Thomas Morton (colonist)

Thomas Morton (c. 1579–1647) was an early American colonist from Devon, England. A lawyer, writer and social reformer, he was famed for founding the British colony of Merrymount, which was located in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts, and for his work studying Native American culture.

Thomas Morton was born in Devon, England in 1579, into a conservative Anglican family of the Devon gentry. Devon at that time was considered the "dark corner of the land" by Protestant reformers, due to its traditionalist intransigence, which included not only a High Church Anglicanism, that shared many traits with Catholicism, but also a paternalistic populism combined with rural folk tradition that, for the Puritans, came close to paganism. To the local inhabitants, however, it was merely "Old England" — this culture was firmly ingrained in him.

In the late 1590s Morton was studying law at London's Clifford's Inn, where he made many influential contacts and lasting friendships. Here, he was also exposed to both a popular Renaissance Classicism and the "libertine culture" of the Inns of Court, where bawdy revels included the Gesta Grayorum performances associated with Francis Bacon and Shakespeare, and it is most likely there that he first met Ben Jonson, who would remain his friend throughout his life. Though an ardent Royalist, Morton became a proponent of the Common Law against the emerging direct legal powers of the Crown and the Star Chamber.

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