He was well educated and had apprenticed for eight years (1615-1623) to his father James in the goldsmith trade, and would probably have lived a successful and happy life if he had stayed in London, but he chose to try his luck in America and came in the Winthrop fleet of 1630, to settle in Watertown, Massachusetts. He was a just an ordinary man , perhaps a little on the weak side, not forceful enough to deal with the very strong characters he had to live among.
He must have appeared to Governor Winthrop to be a good candidate for the husband of his widowed daughter-in-law, in any case they were married within a few months of her arrival in the Boston area. Being now such a close relation of the Governor, Robert received special attention and was chosen lieutenant to Captain Daniel Patrick 4 September 1632. This was a very, very strange appointment and probably his undoing, Captain Patrick shared the defense of the Colony with Captain John Underhill; he was a rough spoken and rough mannered professional soldier, and could easily walk over the mild ex- goldsmith. Robert was elected three times to the Couirt of Deputies, and then things began to change. Captain Patrick persuaded him to buy some land on the extreme frontier, in Greenwich, in 1640. This land was taken over by the Dutch in 1642, the act of submission being signed by Patrick and Elizabeth Feake, because Robert was ill and beginning to get more and more erratic; a man called William Hallett, was put in charge of the Feake affairs in Greenwich. George McCracken, a genealogist, writing about the Feake family in the NYGBReview , put it this way: "It may well be that his mental instability was a partial cause for his wife's looking elsewhere for manly protection, or the fact that his wife did not take her marital vows very seriously may have contributed to his mental downfall: at this late date we cannot be sure which (LIF)." Daniel Patrick was assassinated in 1644;. Elizabeth left her husband for William Hallett, and Feake went back to England in 1647 where he was pardoned by the House of Commons in March of 1650 for an "unstated offense." He did not return until about 1654, single, to settle again at Watertown where he died in 1661, alone, a pauper, taken care of by the town.
1630 of Walterown, MA. He came probably in the fleet with Winthrop.
One of the earliest and largest proprietors. 18 May 1631 made freeman. 1637-39-40 selectman. 1634-35-36 representative of the first Court. 1632 appointed Lieutenant under Captain David Patrick and is said to have united with him in the purchase of Greenwich CT in 1640. 28 May 1636 was one of the company that reported Dorchester bounds.
He appears to have been impoverished.. He died at the house of Samuel. Mount Frake in Waltham was named for him. Mr. Thatcher disposed of his estate to defray expenses. Inventory 18 Feb 1862-63 £9.2.
John Underhill was a friend and companion to the Earls of Leicester and Essex, and while a youth held a commission in the Earl of Leicester's own Troop of Guards, that was sent to the assistance of the Dutch by Queen Elizabeth I. When the Netherlands offered their sovereignty to the Earl of Leicester, John Edward Underhill was the bearer of confidential dispatches to Lord Burleigh, the Queen's Minister.
The Queen sent for Underhill and had a private interview. There she instructed him to deliver a confidential letter to Leicester. Soon afterward the Earl resigned and returned to England. Underhill after the fall and death of Leicester attached himself to the Earl of Essex. He accompanied Essex on a successful attack on Cadiz, Spain, and shared his ill fortune on a campaign against Tyronne and the revolted class in Ireland. For his gallant conduct he was knighted by Elizabeth.
Meanwhile the Earl of Essex rose in insurrection against the Queen. Essex was subsequently executed and Underhill left for the safety of Holland until the accession of King James in 1603, when he applied for pardon and leave to return to his native country. His request being denied, he remained in The Netherlands a number of years thereafter, in the company of a group of pious Puritans under the Rev. Mr. Robinson who had fled persecution in England. They lived in Bergen op Zoom, a heavily fortified city in The Netherlands. There John Underhill was Sergeant in the Company of Captain Roget Orme.4