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M.L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01092 5961
GENEALOGY 974.4 B22PA
The Planters of the Commonwealth
م
THE PLANTERS OF THE COMMONWEALTH
A Study of the Emigrants and Emigration in COLONIAL TIMES : to which are added Lists of Passengers to BOSTON and to the BAY COLONY; the SHIPS which brought them; their English Homes, and the Places of their Settlement in MASSACHUSETTS
1620-1640
By CHARLES EDWARD BANKS
Member of the MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY and of the AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY
Baltimore Genealogical Publishing Co. 1961
一
1241629
SCOTLAND
NORTHUMBERLAND
27
CUMBERLAND
DURHAM
2
WESTMORE
LAND
YORK 70
39
CASTER
LINCOLN
DERBY
CHESTERA 12
63
33
NOTTS
28
14.
LEICESTER
NORFOLK 160
SALOP
14
WAR-
WICK
WOR-
$8
CESTEA
HERE FORD
22
7
GLOUCESTER
27
ESSEX
68
96
244
28
BERKS
SURREY
47
KENT 188
SOMERSET
31
67
134
SUSSEX
DEVON
161
OORSET 119
ORNWALL
c
MAP OF ENGLAND
Showing the number of emigrants from each county of 2646 emigrants traced
WALES
42
NORTHAMPTON
BEDFORD
29
SUFFOLK 266
49 .
owo3×0
BUCKSP
HERTS
WILTS 97
HANTS
CAMBRIDGE
(STAFFORD)
RUTI
67
1
PREFACE
W HEN Englishmen left their island to emigrate to the North American continent, to begin a new life in the unexplored wilderness, they adopted a name for themselves by which they were generally known in the first century of their experiment. The places to which they went were called 'plantations.' Bradford's 'History' is of the 'Plimmoth Plantation' - not the Plymouth Colony - and the various settlements in Virginia bore the name of planta- tions until within the memory of the present generation. From Maine on the extreme north to Virginia on the south the men who came to settle in this newly acquired territory adopted the name of 'planters' to distinguish themselves as men who had come to fulfill a national obligation. They were not planters in the agricultural sense, but in its spiritual significance. They came, not to plant crops for subsistence, but to plant on this virgin soil a new nation to perpetuate under other skies the cultural development of Anglo-Saxon civilization.I
This title of planter came to have a new and specific value in the English language and the earliest records of New England and the Southern Colonies justify this conclusion.2 It is with respect to this term, chosen by themselves, that the following record of emigrants and emigration to Massachu- setts is given the title of the 'Planters of the Common- wealth' and to their descendants it is dedicated.
The
* English local records have occasional references to the burial of persons from Virginia or New England designated as 'planters.'
2 In the land records of Maine practically every settler is designated as a 'planter' in official documents, in preference to stating his trade.
V111
Preface
The story of the planting of an English colony in the Massachusetts Bay in the first half of the seventeenth cen- tury becomes in its last analysis a study of its individual emigrants and their origins. Out of the little parishes of England came nearly twenty-five thousand persons sprung from the loins of the yeomanry. This emigration amounted to an exodus hitherto unexampled in the history of modern civilization, and it marked an epoch in the world's history that has not yet ceased to affect profoundly the destiny of mankind. These adventurers, scarcely known outside of their parochial boundaries, almost unconscious of the ultimate importance of their acts, began to plant on this portion of the North American continent the seeds of a new nation whose fruit should become another England, with its traditions, culture, and laws. They had few of the educated or social classes to guide them in this movement and with no historic examples to aid them in their problems. They were not entirely wise in their generation nor were they with- out the usual defects of their inherited qualities. Their names are as much a part of the foundation of Massachusetts and New England as are the records of their collective deeds. To know them by name and to learn of them in their former surroundings is to obtain a better knowledge of the be- ginnings of this Commonwealth.
