Henry Sampson and The First Comers
Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall, 1882
The “First Comers,” sometimes called “the Old Comers,” were the first English settlers who arrived on the first four ships coming to Plymouth, Massachusetts – the Mayflower which landed at Plymouth November 11, 1620 with 102 people; the Fortune on November 9, 1621 with about three dozen passengers; and the Anne and the Little James, both in June or July1623. (Although they came to be known as “the Pilgrims,” that term was not used until two centuries later, in the early 1800’s. )
In early 2019, I determined that likely 14 individuals on the Mayflower are Bissell ancestors. Those dozen passengers include Henry Samson and his young cousin Humility Cooper; Mary Chilton and her parents, James Chilton and Mrs. Chilton; Thomas Rogers and his son Joseph; Elizabeth Tilley and her parents John and Joan; Elizabeth's aunt and uncle, Edward and Agnes Cooper Tilley; John Howland; and Francis Cooke. I am presently in the process of confirming the genealogical records from the Bissell family going back to those ancestors, including confirming those records with established and approved genealogical lineages from the General Society of Mayflower Descendants.
I hope in the near future to be able to post the approved lineage records along with the additional birth, marriage and death records that establish the Bissell family connections to these Mayflower passengers.
Links to Ancestor Stories Below
Among these First Comers were a half dozen direct ancestors of Richard Meredith Bissell and his descendants. Besides the 16-year old Henry Sampson on the Mayflower, these ancestors included William Bassett and his wife Elizabeth Bassett, John Adams and Ellen Newton (later married to each other) and Francis Sprague and his family. Of the 102 people on the Mayflower, half of those first 102 colonists died in the first winter, 1620-21. (The material in this piece is from a variety of sources, mostly on the Internet, including the Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Mass. and other websites.)
(From https://www.themayflowersociety.com/about-the-pilgrims20/pilgrim-history website:) The Pilgrims were a group of English people who came to America seeking religious freedom during the reign of King James I. After two attempts to leave England and move to Holland, a Separatist group was finally relocated to Amsterdam where they stayed for about one year. From there the group moved to the town of Leiden, Holland, where they remained for about ten years, able to worship as they wished under lenient Dutch law.
Fearing their children were losing their English heritage and religious beliefs, the resumption of war and their inability as non-citizens to find decent jobs, a small group from the Leiden church made plans to settle in Northern Virginia - as New England was known at the time. In August 1620 the group sailed for Southampton, England, where other English colonists who hoped to make a new life in America met them.
They planned to make the crossing to America in two ships, the Speedwell and Mayflower. However, after many problems the Speedwell was forced to return to England where the group was reorganized. In their second attempt to cross the Atlantic, they boarded the Mayflower in September 1620 bound for the New World. They arrived as winter was settling in and endured significant hardships as they struggled to establish a successful colony at Plymouth. In time their colony flourished and led the way to establishing religious freedom and creating the foundations of the democracy Americans enjoy today.
Numbering a total of 189 men, women and children, these First Comers from the first four ships built Plymouth village and a few years later led the way in settling many of the first towns in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Following that first hard winter and many months well into the autumn of1621, the supplies that arrived on the Fortune in November 1621 were apportioned out to the settlers at half allowance, to help them survive the coming second winter in Plymouth. (This last bit of information was from William Bradford’s history Of Plimoth Plantation.)
Painting by Dr. Michael Haywood, used here with his permission. As William Bradford later described the crossing, “After they had enjoyed fair winds and weather for a season, they were encountered many times with cross winds, and met with many fierce storms, which the ship shroudly shaken, and her upper works made very leaky; and one of the main beams in the mid ships was bowed and cracked, which put them in some fear that the ship could not be able to perform the voyage. Dr. Haywood has done many different marine paintings, including a large collection about the Mayflower, as well as Virginia's first settlers, the U.S.S. Constitution and others. His art is online at http://www.mikehaywoodart.co.uk/mayflower.html
Henry Sampson and The Mayflower
The Mayflower left Plymouth, England on September 6, 1620, and anchored off the tip of Cape Cod on November 11. During those two months crossing the Atlantic Ocean to America, many things happened on the Mayflower.
