Henry Bull (governor)

Henry Bull (1610–1694) was a governor of the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, serving for two separate terms, one before and one after the three year period when the English colonies in the region were merged into an administrative union named Dominion of New England. Sailing from England as a young man, Bull first settled in Roxbury in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but soon became a follower of the dissident ministers John Wheelwright and Anne Hutchinson, and was excommunicated from the Roxbury church. With many other followers of Hutchinson, he helped found the settlement of Portsmouth, on Aquidneck Island in the Narragansett Bay. Within a year of arriving there, he and others followed William Coddington to the south end of the island where they established the settlement of Newport.

Bull was a corporal and sergeant on the island, and kept the prison for the colony. He also built a house shortly after his arrival that continued to stand in Newport for nearly three centuries, until destroyed by fire. Late in life, Bull became active in the service of the colony, fulfilling roles as commissioner, deputy, and assistant. In 1685, during a chaotic period in Rhode Island's history when the colony was being accused of irregularities, and its charter was being threatened under a new King, the 75-year-old Henry Bull stepped into the office of governor, serving for a year. Soon after he left office, Edmund Andros was appointed royal governor of all the New England colonies until another change in England's monarchy resulted in Rhode Island's return to its former charter. Uncertainty prevailed in the colony, and two other individuals refused to serve as governor, until Bull, as an octogenarian, once again assumed the governorship in 1690, returning Rhode Island to its previous form of government under its charter.

Considered to be as fearless as he was honest, Bull was elected to the highest position in the gift of the colony, despite the fact that he could not sign his name (he used a mark for his signature in the Portsmouth Compact). He became a Quaker after his arrival in the Colony of Rhode Island. He is buried in the Coddington Cemetery in Newport, where several other Quaker governors of the colony were also interred.