Born c. 1571 in the
area of Watford, Northamptonshire, England, Thomas Rogers in due course married
Alice Cosford, the couple having six children there between 1598 and 1613. Thomas
was a Puritan, a member of a group wanting to reform or “purify” the
established Church of England by ridding it of what the Puritans saw as too
many Roman Catholic practices. As religious dissenters, the Separatists, as
they were also known, were often persecuted for their beliefs.
To escape such
persecution, about 100 Puritans left England for the Netherlands in 1608,
settling in Leiden, a city known for its religious tolerance. Thomas, along
with his wife and four surviving children, later left England and joined the
earlier settlers there about 1614. Although
Thomas carried on business as a cloth merchant and took out citizenship in
1618, he and others, despite the religious freedom Leiden offered, found it
difficult to earn a living and function in a place where they did not know the
language.
As a result, despite
the safety from persecution that Leiden offered, a number of Separatists decided
to move on. Joining forces with other Separatists still in England, they approached
the Virginia Company which had responsibility on behalf of the Crown for
settling the Virginia Colony, then a vast swath of land that included much of
the Atlantic seaboard of the present day United States.
The merchant
investors in the Virginia Company agreed to finance the settlers’ trip after
the Separatists were able to satisfy them that they would see a return on their
investment on account of the goods such as timber, fur, and fish that they
could send back to England. The requisite permission for colonization was
accordingly given to settle in what was then known as Northern Virginia in an
area near the mouth of the Hudson River in modern day New York State.
By any measure the
proposed journey which Thomas and others were about to go on was audacious,
risky, and uncertain. Knowing little about the unsettled mostly forested land they
were headed to, the Mayflower Pilgrims would be very much on their own when it
came to survival. It had in fact only been in 1607, after earlier disastrous attempts
at settlement, that the English managed to establish their first permanent
settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. These individuals were now attempting to found
the second such settlement some thirteen years later.
The original plan was
that two ships would be used for the voyage. The Mayflower was to be used to transport the English Separatists along
with some non-believers or strangers, as they were called. These were
individuals, whether skilled trades people or economic opportunists, recruited
by Virginia Company investors to raise enough money to finance the voyage and
to help build the new colony. The much smaller older ship, the Speedwell, was to transport the Leiden
Separatists and accompany the 100 feet long Mayflower.
On July 22, 1620 the Speedwell sailed from Delfshaven, Holland
with 31 Separatists bound for Southampton, England to provision and rendezvous
with the Mayflower and its 90
passengers for the crossing to
America. Among the passengers were Thomas Rogers, then about 50 years of age,
and his eldest son, 18-year-old Joseph. Thomas’s wife Alice, younger son John,
and daughters Elizabeth and Margaret were left behind; it was likely expected that
they would later join Thomas and Joseph once they were settled.
The journey did not
start out well. After discovery of a leak
in Speedwell that had to be repaired,
departure plans were first delayed until August 5th. After the Speedwell sprang a second leak shortly
after the voyage began, there was a further delay, the Speedwell being diverted to Dartmouth for yet further repairs. With
both ships apparently finally underway on August 24th, the Speedwell again began leaking when about
three hundred miles out to sea. Both vessels again returned to England where
this time they moored at Plymouth. Since the Speedwell was clearly unseaworthy, it was then decided that the
ship would have to be abandoned—the Mayflower
would proceed on her own.
Having lived on ships
for almost six weeks now and still in England, the passengers were clearly frustrated.
A number of the exhausted passengers had had enough and left, including twenty of
the Leiden Separatists aboard the Speedwell,
leaving eleven of the group who were transferred to the already crowded Mayflower. Ancestor Thomas Rogers and
his son Joseph were part of that historic group.
At last, on September
16, 1620 the Mayflower set sail from
Plymouth. Those making the journey included 102 passengers and about 30 crew members
living in extremely cramped conditions; the passengers were almost evenly
divided between Separatists and Strangers. There were a total of 50 men, 19
women, 14 young adults under 18, and 19 children. Three of the women were
pregnant.
Some six weeks behind
schedule, not an ideal time of year to be crossing the Atlantic, the voyage was
plagued by ferocious storms which delayed the ship even further. In addition, passengers
had to endure a lack of proper rations, unsanitary conditions, and long bouts
of seasickness on account of the weather. Finally, on November 19, 1620 after 66
days at sea, land was spotted. Remarkably, despite the hardships of the
crossing, there was only one death on account of illness, a male adult. Since
there was also one male birth, the Mayflower
still had 102 passengers when land was sighted.
Because of the winter
storms had blown the ship off course, the land the crew had spotted was present
day Cape Cod, Massachusetts rather than as planned, the mouth of the Hudson
River. After correcting course and heading south for several days to the
intended destination, it was decided, after very rough seas nearly shipwrecked
the Mayflower, to return to the Cape
Cod area and explore the area rather than risk continuing the journey south. As
a result, the next month and a half was spent exploring the area as the
Pilgrims (the popular term applied to all passengers) tried to decide where
they would build their settlement.
At long last, the
decision was finally made to land in a clearing at present day Plymouth,
Massachusetts even though the Crown through the Virginia Company had not given its
permission to do so. Though accounts as
to the exact date vary, the December date the Pilgrims disembarked is
frequently cited as December 21, 1620. Some five months after Thomas Rogers and
his son had set out from Holland, they finally had achieved their goal. Their
ordeal was, however, far from over.
Until such time as the
able bodied men were able to build buildings for shelter and food storage, everyone
continued to live on the ship amid horrendous conditions. Apart from those
already weakened and ill following their journey, many others subsequently fell
ill due to the cold and starvation on account of initial limited food
sources and survival skills. They also were susceptible to various diseases
they had either brought with them or contracted upon arrival. The result was a
staggering death toll. Though having managed to survive tumultuous Atlantic
crossing, 45 Pilgrims were to die that first winter of 1620/21. Ancestor Thomas
Rogers was one of those who perished.
Thomas’s death seemed
to dash any hope that family members left in Leiden would ever be able to
follow him to America and improve their lot. The 1622 poll tax shows his
family, referred to as “poor people without means” living at the rear of a
house crowded with other poor. Thomas’s death seemed to dash any hope that
those left in Leiden would be able to follow him to America. Ship passenger records,
however, indicate that son John Rogers, by then 22, was able to do so in 1828,
joining his brother in Plymouth. Despite a belief by some that John’s sisters
may also have later come to America, their and his mother’s fate is unknown
given the absence of any record for them beyond 1622.
Joseph, later marrying and having several children in
what, despite initial hardships became a thriving colony, is the patriarch of
one line of present day Rogers Mayflower descendants.
John, similarly marrying and also having many children, is the patriarch of the
other line, the one from which our family line traces its Mayflower lineage.
Although not the first Europeans to settle in America,
for many the Mayflower Pilgrims serve as the iconic origin story for the United
States. Thanks to Thomas Rogers, a direct historical connection to that story
some 400 years later serves as part of our family’s own origin story as well.
David Arntfield
January 2022