The names of many of these emigrants who took part in this religious and economic hegira are to be found recorded in official depositories widely scattered in England and America in a variety of documentary collections, where they may be painfully recovered, one by one, in diaries, letters, court proceedings, and in modern books that relate to traditions of our colonial families. The prime, as well as the greatest, source of our knowledge of those who tempted fate in the great adventure of emigration to New England is the collection
ix
Preface
collection of Custom-House records of the various ports of England, now in the custody of the Master of the Rolls in the Public Record Office, Chancery Lane, London. They were formerly accumulated in several like depositories, such as the Tower of London, the Rolls Chapel, the State Paper Office, and a half-dozen smaller public collections, including the British Museum. These documents consist of lists of passen- gers permitted to travel to New England, certified by the customs officials principally of London, Ipswich, and South- ampton. Unfortunately, these shipping lists are confined, with few exceptions, to the year 1635. The earliest list is dated March 1631/2 and gives the names of sixteen adult males with the name of the ship omitted. A note in Win- throp's 'Journal' supplies this omission. Two others exist for the same year. None exist for 1633 and six for the following year. What became of the missing lists of the other years which were required to be kept by Order in Council is a puzzle in the problem of disappearances. Since the centralization of these records, no new lists have been found, and it is believed that only unsuspected local de- positories will ever disclose further original lists to these scanty contributions to the story of emigration to New England in the first half of the seventeenth century.
In 1842 the late James Savage, President of the Massa- chusetts Historical Society, visited England for the purpose of examining and transcribing such of these lists as were then available, and published his transcripts, under the title of 'Gleanings for New England History,' in the 'Collections' of that Society.I During the three years, 1858-60, while residing in London, the late Samuel Gardiner Drake also examined and copied these same lists, and printed his tran- scripts in 1860 in a small quarto volume, long out of print and
I Third Series, volumes VIII and x. (Boston, 1843.)
X
Preface
and scarce. They had been previously issued serially in the 'New England Historic and Genealogical Register,' of which his volume was a reprint.1 These two pioneers in English research were natural enemies in the historical world and wasted much time and ink in criticizing the other's readings of these names. In 1874, John Camden Hotten, a prolific English writer on historical and biographical subjects, made the third and last known general examination of these lists after they had been assembled in one collection in the present Public Record Office. They were then classified as 'Exchequer K.R.' in the division scheme of the Deputy Keeper. Mr. Hot- ten published these lists of emigrants to the various Ameri- can colonies, combined with much miscellaneous related mate- rial, in a large quarto volume.2 This work is now out of print, scarce, and highly priced by booksellers. Copies now to be found in public libraries are generally badly worn through continued use, as the poor paper on which it is printed requires constant patching to withstand the rough handling which a reference book of this character must suffer.
The compiler of the lists which follow in this volume, dur- ing a residence of nearly five years in England has examined personally the originals of all the lists heretofore printed by Drake, Savage, and Hotten, and subjected them to analytical study with a view of presenting them in an intelligible form. These three compilers transcribed and published these passenger lists verbatim et literatim, which, of course, has its value, but as originally recorded they appear to be copies made without reference to connecting family groups. Chil- dren are separated from their parents in numerous cases, wives
I Result of Some Researches Among the British Archives for Information Relative to the Founders of New England. (4to. 131 pp. Boston, 1860.)
2 Original Lists of Emigrants. (Royal 4to. 580 pp. Chatto & Windus, London, 1874.)
xi
Preface
wives and husbands officially divided, while their kinsmen and servants are similarly dislocated. As an example, the volume in which the emigrants of the ship Planter (1635) are entered gives six several lists of her passengers in as many places under dates March 22, April 2, April 6, April 8, April IO, and April II, interspersed with lists of passengers booked for five other ships. Another excellent illustration of the al- most hopeless jumble of families, where husbands, wives and children are separated, is to be seen in the lists of the Abigail, May-July, 1635." The passengers are divided into fifteen separate groups, interspersed between the lists of five other vessels, evidently as they were entered from time to time. These dislocations have been restored, as far as pos- sible, to an orderly arrangement. This adhesion to a literal reproduction of the record is not only confusing, but it perpetuates the separation of family groups and prevents a clear presentation of those who sailed in this particular ship. They will now appear all together in reconstructed order, and the same plan has been followed in other like instances wherever they occur.
