Chapter 2 - Governor Richard Bellingham

In 1653 Bellingham was chosen Deputy Governor and in 1654 Bellingham returned as Governor, again for only a single year. For the next eleven years he served as Deputy Governor until Governor Endicott died (Endicott was Governor for all eleven years) in 1766. Bellingham was the last of the chief founders of the colony and remained Governor until his death December 7, 1672 at the age of 81 years.
 

The role of Bellingham in the religious community was ongoing. A steadfast Puritan, as were most of his fellow settlers, Bellingham's public image was as a defender of the faith, often to a greater degree than his fellow magistrates. The death of his sister without his attempting to save her, is a good example of this blind faith, as well as a lack of devotion to his sister.
 

Bellingham ascended to the Governorship for the final time in 1766 upon the death of Governor Endicott. He remained Governor until his death in 1672, at the age of 81.
 

The first Baptists in Boston also were the targets of Bellingham's faith. Considered heretics by the established church, they attempted to start their own church in Charlestown and Boston. Brought up on charges, the new church founders were "allowed" to enter into a debate with more orthodox person representing the Puritan church. On March 7, 1668, the Governor and Council ordered that "a full and free debate" be held between Thomas Goold "and company" and six leading ministers of the colony appointed by the Court in order to reduce them "from the error of their way."
 

Goold was the founder of the First Baptist Church in Boston, the first Baptist Church in Massachusetts Bay. Richard Bellingham, as Governor, presided over the "debate".
 

The result of the debate was the banishment of Goold and two others from the colony. The banishment was never carried out. After 30 months imprisonment, the Baptists were released to a Baptist sanctuary on Noddles Island in Boston Harbor. After Bellingham's death in 1673, the Baptists returned to Boston.
 

Bellingham's son Samuel graduated from Harvard in 1642 and went to Europe to study medicine. He received his degree at Leyden and married in London about 1695 a widow from Boston, Ma. Another son John graduated from Harvard in 1660 but died in 1670.
 

Bellingham's estate of 3244£ was left mainly to charity. In the final irony of his career, his will was partially set aside by the Court as not properly drawn. Bellingham, the lawyer, jurist, lawmaker and Governor, failed to draw his own will to meet the standards of the day. The will was so intricate, that it defied the best legal minds for over 114 years according to court records. The land tied up in the will was so extensive in Chelsea that it retarded development in that community for many years.
 

Penelope lived as a widow until her death in 1702.
 

Bellingham is buried in the northwest corner of the Granary Burying Ground in a tomb made of two slabs of sandstone separated by 6 columns.
 

The inscription reads:
 

"Virtue's fast friend within this tomb doth lie,
 

A foe to bribes, but rich in charity."
 

The Bellingham family being extinct, the selectmen of Boston, in the year 1782, assigned this tomb to James Sullivan, Esquire.
 

A century after his burial, Governor James Sullivan was buried above Bellingham. When the tomb was opened to place Sullivan, Governor Bellingham was found floating about in the ancient vault, apparently the victim of flooding in his final resting place.
 

"The soil was springy and exceedingly damp....It is said that when Judge Sullivan, at the close of the last century, repaired the Bellingham tomb, he found the coffin and remains of the old governor--who died on the seventh of December 1672, in the eighty-first year of his age--floating around in the ancient vault."
 

This obscure Governor was soon forgotten until 1719 when, perhaps as a joke, some representative to the General Court appended his name to the reply to the Town's petition for a charter.