page_title: John Underhill (captain)
section_title: Retirement to Oyster Bay
hierarchical_section_title: John Underhill (captain) / Biography / Retirement to Oyster Bay
caption_attribution_description: English: Captain John Underhill family crest. John Underhill (7 Oct, 1597 – 21 July 1672) was an early English colonist in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and a soldier known for his great charisma, his excellent military leadership, and as one of the bravest men of his day. He is most noted for making the New Netherlands and Long Island secure from attacks by Native-Americans in the Pequot War of 1637 and another on Long Island in 1644.
context_page_description: John Underhill was an early English settler and soldier in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the Province of New Hampshire, where he also served as governor; the New Haven Colony, New Netherland, and later the Province of New York, settling on Long Island. Hired to train militia in New England, he is most noted for leading colonial militia in the Pequot War and Kieft's War which the colonists mounted against two different groups of Native Americans. He also published an account of the Pequot War.
context_section_description: Underhill eventually retired to a large estate (Kenilworth or Killingworth) at Oyster Bay on Long Island. He served as the Delegate of Oyster Bay to the Hempstead Convention in 1665. Delegates from all the towns on Long Island were asked to send two representatives. There they sought to establish laws. Underhill agreed on passage of a law that settlers could make no land purchases from the Lenape in the future without the government's consent. At the close of the convention, Underhill was named High Constable and Surveyor-General. The following year as Chief Advisor to the Matinecock Indians (a Lenape band named by the English for their location), Underhill presented a petition to the Council of Assizes in 1666. The Matinecock conveyed 150 acres (61 ha) of land in Oyster Bay to Underhill.
  Following the death of his first wife and his mother in 1658, Underhill married his second wife Elizabeth Feake on 2 December 1658, in Oyster Bay. Feake was a Quaker and converted John to Quakerism before he died.
  Elizabeth Feake and her family, much like Underhill, had an important role in the shaping of colonial America. She was the daughter of Elizabeth Fones and her second husband Robert Feake. Her mother was known to have married her third husband William Hallet while her second husband Robert Feake was still alive. Robert Feake had abandoned Elizabeth, and was considered mentally ill, but the couple had not obtained a divorce.
  Hannah Feake, the second daughter of Robert Feake and Elizabeth Fones and sister of Elizabeth Feake, became an important figure in the fight for religious freedom in colonial America. Governor Peter Stuyvesant banned the rights of Quakers to assemble and worship. On 27 December 1657, thirty townspeople of Flushing signed the Flushing Remonstrance protesting this ban. The ban was later tested when Hannah, a Quaker minister herself, held services in her own home. Her husband John Bowne was arrested and returned to England, only to be released and allowed to return. The events contributed to the principles codified a century later in the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, granting religious and political freedom to all citizens.
  Captain John Underhill and Elizabeth Feake had five children: Deborah (1659–1697), Nathaniel (1663–1710), Hannah (1666–1757), Elizabeth (1669–1704), and David (1672–1708). Son Nathaniel Underhill settled in Westchester County, New York, where he became a prominent citizen and the progenitor of a large number of descendants. Several streets in Nassau County (Locust Valley and Syosset), and Westchester County are named for Underhill and his descendants.
  Captain John Underhill died on 21 July 1672 and is buried in the Underhill Burying Ground in Locust Valley, New York.
  Some of John Underhill's many descendants formed the Underhill Society of America.
caption: Coat of arms from Captain John Underhill monument in the Underhill Burying Ground near Oyster Bay, New York
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