Continued from https://conant400.blogspot.com/2019/12/a-tale-of-two-museums-how-conant-400-is.html
Roger Conant on Cape Ann
Part I: The Dorchester Company
Mary
Ellen Lepionka 12/3/2019
In 1622 some
merchants in England’s West Country, whose ships sailed from Weymouth to fish
on Newfoundland’s Grand Banks, decided to attempt a settlement on the coast of
New England. They thought if they sent a double crew, they could leave some fishermen
ashore with provisions for the winter to build a fishing station and start a
plantation to support the next season’s fishing expedition. The merchants
optimistically believed that while waiting for the fishing fleet to return in
spring, the fishermen on shore could build stages and dwellings, cure fish, make
salt, construct fish boxes and salt barrels, trap and trade with the Indians for
furs, hunt for venison, and plant crops.[1]
The Reverend
John White (1575-1648), a Puritan minister and rector of Holy Trinity Church, which
still stands in Dorchester, was captivated by this idea.[2]
He believed such a colony would be an economic boon to England. Europe’s local
fisheries had become depleted from overfishing while meeting demand for fish on
Fridays when Roman Catholics abstained from eating meat.[3]
More than that, a Puritan colony in New England would be a refuge for church
reformers as well as for colonists who wanted to escape the rigid separatism of
the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony, established in 1620. Pilgrims tended to be
anti-royalist and wanted to break away from the Church of England. They were
intolerant of Puritans, who tended to defend the monarchy and merely sought to
reform the way the state religion was being conducted.[4]
Such differences contributed ultimately
to the English Civil War (1641-1651), which had significant impacts on
England’s American colonies.
White promoted
the idea for a colony in New England among his family, friends, parishioners,
colleagues, local merchants, and Sir Walter Earle [Erle], a knight and sheriff
of Dorset and also a parishioner and friend. The merchants were represented by
Richard Bushrod—a Dorchester haberdasher and mercer interested in furs for his
hats and outerwear, and a parishioner in White’s Holy Trinity Church.[5]
In February 1622 Bushrod obtained a fishing license for the merchants from the
Council of New England and requested permission to search for a site for a
colony in New England, and in February 1623, the Council granted a patent, or
indenture, to Sir Walter Earle to that end.[6]
Unbeknownst to them, in its haste to establish a Puritan foothold in the New
World, the Council at the same time granted a duplicate patent to merchants
represented by Lord Sheffield. Sheffield promptly and without permission sold
his claim to Plymouth, however, rendering it invalid. (Governor Bradford later
complained that White’s “adventurers” had robbed him of Cape Ann because of
Sheffield’s “useless patent”.) [7]
White’s merchant associates
purchased a 50-ton fishing vessel, the Fellowship,
which sailed for New England in the summer of 1623. It arrived too late in
the season for productive fishing but left fourteen men and provisions on Cape
Ann, on the northern coast of what would later become Massachusetts Bay Colony.
They landed on a point of land at the western end of a natural harbor, today’s
Stage Fort Park on Gloucester Harbor, and set up camp there on Fishermen’s
Field, where resident Pawtucket came to fish. The 14 Englishmen sheltered in
the Indians’ wigwams. There is no record of who they were, but the event is immortalized in a bronze plaque on “Tablet
Rock”, a plutonic outcrop at the site. Meanwhile, the other
crew eventually found fish on Stellwagen Bank in Massachusetts Bay but returned
too late to their market in Seville, Spain, to get a good price for their
catch. According to White [8],
the first season ended in the red:
The first imployment
then of this new raised Stocke, was in buying a small Ship of fiftie tunnes,
which was with as much speed as might be dispatched towards New-England
vpon a Fishing Voyage: the charge of which Ship with a new sute of sayles and
other provisions to furnish her, amounted to more then three hundred pound. Now
by reason the Voyage was undertaken too late; shee came at least a moneth or
six weekes later then the rest of the Fishing-Shippes, that went for that Coast;
and by that meanes wanting Fish to make up her lading, the Master thought good
to passe into Mattachusets bay, to try whether that would yeeld him any,
which he performed, and speeding there, better then he had reason to expect:
having left his spare men behind him in the Country at Cape Ann, he
returned to a late and consequently a bad market in Spaine, and so home.