After they had sailed more than half way to America, the Mayflower began to encounter a number of bad storms, which began to make the ship very leaky, causing many of the passengers below deck to be continually cold and damp. During one of the storms, a main beam in the middle of the ship cracked, causing some of the passengers and crew to wonder if the ship was strong enough to make all the way to America. But Master Christopher Jones felt his ship was strong, and so they fixed the main beam with a large screw, caulked the leaky decks as best they could, and continued on.
Henry Sampson, a passenger on that ship and the Bissell 3G generation’s ninth great-grandfather, was baptized on January 15/25, 1604 in Henlow, Bedfordshire, England. He was the son of James and Martha Cooper Sampson. He came to Plymouth on the Mayflower as a 16-year-old without his parents but with his Aunt and Uncle, Edward Tilley and Ann Cooper Tilley. Ann was Martha's sister. Ann and Martha's brother Robert Cooper had a young child, Humility Cooper, who also made the trip on the Mayflower with her Aunt Ann and Uncle Edward. Humility later returned to England. Edward Tilley's older brother John is documented as a member of the Leiden English Separatist congregation and was also on the Mayflower. There is some reason, therefore, for believing that Edward Tilley and his family, including their wards Henry and Humility, were also members of that congregation.
(This information is from http://www.mayflowerhistory.com/History/voyage5.php. Printouts and hardcopies of MayflowerHistory.com pages may be created and distributed, if and only if ALL the following three requirements are met: (1) The distribution is non-commercial; (2) the distribution is free of charge to the recipients; and (3) the printed pages retain the MayflowerHistory.com copyright that is found at the bottom of each page.)
This is the current Plimouth Plantation Museum in Plymouth, Mass.
Many of the settlers on the Mayflower and the other early ships to Massachusetts were religious reformers, hoping to amend the Anglican Church or, for some, to separate completely. Many were members of a Puritan sect known as Separatists. They believed that membership in the Church of England violated the biblical precepts for true Christians, and that they had to break away and form independent congregations which were truer to divine requirements. At a time in England when Church and State were one, such an act was treasonous and the Separatists had to flee their mother country, some to Leiden, Holland. Other Pilgrims remained loyal to the national Church but came to America because of economic opportunity and a sympathy with Puritanism as well. They all shared a fervent and pervasive Protestant faith that touched all areas in their life.
A number had been forced to leave England as a result of their belief in religious reform and as noted had settled and formed a congregation in Leiden, Holland. One of the leaders of the separatist movement was Elder William Brewster (also to sail on the Mayflower) who was from the town of Scrooby, England. Brewster’s mentor in England lost favor with Queen Elizabeth and Brewster himself was prosecuted by Queen Elizabeth’s court for dissent. He went to Holland and even in Leiden was pursued by the agents of King James of England, who sought to prosecute him for publication of religious reform publications. But some of these first comers were not pure Puritans, see more about the “strangers” among the “saints” below, regarding Bissell ancestor Frances Sprague.
On Monday, the 11th of December, they went ashore in Plymouth where they found cleared fields and plenty of fresh running water. It was at this time that the famous landing on Plymouth Rock was presumed to have occurred, although there is no record of it in the original accounts. The explorers then returned to the Mayflower to say that they had, at last, found a suitable place to build their new community. The Mayflower arrived in Plymouth harbor on December 16, 1620, and construction on the settlement began on the 23rd. Information in this paragraph and the following come from the Plimouth Plantation website.
Meanwhile, Henry Sampson’s aunt and uncle, the Tilleys, died in Plymouth early in that first winter. We do not know in whose household Henry lived after his aunt and uncle died but in the 1627 “Division of Cattle” (an economic event in the Plymouth colony that is written in the records of that time), he is listed among the family members of Elder Brewster. Brewster was the elder religious leader of the Plymouth colony. As to Henry Sampson's genealogy, his father was James, born 20 Jun 1574 in Campton, Bedfordshire, England. James married Martha Cooper 20 May 1599 in Henlow. Martha had been born 15 Mar 1578 in Henlow, the daughter of Edmund Cooper and Mary Wyne.
Henry became a freeman of Plymouth in 1637 and later moved to help found Duxbury, Mass. where in 1635/6, at age 32, he married Ann Plummer, daughter of Benjamin Plummer and Mary Thomas, on February 16, 1636. Regarding Ann’s parents, Benjamin Rawley Plummer had been born about 1590 in England. Benjamin married Mary Wood Thomas (b. about 1595) about 1613 in England. Henry and Ann’s 9 children were Stephen, John, Elizabeth (Elizabeth is the Bissell 8th Great-grandmother), James, Hannah, an unnamed daughter, Mary, Dorcas and Caleb. (Caleb married Mercy Standish, Miles Standish's daughter.)
