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- Emigrated in 1635; first at Dorchester, then Boston by 1648 or 1649. He was a merchant. His will mentions his daughter "Hester, ye wife of Jno Browne".
He appears to have had some social standing in Burton Dassett, where he is recorded more than once as "gentleman." In Massachusetts he was called "Mr. Makepeace," and he is frequently seen in New England records in conjunction with persons of known aristocratic ancestry such as Richard Saltonstall. George Wyllys, who became governor of Connecticut (and whose son Samuel married a daughter of proven royal descendant Mabel Harlakenden) was a friend in both Warwickshire and in New England.
He was admitted to the "Military Company of the Massachusetts" in 1638, at about the same time as he was being prodded by the local religious authorities to bring himself into stricter compliance with the ruling ideology. From History of the Military Company of the Massachusetts, Now Called the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, 1637-1888, volume 1, page 71 (citation details below): "He was a man of prominence, and had the prefix 'Mr.'; but these did not prevent his being brought before the court (1638) perhaps at the instigation of the clergy. That body labored and decided, 'Mr. Thomas Makepeace, because of his novel disposition, was informed, we were weary of him, unless he reforme.'" According to The Ancestry of Russell Makepeace (citation details below), the General Court's problem with Thomas Makepeace wasn't that he wasn't a Puritan, but rather that he wasn't sufficiently devoted to core principles of the Bay Colony's version of Puritanism. Makepeace's roots were in the Puritanism of south Warwickshire, with its emphasis on professions of faith and spiritual growth, relative tolerance for dissent within the body of believers, and less interest in posing a direct challenge to the Church of England and to episcopacy. Presumably Thomas Makepeace made peace with the colony's leadership, as he went on to a long and successful career in Dorchester and Boston over the next quarter-century.
The History of the Military Company of the Massachusetts further notes that "He was an early friend of free schools, and was one of those citizens of Dorchester who agreed to a direct tax for the support of a free school in that town. In 1641, he was one of the patentees of Dover, N.H., and signed the petition to come under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. In 1654, he was in the Narraganset expedition against the Indians. At this time he was about sixty-two years of age."
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