The charge of this Voyage, with provision for foureteene spare men left in the
Countrey, amounted to above eight hundred pound, with the three hundred pound
expended vpon the Shippe, mentioned before. And the whole provenue (besides the
Ship which remained to us still) amounted not to above two hundred pound; So
the expence above the returne of that voyage came to 600 li and vpwards.
With men on Cape Ann to resupply,
Earle and White then met in March 1624 in Dorchester to set up a joint-stock
company to organize and fund the venture. The “Dorchester Company Adventurers”
consisted originally of 119 investors, including five women of means, who each paid
£25 per share. Stockholders’ names and stories are on record.[9]
The Company’s fund from the sale of stock came to around £3,000. They purchased
two more vessels, the Amytie [Amity] as a supply boat and coaster, and
a 140-ton Flemish fly-boat called Zouch
Phoenix to carry colonists and cattle. Additional decks had to be added to the fly-boat’s stern to carry them,
but the Zouch Phoenix proved
unseaworthy and had to be returned to port for repairs. Ultimately it carried
16 to 18 people to Cape Ann in 1624, including both settlers from England’s
West Country and refugees from the failed Wessagusset plantation in Weymouth
(MA), picked up at Plymouth on route to Cape Ann. Wessagusset had been founded
in 1622 and abandoned in 1623 after an attack by Wampanoags.[10]
Those arriving on the Zouch Phenix would
later found Salem Village with Roger Conant, and they were:[11]
From England:
•
Thomas Gardner (Rev. White’s nephew, a farmer), wife Margaret, and sons Thomas,
George, Richard, and Joseph
•
Peter Palfrey, trader
•
John Woodbury, trader (later joined by son Humphrey)
•
John Tilley (Tylly), mariner
•
William Allen, carpenter
From Wessagusset via Plymouth:
•
John Balch, wife Agnes, and sons Benjamin and John
•
Capt. William Trask
•
William Jeffreys
Rev. John White never
saw Cape Ann, but his envisioned colony officially began upon the landing of the
Zouch Phoenix passengers in the
summer of 1624 at Half Moon Beach in Gloucester Harbor. Thomas Gardner was
assigned to manage the plantation and led the group until Roger Conant arrived in
1625. Gardner’s mother was White’s sister and one of the investors in the
Dorchester Company. John Tylly (Tilly), later killed by Indians in the Pequot
War, was assigned to manage the fishery. These settlers joined the 14 fishermen
who had overwintered, which made for 30 to 32 people—at least 22 men, 2 women,
and 6 children. White reported 32 “men”.
The people at
Fishermen’s Field managed to build a meetinghouse with oak framing timber and
roof beams brought from England in their ships’ holds.[12] The
structure would later serve as Roger Conant’s residence. Otherwise, the
colonists’ efforts were fraught with mishaps, disagreements, bad judgments,
difficult terrain, and poor soil—and the proceeds of the second fishing season
disappointed the merchant investors. The Dorchester Company barely broke even
after making up for the first season’s loss and covering unexpected
expenses—more repairs to the unseaworthy Zouch Phoenix and the hiring of extra
transport to get the second season catch to its market. Fishing in unfamiliar
New England waters, the men did not readily find the fish and came late to the
wrong port. The master mistakenly brought the fish home to Weymouth rather than
to their assigned market in Bordeaux, France. As White reports in Planter’s Plea:
The next yeare was
brought to the former Ship a Flemish Fly-boat of about 140. tunnes, which being
unfit for a Fishing Voyage, as being built meerly for burthen, and wanting
lodging for the men which shee needed for such an employment, they added unto
her another deck (which seldome proves well with Flemish buildings) by which
meanes shee was carved so high, that shee proved walt, and unable to beare any
sayle: so that before shee could passe on upon her Voyage, they were faine to
shift her first, and put her upon a better trimme, and afterwardes that proving
to little purpose to vnlade her, and take her vp and furre her. Which
notwithstanding it were performed with as much speede as might be, yet the
yeare was aboue a moneth too far spent before she could dispatch to set to Sea
againe. And when she arived in the Country, being directed by the Master of the
smaller Ship (vpon the successe of his former yeares Voyage) to fish at Cape
Anne not far from Mattachusets Bay, sped very ill, as did also the
smaller Ship that led her thither, and found little Fish, so that the greater
Ship returned with little more then a third part of her lading: and came backe
(contrary to her order by which she was consigned to Bordeaux ) directly
for England: so that the Company of Adventurers was put to
a new charge to hire a small Shippe to carrie that little quantitie of Fish
shee brought Home to Market. The charge of this Voyage with both the ships,
amounted to about two thousand two hundred pounds: whereof eight hundred pounds
and upward must be accounted for the building, and other charges about the
greater Ship. By these two Ships were left behinde in the Country about thirtie-two
men, the charges of whose wages and provision, amounted to at the least five
hundred pounds of the summe formerly mentioned. The provenue of both the
Voyages that yeare exceeded not the summe of fiue hundred pounds at the most.
