William Vassall

William Vassall (baptized August 27, 1592, Stepney, Middlesex (London), England, died 1656) was an English settler in North America. He was from the educated gentry, and a supporter of freedom of religion. In March 1629 he was recorded in the Charter for the Massachusetts Bay Company as a patentee, along with his brother Samuel.

William Vassall was a son of John Vassall and Anne Russell. William Vassall's paternal grandfather John Vassall had been sent to England by his father, who was also named John, to escape persecution in France, as the Vassall family were Huguenots from Normandy in the time of French religious purges in the 16th century. William Vassall's father had been recognized by Queen Elizabeth I as achieving merit in the war with the Spanish Armada in 1588 by providing two ships which he commanded at his own expense, the Samuel and the Little Toby. A 'Mayflower' (not the Pilgrim ship), of 250 tons out of London, owned by William Vassall's father John Vassall and others, was outfitted in 1588 for the Queen, possibly also for Armada service. The Vassall arms can be noted on the National Armada Memorial in Plymouth England. In 1609, John Vassall was recorded as a shareholder on the Second Charter of The Virginia Company. Anne Russell was John Vassall’s second of three wives and with her had five children, William being the youngest.

In England in March 1629, William Vassall was recorded in the Charter of the Massachusetts Bay Company as an Assistant to the Governor. He was a signatory to both the Massachusetts Bay Charter and the Cambridge Agreement in 1629. The Cambridge Agreement was to move the entire government of Massachusetts from England to the New World.

At an October 1629 meeting of the Company, William Vassall, with others, was appointed to travel out to New England. Per page 256 of The Mayflower Quarterly of September 2010, William Vassall sailed on the Lyon to New England in 1630 and returned on the Lyon to England about one month later. There is some confusion in the article as it states that Vassall traveled in company with Governor John Winthrop, who was just assuming his post. Other sources state that Winthrop did not travel on the Lyon but was on the Arbella, flagship of what became known as The Winthrop Fleet - eleven ships bringing over 700 persons. This was the beginning of what came to be known as the historic event called The Great Migration - thousands of English settlers coming to New England in the early-mid-1630s.

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