And this raises a somewhat important practical question as to the original character of these lists, which has not been discussed by Drake, Savage, or Hotten. It will be ap- parent from an examination of the reproductions of the few lists which are shown in this volume, for 1632 and 1635, that they are in one handwriting and are remarkably uni- form in appearance. In fact, the whole collection exhibits this same characteristic, and leads to the inevitable con- clusion that they are not the originals, turned in from time to time by the Custom-House searchers, but fair copies of their notes made on the docks and consolidated in this office transcript for record. This gives them a certain secondary value,
I Hotten, pp. 73, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, and Drake, 28, 31-38.
xii
Preface
value, because of the chances for mistakes in transcribing, and may explain some obvious errors in names and ages of passengers which have puzzled many in the use of the printed lists.
Outside of these lists to be found in England, occasional names of emigrants are to be picked out of the great variety of documents in the Public Record Office in the Chancery Division and in the almost untouched records of the High Court of Admiralty. From both these sources I have ob- tained some valuable material which will be indicated in the reference to sources. In the archives of the several New England colonies it has been possible to find scattered references to emigrants and emigrant ships in the course of litigations recorded in the various local courts. Private records like the Trelawney Papers have yielded much material of value relating to Maine settlers and the ships in which they arrived.' The Wyllys Papers have furnished what little can be found about the earliest direct emigration to Connecticut.2 Private diaries, such as Winthrop's 'Journal,' Higginson's 'Letter,' Shepard's 'Relation' and Mather's 'Diary,' have furnished information of unique interest explaining the means employed by the suspended Puritan clergymen to escape arrest when embarking for New England under assumed names. Winthrop's 'Journal' has proved a valuable check list for the ships arriving before 1640 with passengers.
In addition to these positive sources, a special feature of this work will be found in what may be called synthetic lists of emigrants, such as the passengers of the Winthrop Fleet of 1630, the Mary and John and the Lyon of the same year, reconstructed from evidences found in every available source too
1 2 Maine Historical Society, III.
2 Connecticut Historical Society, vol. 21.
X111
Preface
too numerous to catalogue. As they were the earliest arrivals in the first settled town of Massachusetts, their identity could be established by church, town, and colony records. Similar lists have been reconstructed from like material in several other instances, which are indicated in each case and based on the same process of elimination. In this way it is possible to restore the picture of the emigrants and the ships in which they came with some degree of accuracy and probability without violating the rules of evidence.
Additions of this kind have been made to a number of the ships' lists, particularly in cases like the Hingham, Massa- chusetts, emigrants in the Cushing MSS., and the Hercules passengers of 1634 and 1637. In these lists the number of children and servants were originally published in figures. The names of these have been supplied by the compiler from various sources to make the lists complete.
With this explanation the student of our early history will have for the first time a comprehensive view of what was happening in New England from 1620 to 1640 when English ships were bringing Englishmen to our shores.
1
BOSTON TERCENTENARY 1630-1930
Founders' Memorial Committee Appointed by His Honor the Mayor JAMES M. CURLEY
Sherman L. Whipple, Chairman
William Sumner Appleton
William P. Greenlaw
Charles Knowles Bolton
Edward A. Horton
Jacob F. Brown
Joseph H. O'Neil
Abraham K. Cohen
Francis Peabody
Walton L. Crocker
James J. Phelan
Thomas H. Dowd
William B. Revere
Francis Wright Fabyan
Henry M. Rogers
Edward A. Filene
Harry E. Russell
Mrs. Barrett Wendell
Allan Forbes
Henry Hornblower
Walter S. Bucklin
CONTENTS
PART I A STUDY OF EMIGRATION TO NEW ENGLAND IN COLONIAL TIMES I
PART II
LISTS OF PASSENGERS AND THE SHIPS WHICH BROUGHT THEM
45
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634 1635
1636
1637
1638
190
1639
201
1640
202
APPENDIX
207
INDEX
209
47 50 52 52 57 58 59 60 65 92 95 IO2 107 125 179 180
SCOTLAND
1
I
VALE
MAP OF ENGLAND
The heaviest emigration took place from the counties in the darkest shades
--
The Planters of the Commonwealth
PART I A STUDY OF EMIGRATION TO NEW ENGLAND IN COLONIAL TIMES
KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS
Banks MSS. Collections of the Author
Winthrop Journal (edition 1908) M.C.R. Massachusetts Colonial Records
S.P. Dom. State Papers Domestic, Public Record Office
P.R.O. Public Record Office, London
L.L.W. Life and Letters of John Winthrop
Gen. Reg. New England Genealogical and Historical Register
3
THE PLANTERS OF THE COMMONWEALTH
