John Thorndike

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John Thorndike (b. February 23, 1611 or 1612 - interred 1668) was one of the first founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Thorndike was a farmer and cowherd from Great Carlton, Lincolnshire, England. He and his wife Elizabeth Stratton were among the emigrants who sailed to America on the Arbella in 1630. The Thorndikes settled in the area around Ipswich. They were the parents of seven children including Elizabeth Thorndike, later the wife of John Proctor who was executed as a witch August 10, 1692 in Salem, Essex County, Massachusetts.

The Thorndikes are also the ancestors of Senator John Kerry, who is descended from their son, Paul Thorndike.

John Thorndike was buried on November 3, 1668, in the East Cloister of Westminster Abbey, alongside his brother Herbert Thorndike, the Canon of Westminster Abbey. Herbert Thorndike wrote the Syriac Chapter to Walton's Polyglot and was a Fellow of Hebrew at Cambridge University.