The Dorchester Company
borrowed heavily to keep going, but the third fishing season also proved a
failure and threw them into debt. In 1625 they sent more people and added a third
vessel for cattle and provisions for the people at Fishermen’s Field. The
Flemish flyboat again proved unseaworthy and had to return for repairs. Because
of their lateness, the three vessels fished at Newfoundland, took too many
fish, and had to discard much of their catch. The supply ship, meanwhile,
dropped provisions at Cape Ann and subsequently had good fishing there but
found the plantation in great disarray and unprepared to help process the fish,
a portion of which rotted before it could be delivered. Upon return, the ships
could not find secure markets or get good prices for their catch. The ports and
markets were in confusion or closed because of the war with Spain. England had
declared war on Spain in 1624 in alliance with the Dutch, and in 1625 Charles I
succeeded James I as King of England, bringing that country closer to civil
war. According to White:
The third yeare 1625.
both Ships with a small Vessell of fortie tuns which carried Kine with other
prouisions, were againe set to Sea upon the same Voyage with the charge of two
thousand pounds, of which summe the Company borrowed, & became indebted for
one thousand pounds and upwards. The great Ship being commanded by a uery able
Master, hauing passed on about two hundred leagues in her Voyage, found her
selfe so leake by the Carpenters fault, (that looked not well to her Calking)
that she bare up the Helme and returned for Waymouth, & having
unladen her provisions and mended her leake, set her selfe to Sea againe;
resolving to take aduice of the Windes whether to passe on her former Voyage or
to turne into New-found-land, which she did, by reason that the time was
so far spent, that the Master and Company dispaired of doing any good in New-England:
where the Fish falls in two or three mounths sooner then at New-found-land.
There she tooke Fish good store and much more then she could lade home: the
overplus should have beene sold and deliuered to some sacke or other sent to
take it in there, if the Voyage had beene well managed. But that could not be
done by reason that the Ship before she went was not certaine where to make her
Fish; by this accident it fell out that a good quantitie of the Fish she tooke
was cast away, and some other part was brought home in another Ship. At the
returne of the Ships that yeare, Fish by reason of our warres with Spaine
falling to a very low rate; the Company endevoured to send the greater
Ship for France: but she being taken short with a contrary Winde in the
West-Country, and intelligence given in the meane time that those Markets were
over-laid, they were enforced to bring her backe againe, and to sell her Fish
at home as they might. Which they did, and with it the Fish of the smaller
Ship, the New-England Fish about ten shillings the hundred by tale or
there about; the New-found-land Fish at six shillings foure pence the
hundred, of which was well nigh eight pence the hundred charge raised vpon it
after the Ships returne: by this reason the Fish which at a Market in all
likely-hood might have yeelded well nigh two thousand pounds, amounted not with
all the Provenue of the Voyage to above eleaven hundred pounds. Vnto these
losses by Fishing were added two other no small disaduantages, the one in the
Country by our Land-Men, who being ill chosen and ill commanded, fell
into many disorders and did the Company little seruice: The other by the
fall of the price of Shipping, which was now abated to more then the one halfe,
by which meanes it came to passe, that our Ships which stood vs in little lesse
then twelue hundred pounds, were sold for foure hundred and eighty pounds.
The Dorchester Company
declared bankruptcy. Amytie and Fellowship, in two voyages, brought most
of the Dorchester Company fishermen and some settlers, who had started to die
from exposure and disease, home to England.[13]
According to their bills of lading they landed dry fish, codfish, train oil
(whale oil), quarters of oak (quarter-cut oak boards for wainscotting), and
skins of fox, raccoon, pine marten, otter, muskrat, and beaver from their trade
with the resident Pawtucket of Cape Ann:
…[T]he ‘Amytie’ and the
‘Fellowship’ two ships employed by the Dorchester company return from New
England on 1st August and the 15th September 1625. They bring with them ‘dry
fish, corfish [codfish], train oil [whale oil], quarters of oak [quarter cut
oak boards for wainscoting], and skins of Fox, racons [racoons] , martyn’s
[pine marten], otter, muskuatche [muskrat], and beaver’ and are unloaded by
Richard Bushrod and William Derby.