Henry was a farmer with land in Duxbury. He served on a large number of juries in the 1640s, 50s and 60s, which allowed him to interact with some of Plymouth Colony's leading citizens. He also served on several committees charged with verifying land boundaries. Henry died January 3, 1685 at Duxbury having almost reached the age of 81. His wife, Ann, predeceased him.
William and Elizabeth Bassett
"... a gunsmith and worker in metals by trade."
The Mayflower and the Godspeed left Leiden and then England in 1620. They both had to turn back because the https://www.themayflowersociety.com/about-the-pilgrims20/pilgrim-history was leaking. The Mayflower completed the trip in November1620. The passengers who had been on the Godspeed then shipped out on the Fortune in 1621 and arrived in Plymouth in the fall of 1621. After settling in and helping establish Plymouth, the Bassetts moved to Duxbury to participate in its founding in 1637 and later to help found Bridgewater by 1656. They are the 11th great-grandparents of the “3G” Bissell generation (the grandchildren of Richard and Adelaide Bissell).
William and Elizabeth had seven children: Jane, William, Elizabeth, Nathaniel, Joseph, Sarah (born 1630) and Ruth, born about 1633. Ruth Bassett married John Sprague, Sr. (the son of 11th great-grandparents Francis and Anna Sprague) and Ruth is the direct ancestor link to the Bassett family, through Mercy Ann Searles. A bit of interesting colonial history is that Ruth's sister Sarah, born in Plymouth about 1630 and a 10th "great aunt," married Peregrine White in December 1646. Peregrine was the son of William White and Susanna Fuller who came on the Mayflower and he is considered the first Pilgrim born in the New World, born aboard the Mayflower (on the journey of "peregrination") in Cape Cod Harbor between December 7 and 10, 1620, near the time of the landing at Plymouth. Peregrine would be a "great-uncle by marriage."
We don’t know a lot about the particulars of William and Elizabeth’s life in Plymouth except that William was a gunsmith and worker in metals by trade and apparently also a mason. He was apparently a relatively large landowner in early Plymouth, the fifth-highest taxpayer in Plymouth in 1633. Historical records suggest he had a large library of books. William was also a volunteer in the Pequod War in 1637 (described briefly elsewhere on this web page). He was one of the people who helped lay out the town of Duxbury.
From the Miner family website, http://minerdescent.com/2012/02/21/william-bassett/, William Basset, of the Leiden Separatists, arrived in 1621 on the Fortune. (According to Banks, From Bethnal Green, Stephney, Middlesex [now a district of the East End of London], bound for Plymouth.)In Leiden records, he is shown as a master mason, from Sandwich, Kent. He received three lots (two acres in total) of land beyond the fort to the wood west in the 1623 Plymouth land division. William, his wife Elizabeth and his children, William and Elizabeth, were in lot six of the 22 May 1627 Plymouth cattle division. He married Mary Tilden 5 Jun 1651 in Plymouth, Mass. William died 4 Apr 1667 in Bridgewater, Plymouth, Mass.
In 1630, some of the Puritans (more numerous and somewhat less radical than some of the first settlers in Plymouth) settled not far to the north of Plymouth Plantation, in Duxbury. The Puritans considered themselves part of the Church of England and acted so as not to seem too radical or separatist, for fear of the English authorities who had persecuted the separatists in England.
John Adams and Ellen Newton
"...this goeth in with a corner by ye pond."
Also arriving in Plymouth in 1621 on the Fortune was John Adams, probably born in England. (Note that this John Adams is not known to be an ancestor of the Adams family that had several U.S. Presidents.) He was granted one acre of land in the 1623 “division of land” that took place among the residents of Plymouth. And two years later, arriving on the Anne in the summer of1623, Ellen Newton was also granted one acre of land in the 1623 land division, hers being described as “this goeth in with a corner by ye pond.” [Note to self: check the records at Plymouth Plantation someday to see where "a corner by ye pond" actually was...].
