Elizabeth Fones · The Woman Who Bought the Beach · Heritage Holiday Ornament
Elizabeth Fones · The Woman Who Bought the Beach · Heritage Holiday Ornament
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Elizabeth Fones. Cloak drawn tight, she rides in the back of a small open boat as it comes in toward a wooded shore. The year is 1640, and as the town has always told it, she has come to buy the land.
Born in England around 1610, Elizabeth Fones married into the Winthrop family; she was John Winthrop's niece and later his daughter-in-law, and he was the Puritan governor of Massachusetts Bay. Her first husband drowned soon after they reached New England, when she was about twenty. She remarried and moved to the shore of Long Island Sound, and although Puritan women were not expected to handle property, she is remembered as the buyer of a stretch of shoreline that stayed attached to her well into the next century.
Her life was messier than a founding legend usually allows: three marriages, a scandal, and a long trail of Winthrop family letters. That is exactly why the novelist Anya Seton made her the heroine of The Winthrop Woman in 1958. Among the women of colonial America, few left as clear a mark on a map.
Our own drawing, set in crystal so the soft gray wash holds under the lights; the cloak carries the only red. Three inches across.
For genealogists and family historians, Winthrop descendants, readers of women's history and colonial New England history, and everyone whose town has a founder nobody told them about. Profits go to hunger relief.
Faceted crystal, three inches across, with a white back so the line work reads from across the room once the tree is lit. Red ribbon. Boxed in gold or white, your call at checkout. Ships free anywhere in the U.S.
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Merlin Classics is a volunteer-run, AI-assisted apparel project celebrating timeless local style. Every item is made to order, and profits (revenue minus external product/marketing cost) support hunger-relief programs in the communities our collections spotlight. Classic looks, real local impact—every purchase helps.