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Had plantations in Barbados, may have been heavily involved in slave trade145

Migrated 1630 on the ‘Blessing’138,144

FIRST RESIDENCE: Boston
REMOVES: Scituate 1635, England 1646, Barbados 1648
RETURN TRIPS: Returned to England in fall 1630 on the Lyon, and back to New England 1635 on Blessing; returned to England on the Supply138

CHURCH MEMBERSHIP: About 1635 “Mrs. Anna Vassail the wife of Mr. William Wassaile [was admitted to Roxbury church]. Her husband brought five children to this land, Judith, Francis, John, Margret, Mary.” Joined Scituate church on 28 November 1636.
FREEMAN: Took the oath of allegiance to the king, 1 February 1638/9.
EDUCATION: He made his mark to his will, but he signed his name numerous times as a witness. Vassall's surveying instruments were frequently used in Plymouth Colony.
OFFICES: Assistant, Massachusetts Bay Company, 23 March 1628[/9], 11 May 1629, 13 May 1629, 20 October 1629. Committee to consider division of lands, 5 March 1628/9. Committee to resolve orders, 21 May 1629. Arbiter, 19 September 1629. Present at a court of assistants on the Arbella, 23 March 1629[/30]. Deputy, 27 September 1642. Council of War, 27 September 1642. In Scituate section of 1643 Plymouth Colony list of men able to bear arms.
ESTATE: On 15 December 1629 “Capt. Waller and Mr. Vassall were content to give the first £50 to the plantation, so as their other £50 might go on wholly to this new stock.” Rev. John Lothrop listed "Mr. Vassell's" first among the houses built in Scituate in 1636. On 2 April 1638 Mr. William Vassell was granted two hundred acres of upland, "a competency of meadow lands" to be laid out, and permission to keep a ferry over the north, where the old Indian ferry was.” On 3 December 1638 one hundred and fifty acres of lands were granted to Mr. Vassall "provided he take the oath of fidelity.” On 3 December 1639 Mr. William Vassall was granted liberty "to make an oyster bank in the North River, sixty rods in length, & cross the said river, in some convenient place near his farm there, called the West Newland, and to appropriate it to his own use, forbidding all others to use the same without his license.”

William Vassall contemplated removal to Salem, for on 15 July 1640 a meeting of that town noted that "Mr. William Vassall desireth a farm where the town thinketh meet,” but there is no evidence that such a grant was made or that Vassall actually moved.

In his will, dated 31 July 1655 and proved 12 June 1657, William Vassall Esq. of Barbados, mentioned his son John Vassal, executor; daughters Judith White, wife of Resolved White, Frances Addams, wife of James Addams, Anna Ware, wife of Nicholas Ware and their children, and Margarett Vassall and Mary Vassall "here with me"; son-in-law Nicholas Ware was to be executor until son John arrived in Barbados.138

Was prominent supporter of the Massachusetts Bay Company138

While Vassall was an effective member of the early Company, evidently committed to financially supporting the endeavor, his influence waned after the migration to New England. In Scituate he took a prominent role standing for religious freedoms, but gained little ground. He was the "first excepter" supporting the bill for Liberty of Conscience. Proposing with Dr. Robert Child, Samuel Maverick, and others, that all members of the Church of England and the Church of Scotland be admitted to communion in the New England church, they forced an unwelcome examination of the legality of the colonial government.

"One Mr. William Vassall, sometimes one of the assistants of the Massachusetts, but now of Scituate in Plimouth jurisdiction, a man of a busy and factious spirit, and always opposite to the civil governments of this country and the way of our churches, had practised with such as were not members of our churches to take some course, first by petitioning the courts of the Massachusetts and of Plimouth, and (if that succeeded not) then to the Parliament of England, that the distinctions which were maintained here, both in civil and church estate, might be taken away, and that we might be wholly governed by the laws of England; and accordingly a petition was drawn up to the Parliament, pretending that they being freeborn subjects of England, were denied the liberty of subjects, both in church and commonwealth, themselves and their children debarred from the seals of the covenant, except they would submit to such a way of entrance and church covenant, as their consciences could not admit, and take such a civil oath as would not stand with their oath of allegiance, or else they must be deprived of all power and interest in civil affairs, and were subjected to an arbitrary government and extrajudicial proceedings, etc." [WJ 319-20].

It was with this petition in hand that William Vassall returned to England in 1646, but thanks to a book written in response to the petition by Mr. Winslow, the petition met with no sympathy. Winthrop called "Mr. Vassall, a man never at rest, but when he was in the fire of contention." "As for those who went over to procure us trouble, God met with them all. Mr. Vassall, finding no entertainment for his petitions, went to Barbados."138

Not mentioned in William’s 1655 will.138