By Roger Eaton, grandson*
*Relation to Andy and/or Flora Lehr
Who would have imagined that a religious-political chess match between King Henry VIII and Pope Clement VII, in the 1530s, would lead to one of our ancestors venturing across an ocean to seek religious freedom in an unsettled wilderness ninety years later? Below is the story of Thomas Rogers and his quest for religious freedom.
Life in 16th Century England
When the Pope Clement VII refused to annul the king’s first marriage, King Henry VIII formed the Church of England with the king replacing the pope as the head of the new church, in 1534. This combined church and government and eliminated the pope’s leadership. Not all of the king’s subjects embraced the new church.
The Church of England’s influence alternated with Catholicism, depending on who sat on the throne (after the demise of King Henry VIII). After her coronation, in 1559, Queen Elizabeth I set a course to restore the prominence and influence of the church of England. She introduced the Act of Uniformity in 1559. Church leaders who didn’t comply with the act were punished and called “non-conformists”. They remained with the Church of England, but did not adopt the Book of Common Prayer from the Act of Uniformity. These non-conformists became the “Puritans”.
“Separatists” were people who left the Church of England. The concept of separating church and state was advanced by Reverend Robert Browne and the Separatist label was used interchangeably with “Brownists”.
Thomas Rogers was born during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, in 1571. His parents William Rogers and Eleanor (Taynton) Rogers lived in Waterford, Northampton, Northamptonshire, England. He married Alice Cosford on October 24, 1597 in Waterford Parish, Northamptonshire, England. A year after the birth of their sixth child, 1603, Queen Elizabeth I died. Under the rule of her successor, King James I, roll was taken at weekly mass. Separatists were fined for not attending mass (with the Church of England).
Huldrych Zwingli split from Martin Luther and the Lutherans to form another theology. It became known as Calvinism, after John Calvin. He was the best-known theologian to succeed Zwingli. Calvinism spread across Europe from Switzerland. It became the dominate protestant religion in France and the official religion in the Netherlands.
To the Separatists, the monarchy was impacting their mortal life, and more significantly, their eternal life. They were protecting their souls. That served to be a powerful incentive to flee the Church of England.
Life in Netherlands
Thomas and his family followed the (English) Calvinists who dissented from the Church of England. He relocated his family to Leiden, Netherlands to escape the Church of England’s oppression around the year 1614. Twenty-four-year-old William Bradford led the movement and was a strong influence on Thomas. Thomas earned a living as a camlet merchant. Camlet is a combination of camel hair and silk. It was considered a luxury. A museum in Leiden provides a glimpse into their lifestyle.
https://leidenamericanpilgrimmuseum.org/en
While the distance between Northamptonshire, England and Leiden, Netherlands is only 227 miles, their relocation became an odyssey. Travel required the king’s (delegate) approval. Requesting approval to relocate to avoid religious oppression was received as a challenge to the king. They contracted with a ship owner/captain who didn’t require the travel authorization. After the families loaded their belongings onto the ship, the captain reported them to the authorities and they were punished. Their belongings were seized. A friendly ship captain from the Netherlands provided passage to their new home.
The winds of religious tolerance were changing as a 12-year religious treaty between Netherlands and Spain was ending. That contributed to the declining support of religious tolerance in Leiden. Employment issues and poverty among the English refugees followed. As the conditions deteriorated, William Bradford and other leaders formulated an extremely risky exit plan.
They secured an agreement with the Virginia Company that would cover their travel costs and a year’s worth of supplies. In return, the Separatists committed to send timber, furs and other goods back to the Virginia Company. It was a seven-year commitment. The plan was set. Two ships would sail across the Atlantic Ocean to Virginia. They targeted an area at the mouth of the Hudson River to establish their colony (current day New York City).
Mayflower
Christopher Jones purchased the Mayflower in 1608, shortly after its construction. It is estimated to have been 97 feet in length and 24 feet wide with a weight of 180 tons. This modest cargo ship became famous for the voyage that carried the English Separatists to the New England area. It is remembered 400 years after that trans-Atlantic crossing.
The ship was designed for short cruises along the European coastlines. It was not intended for crossing an ocean. Navigation charts were crude and imprecise. Navigation instruments and methods were primitive. It is impressive that they landed close to their destination. If not for a storm, they would have landed closer to their initial destination.
The gun deck served as home for the 102 passengers and their belongings. It was 1,300 square feet of cargo space. Windows are not needed for cargo, so there were no portholes to help avoid seasickness. Ceilings were low – believed to be five feet. Make shift partitions were crafted with curtains from sheets to provide some privacy for the families. The passengers made the best of the situation to survive the journey. Note: the Poop House served as the officer’s quarters, including Christopher Jones.
