Henry Phillips (died 1685) was a wealthy businessman and politician from

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and

Dedham, Massachusetts Dedham ( ) is a town in and the county seat of Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 25,364 at the 2020 census. It is located on Boston's southwest border. On the northwest it is bordered by Needham, on the southwest b ...

. Phillips was described as "tender and brokenhearted."

Life in Dedham

Phillips moved from Boston to Dedham in 1637, two years after the town was first settled and one year after it was incorporated. He was a member of the church and a militia officer. Though he received "better than average" dividends of land, he complained in 1656 that too many people had been admitted to the town commons, diluting the value of his interest. He led a group of dissatisfied settlers in a rare public complaint. He brought his complaint before the General Court, which was an action even more rare in a community whose covenant called for disputes to be resolved by local mediation. He served one term as selectman in 1645. He briefly owned the land that came to be known as Broad Oak. He had a brother, Nicholas, who also lived in Dedham, and was likely related to Rev. George Phillips of Watertown.

Life in Boston

Upset about the distribution of land, Phillips returned to Boston in 1656. There he became a deacon at

First Church in Boston First Church in Boston is a Unitarian Universalist Church (originally Congregationalist) founded in 1630 by John Winthrop's original Puritan settlement in Boston, Massachusetts. The current building, located on 66 Marlborough Street in the Back ...

and a delegate to the

Great and General Court of Massachusetts The Massachusetts General Court (formally styled the General Court of Massachusetts) is the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name "General Court" is a hold-over from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, w ...

. He also worked as a butcher. His death in 1685 was mentioned in

Samuel Sewall Samuel Sewall (; March 28, 1652 – January 1, 1730) was a judge, businessman, and printer in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, best known for his involvement in the Salem witch trials, for which he later apologized, and his essay ''The Selling ...

's diary.

References

Works cited

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Phillips, Henry Politicians from Boston Year of birth missing Members of the colonial Massachusetts General Court from Dedham 1685 deaths Businesspeople from Dedham, Massachusetts Dedham, Massachusetts selectmen Signers of the Dedham Covenant