John Endicott (1589-1665) " was one of six 'religious persons' who bought a patent for territory on the Bay [of Massachusetts] from the Plymouth Council in England . . . and was named among the incorporators" (Johnson and Malone). He arrived in Massachusetts on September 6, 1628 on the Abigail. It was his responsibility to prepare the way for John Winthrop and a large group of Puritans who began coming in the summer of 1630. In his preparations, he showed himself a stern, zealous, capable leader who was intolerant of what he regarded as immoral or heretical.
It is therefore not surprising that he came into conflict with Thomas Morton and the settlers at Mount Wollaston, or Merry Mount who sold arms to the Indians and lived what the Puritans considered a dissolute life. Endicott "personally conducted an expedition thither, 'rebuked the inhabitants for their profaneness, and admonished them to look to it that they walked better'. . . Also, 'in the purifying spirit of authority' he then cut down the maypole on which Thomas Morton, their leader, had been wont to publish his satires on the puritans, while his followers made merry around it in the carousals for which the sale of arms and ammunition to the Indians furnished the supplies" (Stephen and Lee).
Johnson, Allen and Dumas Malone Eds. Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1959.
Stephen, Leslie and Sidney Lee Eds. The Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1968.