the actual settlement began in 1673.

The king, meanwhile, asked that the colonists submit themselves to him with regard to charter rights; Gookin opposed sending delegates to England, a position that carried the day, and won him great popularity.

Though he continued, by argument and resistance, to oppose British encroachments upon the colonists' political and commercial liberties, his last year was darkened by the abrogation of the charter government by King James II in 1686.