PART I
A Study of Emigration to New England in Colonial Times
W HEN the Sarah Constant, the Discovery, and the Goodspeed housed their hawsers at Blackwall in the Thames in December, 1607, and floated down the river headed for Virginia, and the Mary and John and the Gift of God pushed off from Falmouth Harbor in Cornwall, in June of the same year, bound for the Maine The first coast, both to begin a colony, then and there be- ocean 'liners' gan the Atlantic passenger service which has vexed the 'vast and furious ocean' for over three centuries. From these five little vessels picking their lonely course across the Atlantic there have developed great fleets of 'liners,' each one over a hundred times larger than the largest of these two convoys. If shallops of the size of the Gift of God started on a like trip to-day, it would make the first page of every metropolitan daily. The venturesome mariners of 1607 knew no other method of traversing these three thousand miles to reach our coast, and few are the records left to tell the tales of those little boats tossed on mountainous seas for weeks out of sight of land, trying to live in the relentless pounding of their fragile hulks. The Southern Colony, which settled on the James River, held its own from the first, favored by a mild climate and a fertile soil, but the Northern Colony which se-
lected
4
The Planters of the Commonwealth
lected the rocky promontory of Sabino, at the mouth of the Kennebec River, languished after a peculiarly cold winter and was abandoned for a time to be renewed under more in- viting conditions. To both of these places ships came and went, yearly, but as this account does not comprise the story of emigrants and emigration to the Southern Colonies there will be no further consideration given to that part of the passenger traffic which built up Virginia and the Southern States.
The maritime interests of England at the beginning of the period under discussion were entirely concerned with exports Development and imports of merchandise. These were the of ocean Alpha and Omega of their foreign trade and pas- traffic senger travel was merely incidental to this exten- sive business. Ships were not built to accommodate travelers, and those who desired to visit foreign countries had to adjust themselves to the inconveniences of a freighter. No European country provided such means of transportation nor had there been any demand for such facilities up to this time. True to her traditions of maritime adventure, England was the first nation to meet this demand, and for three centuries she has been in the forefront of this form of traffic. The overseas merchants and shipowners of England met this requirement in the same spirit which has characterized their long leader- ship in seafaring ventures.
This new problem did not immediately result in any modi- fication of naval architecture or of the interior construction of vessels to make them more comfortable for their passengers. Up to the end of the seventeenth century, the tonnage of ves- sels crossing the Atlantic with passengers increased very little over the known tonnage of the Mayflower and of the Arbella. Few of them reached or went beyond five hundred tons measurement.
5
The Planters of the Commonwealth
measurement. There was a certain type of vessel which came to be selected as desirable ships for the passenger trade. These were engaged in the wine trade to the Mediterranean ports, which, by reason of their occupation, were specially constructed for that purpose and were known as 'sweet ships,' as they were unusually well caulked and always dry. The Mayflower of 1620 was of this class, and it is probable that most of the vessels of the Winthrop Fleet of 1630, in which passengers were mainly carried, were selected from this class of traders.
When and how the cost of transportation was fixed is un- known. The voyage of the Pilgrims offers no basis of compu- tation as they went under a seven-year contract, but it is understood that ten pounds was the sum paid by them for the voyage and they furnished, as far as possible, their own sub- sistence. This became a new problem in maritime reckoning, as the length of the voyage was always uncertain, sometimes ranging from five to twelve weeks, depending on the weather, winds, and the time of year. The Pilgrims were twelve weeks in crossing in the late fall, while the Arbella made the same journey in about eight weeks in the early summer. The price fixed by the Massachusetts Bay Company seems to have been adopted by all subsequent ships. This was decided to be 'at the rate of 5 li. a person' ' and was meant as applicable only to adults, and for children the following schedule of relative fares was provided: 'Sucking children not to bee reckoned; such as under 4 yeares of age, 3 for one [fare]; under 8, 2 for one; under 12, 3 for 2.'2
In addition to the fares for passengers, the cost of shipping household goods increased the financial problem for the emi- grant. It was necessary to carry these things across the ocean, as there was no way to obtain them in the early years of
: M.C.R., 1, 65. 2 Ibid., 66.