Makeshift beds on the floor were used for sleeping. Some may have made beds from pallets or other items on the ship. Chamber pots served as their toilets. Families may have shared one. During the stormy part of the voyage, it was not possible to empty the pots (into the sea). The odor would have been nauseating.
English lore places timbers salvaged from the Mayflower in a Buckinghamshire, England barn. The ship was likely scrapped in the late 1620s, following its owner, Christopher Jones’, passing.
As a symbol of WW II collaboration of Great Brittan and the United States, the Mayflower II was crafted. Built in Brixham, Devon, England with similar tools used in the 1600s, it is replica of the famous Mayflower. A crew of 33 sailed her to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1957. The Mayflower II is docked at the Plimoth-Patuxet Museum, Plymouth Massachusetts and open for tours.
The Crossing
On July 22, 1620, a group of adventurous colony hopefuls boarded the Speedwell. They departed Delfshaven, Netherlands bound for South Hampton England. At South Hampton, they were joined by additional passengers and another ship; the Mayflower.
Casting off on August 6th, the ships set sail for New England. Only hours into the voyage, the Speedwell took on water and the ships made port in Dartmouth for repairs. After a three-week delay, for repairs, they hoisted anchor again. This time, they made it about 300 miles before the Speedwell took on water. When they made port in Plymouth, they needed to make some decisions.
They decided to abandon the Speedwell in Plymouth. Some of Speedwell’s passengers were added to the Mayflower and the rest stayed behind. Adding weight to an already overloaded ship made the cruise slightly unstable. With 102 passengers aboard, she launched on September 6th. The passengers had already been onboard the Mayflower for a month and one half.
Only 41 of the passengers were separatists. Thirty-seven were from Leiden, Netherlands others were from England. They referred to each other as “Saints”. The rest of the passengers were craftsmen and some indentured servants that the Virginia Company required. The separatists called them the “Strangers”. This wasn’t a humanitarian expedition. It was a business venture. The investors expected lumber and food to be returned to England.
As a business venture, the accommodations aboard were not comfy. It was a cargo ship, not a cruise ship. The passengers were assigned to the area below the main deck and did not go on the main deck. Their food was hard tack, dried meat and warm beer. The potable water became unpotable after a few weeks, so beer was their drink – even for the children. It was also used to soften the hardtack. A recipe for hard tack is included at the end of this post. Try it!
Among the passengers, were Thomas Rogers and his son, Joseph. The rest of the Rogers family remained in Leiden, Netherlands. At forty-nine years old, Thomas was an elder among the passengers. Joseph was seventeen years old and one of thirty-one children. Demographically, there were 74 men and 28 women. Two were expecting and one birth occurred during the voyage, a boy named Oceanus. Sadly, he didn’t survive the first winter.
With a crew of thirty, the journey began calmly. Raging storms followed a month of calm seas. William Bradford, the Saints leader, noted that one of the ships timbers was bowed and cracked. This, along with leaks, was unsettling and led to doubt if they would survive the trip. The Saints convened a meeting to discuss turning back. It was at that point when one of the Saints proposed using a large iron screw (construction tool) to move the timber. The screw was part of the Saint’s belongings and was successful in moving the timber. At that point they agreed to continue on.
During one storm, a Saint made his way to the main deck. In the pitching sea, he was swept overboard. Amazingly, he grabbed a rope and held tightly. The crew was able to pull him back onto the ship, after being towed under water. He made a full recovery and survived the initial winter to become a productive member of the new community.
Entertainment on the gun deck was likely, storytelling, praying and simple games. One game could have been Nine Men’s Morris. It is a strategy board game that dates back to the Roman Empire.
One of the indentured servants, a young boy, became ill and died during the voyage. He was the only death during the crossing. It is impressive that they only lost one passenger.
Land Ho!
On the morning of November 6, a crew member sighted Cape Cod.
When they realized their position, they headed south towards Virginia. Rough seas forced them to return to the Cape Cod area. The sixty-six day transatlantic voyage concluded at Cape Cod. They made it!
The map below shows the Mayflower route and the intended destination. The blue line is the route of the Mayflower. The departure delays pushed the schedule into the Atlantic storm season. What would have normally been a thirty-day voyage was prolonged and missed the intended destination.
Life in Plymouth
Establishing a colony in New England was different than settling in Virginia. Governance existed in the Virginia territory. Since there was no governance in New England, the Strangers determined that they were not bound to the (seven-year) agreement with the Virginia Company and began considering their options.
