Statue of John Haynes, north facade of Connecticut’s State Capitol building
John Haynes (May 1, 1594 – January 9, 1653), was a colonial magistrate and one of the founders of the Connecticut Colony. He served one term as governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was the first governor of Connecticut, ultimately serving eight separate terms. Although Colonial Connecticut prohibited Governors from serving consecutive terms at the time, “John Haynes was so popular with the colonists that he served alternately as governor and often as deputy governor from 1639 to his death in 1653.”
Haynes was influential in the drafting of laws and legal frameworks in both Massachusetts and Connecticut. He was on the committee that drafted the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, which has been called one of the first written constitutions. He also invested most of his fortune in Connecticut, “to the ruine of his famylye in Englande”.
From Burke’s Peerage:
Rev John FISKE, Rector of Thorpe Morieux, Suffolk 1719–53, ordained as a Priest 25 December 1719 at a special ordination in Kings Street Chapel, Westminster by the Bishop of Lincoln, baptised 28 December 1693, educated at Queens’ College Cambridge (MA), married Elizabeth Gosnold, daughter of the Rev Lionel Gosnold, Rector of Otley, Suffolk, (great, great, great, great, great, great grandson of George Plantagenet, Duke Of Clarence, younger brother and sometime heir to King Edward IV, elder brother to King Richard III, see Burke’s Peerage THE PLANTAGENET DYNASTY) and died 4 October 1764, having had with other issue,
(First cousin of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, one of the founders the first British colony in the United States, Jamestown, and after whose daughter, Martha, Martha’s Vineyard is named.)
Alexander Fiske-Harrison with ancestor Lionel Gosnold behind him at the Gosnold family seat, Otley Hall in Suffolk for ¡Hola! magazine
Rev John FISKE, Rector of Thorpe Morieux, Suffolk 1754, received upon marriage ‘a fortune of £18,000’, born 1725, educated at Gonville and Caius College Cambridge (MA), married 10 August 1761 Sarah Thomas (died August 1762), daughter and heiress of Dr Samuel Thomas, of Lavenham, and died 10 April 1778 (buried at Thorpe Morieux), having had issue,
Arms, Crest and Motto of Harrison of Copford, Essex
Sarah Thomas FISKE, married at Copford 11 December 1783 John Haynes Harrison, (son of General Hezekiah Haynes, a Major General in the army of Oliver Cromwell, who was son of Governor John Haynes), of Copford Hall, Essex, Lord of the Manors of Copford and Felsham, Major in the Militia, and died 12 December 1825, having had with other issue.
Arms, Crest and Motto of Fiske of Thorpe Morieux, Suffolk
Major Fyske Goodeve FISKE-HARRISON, Lord of the Manor of Copford, Magistrate, Justice of the Peace, High Sheriff of Essex, Major in the Militia, born 1793; educated Charterhouse and St. John’s College Cambridge (MA); died 1872. (see Burke’s Landed Gentry of 1847 FISKE-HARRISON OF COPFORD HALL)
Copford Hall, Essex
Alexander Fiske-Harrison
“Fishers”
Layer-de-la-Haye
Essex
England
Post Scriptum, September 2025, ‘The Founding of Fishers’: I was recently made aware by a dear friend there is a Gatsbyesque retreat off the coast of Connecticut (although administratively in the state of New York) called Fishers Island, which intrigued me given the name of my family home, “Fishers”, in which I was born and raised.
My ancestor John Haynes arrived in the Massachusettes Bay Colony from Essex and became friends with its founder and first governor, John Winthrop, who had been a neighbour in East Anglia. After serving as fourth governor, following a falling out with Winthrop, Haynes went on to found the Connecticut Colony and become first governor there, alternating between that role and deputy governor for fourteen years until his death. While there, he became close friends with Winthrop’s eldest son, John Winthrop the Younger, and Haynes was Governor of Connecticut when he signed the following grant:
John Winthrop the Younger obtained a grant of Fisher’s Island in 1640 from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, “reserving the right of Connecticut if it should be decided to be theirs.” He simultaneously applied to Connecticut for a similar grant in order that there might be no flaw in his title. The title was given to him by a General Court held at Hartford, Connecticut, April 9, 1641.
Winthrop the Younger later went on to govern Connecticut himself.
Haynes long friendship with Winthrop is recorded in various documents, from contemporary letters between them held by the Massachusettes Historial Society, to the minutes of the February 1908 meeting of the Massachusettes Colonial Society:
“Early in 1637 the General Court of Massachusetts Bay authorized the Council to treat with “or frends vpon Conectecot” in regard to matters of common defence against the Indians, and “to proceede wth them in the said treaty as occation shall require.”
Correspondence resulted in which, as noted by Governor Winthrop in his Journal under date of April 1, 1636 (doubtless a mistake for 1637), the representatives of Connecticut stated “their unpreparedness to declare themselves in the matter of government, in regard of their engagement to attend the answer of the gentlemen of Saybrook about the same matter.”
In May, 1637, John Haynes was in Saybrook on his way to his new home, and doubtless talked this question over with the younger Winthrop.”
The original “Fishers”, my family home, had already stood for a century at that point in time.
Interior of the present Fiske-Harrison family home, Fishers, in Layer-de-la-Haye, Essex, built in the late 1550s, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, daughter of King Henry VIII. Henry executed the Fiske-Harrisons’ ancestor -and Henry’s own first cousin – Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury. She was at the time the richest woman in England and the last person in history born with the surname Plantagenet. She was daughter of George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, of Shakespeare fame (“I’ll drown you in the malmsey butt within”) who was younger brother and heir to King Edward IV and elder brother and victim of King Richard III. Lady Margaret was also mother of Cardinal Reginald Pole, the last Roman Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury and was beatified in death by the Holy Catholic Church as a martyr.
THE ARMS OF FISKE-HARRISON OF LAYER-DE-LA-HAYE
Arms: Azure two pierced mullets or between to bars counter gobony erminois and argent all between in chief three estoiles and in base a single estoile argent.
Crest: Upon a helm with a wreath argent azure and gules passant through a triangle iron ensigned by a pierced mullet or a stork wings displayed and inverted argent mantled gules doubled argent.
Motto: Debemur Morti Nos Nostraque (Both ourselves and our creations are a debt owed to Death).
Alexander's Journal 