Ellen (sometimes referred to in the records as “Eliner” or "Helen") and John were married, probably in Plymouth, sometime between 1625 and 1627. They had three children, James, John and Susan. John and Ellen Adams were the 8th great-grandparents of the 3G generation of Bissells, entering into the family DNA through their son John and down several generations to Tirzah Pierce (who married Solomon Bissell), in Chesterfield, Mass.
In May 1627, a meeting of the entire Plymouth community was held to divide the cows and sheep among small groups, with 13 people in each group. A few years later, John Adams died while his children were very young, in the late summer or fall of 1633. His estate was valued at 71 pounds and included principally ¾ of a cow, 6 pigs, 28 bushels of corn, a few pieces of furniture, some linens and a few pots and pans. Ellen remarried the next year in Plymouth to Kenelm Winslow and had four more children. Upon her remarriage, because John had died without a will, Ellen was required to pay five pounds to each of her children from her marriage with John Adams at such time as “they shall come to yeares of discretion.” Ellen died in 1681 and was buried in Marshfield, Mass.
John Adams, (the son of John Adams and Ellen Newton) born sometime after 1627, married a woman named Jane James. Jane was born about 1634 probably in Hingham, Mass., and married John on 27 December 1654 in Marshfield. John and Jane had three girls, Mary born 1656, Martha in 1658 and Rebecca in 1661. Martha married Captain Benjamin Pierce in 1678 in Scituate (born about 1657 probably in Hingham, his parents were Michael Pierce and Persis Eames). Their 10 children included Benjamin Pierce born 11 March 1683 in Scituate. His descendants eventually included Tirzah Pierce, who married Solomon Bissell in 1808.
Click Here to connect to the Family Tree chart for John Adams and Ellen Newton.
Francis Sprague and his family
The ancestor family that celebrated the first Thanksgiving
Another set of Bissell ancestors who were First Comers were Francis Sprague and his family, who also arrived in Plymouth in 1623 on the Anne. Sprague arrived with an “Anna” (his relationship to this Anna, possibly a wife or another daughter, is not known for sure) and his daughter Mercy. The Anne sailed from London, England, and arrived at Plymouth in June or July, 1623. Sprague and his family eventually settled in Duxbury when it was founded several years later. The histories of Plymouth tell us that in the autumn of 1623, Sprague shared in the division of lands with those who came in the Anne (he received three shares of land). In 1627, at the division of cattle, he gives the names of his children as Ann and Mary.
One Sprague family genealogist, Susan Bates, has surmised on the family website that while records don’t exist to tell the story, “the reasons for Francis Sprague and his family leaving Europe for a perilous life in the wilderness were not purely religious, as were those of many of the others who had chosen to become part of the colonial endeavor in New England. This is made evident by a number of subsequent factors. One indication is the fact that Francis Sprague, rather than having been designated as one of the “Saints” or true Puritans by George F. Wilson in his book SAINTS AND STRANGERS, published in1945 by Reynal and Hitchcock, New York, was instead designated as having been among the so-called "Strangers."
These "Strangers" were those who were part of the colony but who did not strictly adhere to the Puritan religious principles. Even though Sprague had immigrated and settled with the Puritan or Pilgrim company at Plymouth Colony, Soule's descriptive narrative of him in Sprague Memorial makes the following notation regarding him:
“It appears that grave and sober though he was, he did not wholly escape the displeasure of the scrupulous magistrates of those days. The Court records disclose the fact that he was several times brought before them for what they considered departures from the strict line of duty. A fair interpretation, however, of the evidence, drawn from the Old Colony Records, warrants the conclusion that Francis (Sprague) was a person of ardent temperament and of great independence of mind; in short, that his sympathies with the principles of the Puritan Fathers did not go to the length of Passive acquiescence in all the enactments of their civil code. We know that he was the head of a most honorable and respected family of descendants."
The First Thanksgiving
While there are a number of different explanations for when the first Thanksgiving might have occurred, the Sprague family history provides that in the late summer of 1623, Francis Sprague and his family participated in a harvest feast that also turned into a celebration of the marriage of Governor William Bradford to Alice Southworth. Governor William Bradford decreed that a three-day feast be held.
The First Thanksgiving, reproduction of an oil painting by J.L.G. Ferris, early 20th century.
A Thanksgiving Day set aside for the special purpose of prayer as well as celebration was decreed by Governor Bradford for July 30, 1623. This feast, which was attended by the local Indian chief Massasoit and 120 of his people, was the occasion that has since become noted as the first Thanksgiving although there were several claims as to what was the first such day.