The Saints realized that they needed to create some cohesion between themselves and Strangers in order to establish a colony. They quickly developed some temporary laws for the colonists. It has become known as the Mayflower Compact and was signed by 41 adult males on November 11th. The agreement solidified the colonists’ dedication to each other. It was the first self-governance agreement and was effective for the next seventy years. While Thomas Rogers signed the Mayflower Compact, his son did not. At age seventeen, he was not old enough. The Compact was considered by John Quincy Adams, the sixth U.S. President, to be the forerunner of the U.S. Constitution – 167 years later.
Handwritten by William Bradford, the agreement provided a self-governance model that lasted seventy years.
November 1620 brought the beginning of a deadly cold winter in New England. The women and children remained on the ship as the men cut trees and constructed shelters. They rowed in from the Mayflower to shore and returned each day.
On December 7th, William Bradford’s 23-year-old wife, Dorothy, fell off the anchored ship and drowned in the cold water. He was ashore at the time of the drowning. At 30 years old, William Bradford became a widower. The couple had left their son with his grandparents when they set sail. Later, their son sailed to New England.
They walked and walked to select a suitable site. After four weeks, they discovered the deserted (native) village of Patuxet. Disease wiped out the village in 1616-18. The Saints found stored corn and cleared fields. This would become the Plymouth Plantation.
The sixty-six-day voyage along with the forty-five-day delay, left the passengers tired and weak. Keeping warm on the anchored ship was difficult. The lack of nutritional food left them vulnerable to sickness. Over half of the passengers, Saints and Strangers, died the first winter. Among them was our ancestor, Thomas Rogers. Recent widower, William Bradford, accepted his son, Joseph, into his house. The deceased were buried in unmarked graves.
According to Bradford’s notes, a native approached them on 16 March 1621. They were amazed when he spoke to them – in English. Samoset educated the colonists with stories of area natives. He was part of the Wampanoag Nation. It consisted of several tribes, including the Patuxet tribe. Massasoit was the Wampanoag Nation’s leader.
Another English-speaking native was Squanto. He was a survivor of the Patuxet tribe and was enslaved in 1614, before the disease outbreak, and taken to Europe. In 1619, he was able to return to his homeland to learn that disease had killed everyone in his village. When Squanto encountered Massasoit, he was enslaved by the Wampanoag Nation.
Since the Wampanoag Nation was at war with another tribe, Massasoit was eager to form an alliance with the colonists. William Bradford and Massasoit signed a treaty. It is now known as the Pilgrim-Wampanoag Peace Treaty.
Pilgrim-Wampanoag Peace Treaty
| 1. That neither he nor any of his, should injure or do hurt to any of their people. 2. That if any of his did any hurt to any of theirs, he should send the offender that they might punish him. 3. That if any thing were taken away from any of theirs, he should cause it to be restored; and they should do the like to his. 4. That if any did unjustly war against him, they would aid him; and if any did war against them, he should aid them. 5. That he should send to his neighbors confederates to certify them of this, that they might not wrong them, but might be likewise comprised in the conditions of peace. 6. That when their men came to them, they should leave their bows and arrows behind them. |
The treaty was signed on April 1, 1621 and was honored for over 50 years.
Sarcophagus
As they passed, the colonists were buried in unmarked graves. The cemetery was discovered in the 18th and 19th centuries by accident. The skeletal remains are believed to be deceased colonists of 1620. In recognition of the 300th anniversary of the Mayflower landing, a sarcophagus was erected. The remains were sealed in the Sarcophagus in 1920. The remains of Thomas Rogers are believed to be in the Sarcophagus.
First Thanksgiving
With the guidance of Squanto, the colonists planted crops. After a successful growing season, the colonists were compelled to celebrate. The celebration lasted for three days and included ninety Wampanoag, including Squanto and Massasoit. This 1621 celebration became known as the First Thanksgiving. After spreading throughout New England, this regional event was declared a national holiday by President Abraham Lincoln in November of 1863.
By December 1621, they had built seven houses and four community buildings. The plantation was enclosed within a stockade fence. A replica was built near the original settlement.
Rogers in Netherlands
Alice (Cosford) Rogers, wife of Thomas Rogers, remained in Leiden, Netherlands, when Thomas and his son, Joseph, ventured across the ocean to New England. The 1622 tax poll lists Alice Rogers and her children as “poor people” and “without means”. They lived with another family.
