This was the beginning of what came to be known as the historic event called The Great Migration – thousands of English settlers coming to New England in the early-to-mid-1630s. Regarding William Vassall's first trip to New England, research indicates that if he did travel on the "Lyon" to New England, he may have arrived in February 1630 as per the Letter from Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley to Lady Bridget, Countess of Lincoln, March 1631: in this letter the "Lyon" is noted several times, once for its arrival date from Bristol of February 5, 1630 and another for being in-port in Salem on July 7, 1630. Additionally, some sources state that his family came with him on this first trip, but this cannot be confirmed. In mid-1635 William Vassall returned to New England on the ship "Blessing" out of London with his family - per the manifest: William, 42, wife Anna, 42 and children: Judith 16, Frances 12, John 10, Ann 6, Margaret 2, and Mary age 1. The family first settled in Roxbury and then Scituate, Massachusetts Colony. He is recorded as owning 200 acres of upland and some acreage of meadow land and was licensed to operate a ferry on the North River. On November 28, 1636 William Vassall joined the church of Rev. John Lathrop. What followed were many years of rancorous events involving Vassall over his perception of Puritan religious intolerance in New England. In 1639 William Vassall was granted the liberty "to make an oyster bank in the North River, in some convenient place near his farm which was called the 'West Newland' and to appropriate it for his own use, forbidding all others to use same without his license." William Vassall was an advocate of religious freedom for all in the New England church. He was very much against those whose religious opinions followed the strict Puritan line and agitated against the heavy-handed methods of the colonial government. He had strong convictions in the rights and religious freedoms of his fellow colonists and worked hard for religious tolerance which caused him no end of problems with the conservative colonial government. In 1644-45 Vassall was involved in a controversy involving the church in Scituate about baptism, which caused half the congregation, with the minister, to relocate to Barnstable. Meanwhile, the part of the congregation that included William Vassall and his daughter Judith White, wife of "Mayflower" passenger Resolved White, remained at Scituate.