Thomas Morton

Thomas Morton (about 1579–1647) was an English lawyer, trader and colonist. He came to Massachusetts in 1624, set up a trading post at Mount Wollaston, which he renamed Ma-re Mount or Merry Mount, raised a maypole, drank with the Indians and sold them guns, and was arrested by Miles Standish and shipped to England in 1628. He returned, was expelled again, and in 1637 published New English Canaan, a description of the country and its native peoples joined to a satire on the colonists. A third visit ended in a Boston jail; he died in Maine.