Nicholas Upsall (c. 1596 – 20 August 1666) was an early Puritan immigrant to the American Colonies, among the first 108 Freemen in colonial America. He was a trusted public servant who after 26 years as a Puritan, befriended persecuted Quakers and shortly afterwards joined the movement. He was banished from Massachusetts at 60 years of age and helped to found the first Monthly Meeting of Friends in the United States at Sandwich, Massachusetts.
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From their first arrival aboard the Mayflower in 1620, until 1629, only about 300 Puritans had survived in New England,[1] scattered in small and isolated settlements. In 1630, their population was significantly increased when the ship Mary and John arrived in New England carrying 140 passengers from the English West Country counties of Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. These included Nicholas Upsall, Roger Ludlowe, John Mason, Samuel Maverick, William Phelps, Henry Wolcott and other men who would become prominent in the founding of a new nation.
It was the first of the ships later called the Winthrop Fleet to land in Massachusetts. Nicholas married Dorothy Capen (1611 - 1675). They had fours daughters: Amasa, born December 1635; a daughter Elizabeth born December 1637 who married William Greenough on July 4, 1651; a daughter Susannah born July 12, 1639 who married Joseph Cooke on November 10, 1659; and Experience born January 19, 1640 who died August 2, 1659.[2][3]