William Wood, author of New Englands Prospect ... (1634), the earliest comprehensive record of New England's natural resources and inhabitants prior to European colonization, arrived in Massachusetts in 1629. Alden T. Vaughan, editor of the latest edition of Wood's book, speculates that Wood was probably one of John Endecott's scouting party that settled in Salem a year before the royal charter established the Massachusetts Bay Colony; this theory would account for Wood's scanty references to English colonists and for the uncharacteristically secular tone of this early work. Records of the Massachusetts Bay Colony report that he was admitted a freeman in May 1631. In August 1633 he went back to England, intending to return to America, and in September 1634 the General Court sent "letters of thankfullnes" to Wood among others "that have been benefactors to this plantation." Although several biographers identify him as a William Wood who is mentioned in several sources as...