Little wonder then that in 1629 twelve leading Puritans met in
consultation and agreed to head a great migration to the New World,
provided the charter and the government of the Massachusetts Bay Company
were both removed to New England. This was agreed to, and in April,
1630, John Winthrop sailed with nearly one thousand Puritans for Salem.
From Salem he moved to Charlestown, and later in the year (1630) to a
little three-hilled peninsula, which the English called Tri-mountain or
Tremont. There a town was founded and called Boston.

The departure of Winthrop was the signal, and before the year 1630
ended, seventeen ships, bringing fifteen hundred Puritans, reached
Massachusetts. The newcomers settled Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury,
Dorchester, Watertown, and Newtown (now Cambridge). New England was
planted.[1]

[Footnote 1: Read Fiske's _Beginnings of New England_, pp. 75-105.
Eggleston's _Beginners of a Nation_, pp. 188-219.]

%39. New Hampshire and Maine.%--When it became apparent that the
Plymouth colony was permanently settled, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, whose
interest in New England had never lagged, together with John Mason
obtained (1622) from the Council for New England a grant of Laconia, as
they called the territory between the Merrimac and the Kennebec rivers,
and from the Atlantic "to the great river of Canada." Seven years later
(1629) they divided their property. Mason, taking the territory between
the Merrimac and Piscataqua rivers, called it New Hampshire because he
was Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire in England. Gorges took the region
between the Piscataqua and the Kennebec, and called it Maine. After the
death of Mason (1635) his colony was neglected and from 1641 to 1679 was
annexed to Massachusetts. The King separated them in 1679, joined them