Richard Bellingham - Massachusetts Bay Colony

Massachusetts Bay Colony

Bellingham immediately assumed a prominent role in the colony, serving on the committee that oversaw the affairs of Boston (a precursor to the board of selectmen). In this role he participated in the division of community lands that included the establishment of Boston Common. Not long after his arrival, he purchased the ferry service between Boston and Winnessimmett (present-day Chelsea) from Samuel Maverick, along with tracts of land that encompass much of Chelsea. In addition to his mansion house in Boston, he also established a country home near the ferry in Winnessimmett. A house he built in 1659 still stands in Chelsea, and is known as the Bellingham-Cary House.

For many years he was elected to the colony's council of assistants, which advised the governor on legislative matters and served as a judicial body, and he also served several terms as colonial treasurer. He was first elected deputy governor of the colony in 1635, at a time when the dominant John Winthrop was out of favor, and was elected to the post again in 1640. In 1637, during the Antinomian Controversy, he was one of the magistrates that sat during the trial of Anne Hutchinson, and voted for her to be banished from the colony. According to historian Francis Bremer, Bellingham was somewhat brash and antagonistic, and he and Winthrop repeatedly clashed on political matters. During these early years Bellingham was chosen to be on the first board of overseers of Harvard College. He also contributed to the development of the colony's first legal code, known as the Massachusetts Body of Liberties. This work was opposed and repeatedly stalled by Winthrop, who favored a common law approach to legislation.

In 1641 Bellingham was elected governor for the first time, running against Winthrop. The Body of Liberties was formally adopted during his term. However, he served for just one year, and was replaced by Winthrop in 1642. Bellingham's defeat may have been caused in part by the scandalous impropriety surrounding his second marriage. A friend who was a guest in his house had been courting Penelope Pelham, a young woman of twenty. According to Winthrop, Bellingham, now 50 and a widower, won her heart, and, without waiting for the formalities of the banns of marriage, officiated at his own wedding. When the issue came before the colonial magistrates, Bellingham (as the governor and chief magistrate) refused to step down from the bench to face the charges, thus bringing the matter to a somewhat awkward end. Bellingham's term in office was characterized by Winthrop as extremely difficult: "The General Court was full of uncomfortable agitations and contentions by reason of Bellingham's unfriendliness to some other magistrates. He set himself in an opposite frame to them in all proceedings, which did much to retard business".

In the 1640s constitutional issues concerning the power of the assistants arose. In a case involving an escaped pig, the assistants ruled in favor of a merchant who had allegedly taken a widow's errant animal. She appealed to the general court, which ruled in her favor. The assistants then asserted their right to veto the general court's decision, sparking the controversy. John Winthrop argued that the assistants, as experienced magistrates, must be able to check the democratic institution of the general court, because "a democracy is, amongst most civil nations, accounted the meanest and worst of all forms of government." Bellingham was one of only two assistants (the other was Richard Saltonstall) who opposed the final decision that the assistants' veto should stand. Bellingham and Saltonstall were often in a minority that opposed the more conservative views of Winthrop and Thomas Dudley. In 1648 Bellingham sat on a committee established to demonstrate that the colony's legal codes were not "repugnant to the laws of England", as called for by the colonial charter.

In 1650, when Bellingham was an assistant, he concurred in the judicial decision banning William Pynchon's The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, which expressed views many Puritans considered heretical. Bellingham was again elected governor in 1654, and again in May 1665 after the death of Governor John Endecott. He was thereafter annually re-elected to the post until his death, ultimately serving a total of ten years as governor and thirteen as deputy governor. While he was deputy to Endecott in 1656, a boat carrying several Quakers arrived in Boston. Since Endecott was in Salem at the time, Bellingham directed the government's reaction to their arrival. Because Quakerism was anathema to the Puritans, the Quakers were confined to the ship, their belongings were searched, and books promoting their religion were destroyed. After five weeks of captivity, they were sent back to England. During Endecott's administration the penalties for Quakers defying banishment from the colony were made progressively harsher, until they included the imposition of the death penalty for repeat offenders. Under these laws, four Quakers were put to death for returning to the colony after their banishment. Quaker historians have also been harsh in their assessments of Bellingham. After Massachusetts authorities agreed that the death penalty did not work (it had long term negative consequences, feeding perceptions of Massachusetts intransigence), the law was modified to reduce the penalties to branding and whipping.