One of the children, John, made his way to Eastham, New England by 1639 – see more below. It is presumed that Thomas and Alice’s daughters relocated to New England.
Rogers in New England
Thomas Rogers’ son, Joseph, survived the deadly winter of 1620. He was taken in by William Bradford along with other survivors. In 1623, he received two acres, in the first land division. His brother, John, joined him in Plymouth. Joseph married Hanna (surname unknown) they had four daughter and four sons.
He operated a ferry across the Jones River in 1635 and charged a penny per passenger. Over the years he accumulated land and settled in Duxbury. In 1640 he became the post constable and promoted to Lieutenant of Nauset (Eastham) in 1647. He passed away in 1677 at the age of 74.
Additional information on Joseph Rogers is available at the link below.
https://directory.thomasrogerssociety.com/g1/p1.htm#i9
Joseph’s third son, John, is our direct ancestor. Born in 1642, he married Elizabet Twining in 1669. They had three daughters and six sons. They lived in Eastham. John passed in 1714 and Elizabeth in 1725.
Descendants
Twenty-six passengers left proven descendants. The number of descendants is estimated to be over thirty million. Below is a list of the ancestors of Flora May (Rogers) Lehr. She was a descendant of Thomas Rogers.
Pilgrims
Only forty-one of the 102 Mayflower passengers were Separatists (of the Church of England). They referred to themselves as Saints. As the Plymouth colony matured, they became colonists. It wasn’t until William Bradford’s book, Of Plymouth Plantation, was published in 1669, that the term Pilgrim was used to reference the Mayflower Saints.
The images of Pilgrims depicted today are likely English Puritans. They settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, eight years after Plymouth was established. Puritans were known to dress in simple dark clothes. The Separatists/Saints did not adopt that convention.
After proving the viability of escaping the European continent from religious intolerance, others followed. Plymouth was eclipsed by new settlements, within a few years, as others followed these courageous refugees. Most settled in nearby areas. Plymouth never grew into the hub of religion and commerce for the Americas. It did serve as a key stepping stone in the European migration to the Americas.
Mayflower Passenger Descendent Society
The 1876 United States centennial fostered an interest in American history – especially establishing the Plymouth colony. Mayflower descendants in the New York area established a society for Mayflower passenger descendants in 1894. Additional states formed similar societies. These societies formed an overarching organization named the General Society of Mayflower Descendants in 1897.
Today, a society of Mayflower descendants exists in each state. With over 100,000 members, the General Society of Mayflower Descendants continually reviews applications of descendants for new membership. It is considered to be the “Gold Standard” for family lineage societies.
Thomas Rogers Society
Founded in 1974, the Thomas Rogers Society is focused on promoting the memory of Thomas Rogers. It is a registered partner of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. Genealogical information is managed by the society and made available to members.
Conclusion
The experiences of the Mayflower passengers is unimaginable to me. Conditions on the Mayflower were miserable and survival was unpredictable. Crossing the Atlantic was risky. That risk was compounded during the storm season. The consequence of a ship failure was death. Landing in New England did not provide any hope of survival. It was a long shot. Their situation in Leiden was deteriorating. Their options were:
- Accept the conditions and stay in Leiden
- Return to England and face the religious intolerance
- Return to England and conform to the Church of England
If I had been presented with the same options, I don’t know if I would have taken the same path as Thomas Rogers. Some of his characteristics are admirable. Making the journey was bold, but cost him his life. He left his wife and children (except Joseph) in Leiden. While he intended to bring them to New England, the downside of that decision meant his wife and (remaining) children would live a life of poverty.
Religious tolerance is a way of life for us. We lack the experience to appreciate their condition. Contemporary religious trends seem to be less dependent upon formal secular identities, e.g., Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, etc. While these conventions serve a purpose of cohesion and support, participation in their constraints have become an individual choice – without strict consequence from the sect, e.g., when I was young, Baptists were forbidden to dance. A Methodist can attend a Lutheran service without any consequence from either church. Today, it is an individual choice.
The daring actions of these religious rebels and the Strangers have made incalculable positive impacts on our country and society. I doubt if they had any intention to be celebrated 400 years, later. It is humbling to share the same genetic material of this courageous and driven adventurer.
Sources
BBC
boards.straightdope.com
Britannica
General Society of Mayflower Descendants
History Channel
History of Massachusetts
Mayflower 400
MayflowerHistory.com
Pilgrim Life in Leiden
Plimoth.org
Of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford
Thomas Rogers Society
UK Parliament
Voyaging through History
Who were the Pilgrims?
Women History Blog
Hardtack recipes
