William Phips

Sir William Phips was born in Maine in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was of humble origin, uneducated, and fatherless from a young age but rapidly advanced from shepherd boy to shipwright, ship's captain, and treasure hunter, the first New England native to be knighted, and the first royally appointed governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Phips was famous in his lifetime for recovering a large treasure from a sunken Spanish galleon but is perhaps best remembered today for establishing the court associated with the infamous Salem Witch Trials, which he grew unhappy with and was forced to prematurely disband after five months.

2 February 1651

Born on the same birth day (2 February): Aleksander Jagiełło • Burton Lane • Columba of Rieti • Don Buford • Irini Terzoglou • Javon Ringer • Lauren Lane • Poul Reichhardt • Raúl Riganti • René de Birague • Roger Williamson • Saia Fainga'a • Valéry Giscard d'Estaing • Vigleik Storaas • Věra Chytilová • William Rose Benét

Born in the same month (February 1651): Procopio Cutò • Quirinus Kuhlmann