Sometime around May or June of 1627 Francis Sprague obtained a number of head of cattle in the division of livestock among the colonists noted earlier. In July of that same year, he also entered into an agreement with Governor Bradford regarding the fur trade. Colonial records suggest that on 2 January 1632 Francis Sprague was taxed 18 shillings on his land and holdings at Plymouth. Shortly after this, apparently seeking larger and more fertile fields, he and his family moved a littler to the northeast to what was then known as the "Duxburrow Side" of the bay just north of Plymouth Colony. This area was first set aside in 1632 and incorporated as Duxbury in 1637. At Duxburrow, the Spragues settled on a grant of land adjoining that of Elder William Brewster, not far from the town meeting house. This land, near what was known as the "Nook," lay along a bay with good meadows, salt marshes and a creek that is still known as Sprague's Creek. On 17 June 1637 Francis Sprague was admitted as a Freeman of the Massachusetts Colony.
In 1632, he had been licensed to sell liquor. The state of Connecticut website about the Ephraim Sprague house says that Francis Sprague had operated a tavern in England before coming to Plymouth. It appears that this 1632 license may have been the first liquor license granted in the New England colonies. Yes, Great-Grandpa Sprague ran the first tavern in colonial New England. In 1637 he was licensed as an inn holder there, and continued there at least until 1666. His license was suspended in 1638 for his "...drinking overmuch and tolerating too much jollity" and he was admonished for purposely and knowingly serving guests beyond the legal limit. The license, however, was renewed in 1640, according to Saints and Sinners, pages 235 and 321.
Edward Percy Moran (American artist, 1862-1935) Pilgrim's Landing (early 1900s), oil on canvas, 23" x 29". Pilgrim Hall Museum, Plymouth, Mass.
Speculation on one current website suggests that, “According to William Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation (circa 1650), running out of beer — read “a safe liquid” — aboard the Mayflower on Nov. 19, 1620, was the compelling reason for landing at Massachusetts colony instead of sailing on to their original Virginia colony destination. Ship’s beer served as a daily nutrient as well as the only available potable beverage for everyone. When none was left, the Mayflower’s captain had to share his private stock to keep his crew alive until new beer could be brewed after landing. Many passengers died after drinking contaminated water. Responsible use of beverages is as worthy a consideration now as it was in 1620.”
This picture of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth and this paragraph explaining that they did so because they needed to brew beer is from nuvo.net. Nuvo is an alternative weekly newspaper serving the Indianapolis, Indiana metropolitan area.
Sometime around this same period of time Francis Sprague also became a member of the Duxbury Militia under the leadership of Captain Myles Standish. (Bissell ancestor John Howard (sometimes spelled Haward) came to Duxbury at age 15 around this same time and lived with the family of Myles Standish.) In 1640 Sprague obtained more land near Duxbury, along the North River. In 1645 Sprague became one of the original proprietors of Bridgewater, Massachusetts (although he never resided there permanently).
He also co-purchased, with the Earle family, a large amount of land at the present site of Dartmouth (in what is presently Rhode Island), apparently as the first stage toward the establishment of a settlement there. The site was subsequently settled in 1650 and became incorporated as the town of Dartmouth in 1664. In 1648 and again in 1657 he served as Surveyor of Highways for the area and in 1649 he served as Constable of Duxbury. On 2 Aug 1642, Francis was charged with selling a fowling piece to an Indian.
In1669 Sprague's son John entered into co-proprietorship of the family tavern. John, as noted below, died in 1676 in King Philip’s War in the Indian massacre on the Blackstone River in what is now Cumberland, Rhode Island, led by another Bissell ancestor, Michael Pierce. Francis Sprague is reported to also have died in 1676, sometime after March and after the death of his son John. He was one of the 10 wealthiest men in New England at the time of his death. Following the deaths of Francis and John in 1676, the inn was owned and operated by John Sprague's son William. Francis’ son John Sprague was born in Plymouth and married Ruth Basset, daughter of William Basset. John and Ruth had a son John who was Constable of Duxbury in 1692 and eventually this son John moved in about 1705 to several hundred acres of land in what became Lebanon, CT. Francis’s grandson John, with his wife Lydia, had seven children, including Capt. Ephraim Sprague (b. 1684/5), who as an adult moved to Lebanon with his parents and brother Benjamin.