6
The Planters of the Commonwealth
of an unsettled country. The rate for this service was fixed at 4 li. a tonn for goods.' ' For the average family of eight persons with a ton of freight the cost would be about thirty pounds, or nearly a thousand dollars in our present money. In what manner the household goods reached their destination may be inferred from the unfamiliarity of those English yeo- men and artisans with the perils of the deep. Very few of them had ever left the shores of Albion and they were igno- rant of the inadequacy of these small craft in the trough of the mountainous Atlantic waves piled high in her savage moods. A contemporary writer speaks of the giant seas 'hurling their unfixed goods from place to place' from lack of proper stow- age.ª The present generation has scant conception and practi- cally no actual knowledge of the inconveniences which their ancestors experienced in making the voyage from England to the American continent. The most that is understood and appreciated is the diminutive size of the vessels and the long and hazardous passage required under the best conditions to reach the 'stern and rockbound coast' of New England.
If the reader can visualize a vessel of two hundred tons carrying a hundred passengers with a crew of about fifty Accommoda- officers and seamen, with their necessary freight tions for and supplies, he can form an idea of the limita- passengers tions imposed on the Pilgrims in their three months' voyage from Plymouth, England, to our Plymouth. The Mary and John, which brought the Dorchester emigrants in 1630, was of about four hundred tons burthen and carried one hundred and forty passengers. The Griffin of three hundred tons brought about two hundred passengers in eight weeks from The Downs. Vessels as small as seventy tons en- gaged in this passenger traffic, and, in addition to the ordinary discomforts
1 M.C.R., 1, 65.
2 Johnson: Wonder-Working Providence.
7
The Planters of the Commonwealth
discomforts of such manifest inadequacy of space for comfort- able living, most of these vessels carried cattle, which did not add to the pleasure of the voyage even in the calmest weather.
As far as known no one has left a contemporary description of the conditions of Atlantic travel at that time, and the best that can be done to reconstruct them is by utilizing frag- mentary references of emigrants to produce a synthetic pic- ture of an average voyage. Turning a wine ship into a pas- senger vessel with accommodations for one hundred and fifty or two hundred souls becomes a problem of several dimensions. The officers' quarters on the poop deck and the sailors' bunks in the forecastle were always limited in space, and the only possible place for passengers was the space between the towering stern structure and the forecastle or between decks. Below this was the hold, which was used for the cargo, the ord- nance, and the stowing of the longboats. In this part of the ship, as we learn from Winthrop's story of the Arbella, cabins had been constructed, probably rough compartments of boards for women and children, while hammocks for the men were swung from every available point of vantage.
There is little doubt that the flagship of the Winthrop Fleet of 1630, which brought several persons of the nobility and gentry, was fitted with special cabins for their accommo- dation. The class distinctions of that time would not permit Sir Richard Saltonstall, the Lady Arbella Johnson, and her brother, Charles Fiennes, Esquire, or John Winthrop, Es- quire, and others of like social quality, to rough it in common with the yeoman class of emigrants who came with them. Either the cabins in the stern were turned over to them and the officers found room elsewhere, which is probable, or spe- cial compartments were constructed for them, as this ship was owned by a syndicate of members of the Massachusetts
Bay
8
The Planters of the Commonwealth
Bay Colony. On this subject Winthrop gives us no definite information, except to mention that 'some Cabbins, which were in the waye of our ordenance,' were taken down when the decks were cleared for action against some suspected 'Dunkirks.' I
In the early days of New England emigration, passengers of social standing were few, and there were infrequent appli- cants for special accommodations. It may be supposed that Sir Henry Vane, son of the Comptroller of the King's House- hold, and the Lord Leigh, son and heir of the Earl of Marl- borough, demanded and received cabin space in the ship which brought them to Boston. Doubtless wealthy emigrants of the better classes, like John Haynes and Roger Harlaken- den, followed the example of their noble patrons in engaging better accommodations for their trans-Atlantic voyage. In a lawsuit in which Nathaniel Patten, formerly of Crewkerne, Somerset, was the complainant against Henry Wolcott et al., joint undertakers of the ship Hopewell of London, the follow- ing charge appears in the account against the defendants:
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