Even after the sale if
its three ships and their cargoes, however, the Dorchester Company remained
deeply in debt and in a quandary over how to protect its assets at Fishermen’s
Field as well as the colonists who had elected to remain on Cape Ann. This is
the context in which Roger Conant became involved in events leading to the
establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
[1] Gray, Todd. 2012. Cape Ann Fishermen, the Pilgrims and England
in 1623 (Talk given at the Cape Ann Museum, November 17, 2012).
[2] Ackerman, Arthur W., June 1, 2007, Reverend John White of Dorchester,
England, Dorchester Atheneum: http://www.dorchesteratheneum.org/page.php?id=917;
Rose-Troup, Frances, 1930, John White: The Patriarch of Dorchester (Dorset)
and the Founder of Massachusetts, 1575–1648 (New York: G. P. Putnam's
Sons), and 1930, The Massachusetts Bay Company and Its Predecessors (New
York: Grafton).
[3] Gray, Todd. 2012. Cape Ann Fishermen, the Pilgrims and England
in 1623 (Talk given at the Cape Ann Museum, November 17, 2012). See also Fisheries
in New England and in the Merrimack River, Early. Essex Institute Historical Collections 1: 73, 32: 196, and Fisheries of Gloucester, The, from the first
catch by the English, in 1623, to the centennial year 1876. 1876.
Gloucester, Mass: Proctor Brothers.
[4] Doyle, John Andrew, 1889, The
English Colonies in America: Vol. 2 The Puritan Colonies (New York: H. Holt
& Company); Records of the Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England. From 1628
to 1641, in Volume I of the
archives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1850): http://archive.org/details/recordsofcompany00mass. Francis
Bremer, The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards (1996);
and Bremer and Webster, eds., Puritans
and Puritanism in Europe and America: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia (2006).
Haven, Samuel F.
1869, History of grants under the Great
Council of New England. Massachusetts Historical Society, Lowell Institute
(Boston: Press of John Wilson and Son):
https://archive.org/details/historygrantsun00instgoog.
[7] Haven, Samuel F.
1869, History of grants under the Great
Council of New England. Massachusetts Historical Society, Lowell Institute
(Boston: Press of John Wilson and Son): https://archive.org/details/historygrantsun00instgoog. See the Sheffield Patent of 1623 at https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.03300100/. Thornton’s discussion of its provisions
is on pages 31-37 of his 1854 history, The
Landing at Cape Ann: or, The charter of the first permanent colony on the
territory of the Massachusetts Company. John Babson’s retelling of
Bradford’s “useless patent” begins on p. 34 of his History of the Town of Gloucester, Cape Ann, Including the Town of
Rockport, 1860 (350th Anniversary Edition, 1972). Primary
sources include Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation, Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 11,
Series 4: 1-89 (1856, the unabridged Fulham manuscript with letters). See also Governor William Bradford’s Letter Book.
Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, Boston (1906).
[8] White, Rev. John,
1630, The Planter’s Plea (London:
William Jones); also: John White’s
Planter’s Plea, 1630, printed in facsimile with an introduction by Marshall H.
Saville, The Sandy Bay Historical Society Publications Volume I (Rockport,
MA, 1930).
[10] Adams, Jr., Charles Francis. 1905, Wessagusset
and Weymouth, Vol.
3, Weymouth Historical Society. Stewart, Marcia, ed. 1662. Phineas Pratt’s Account of Wessagusset Plantation. Boston, MA: The
Winthrop Society: http://www.winthropsociety.com/doc_pratt.php.
Pratt, Phineas. 1662. A declaration of the affairs of the English people
that first inhabited New England (about Wessagusset), in The Narrative of Phineas Pratt, The Pilgrim Hall Museum:
[11] Emigrant Ships Departing Weymouth: http://www.weymouth-dorset.co.uk/ships.html.
See also: Hubbard, William.
1815. A General history of New England:
from the discovery to 1680. Volume 5 of Collections of the Massachusetts
Historical Society. Boston, MA: Hilliard & Metcalf. See also Volume 1 of
Alexander Young’s 1846 Chronicles of the
First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, 1623-1636, and Thornton,
John Wingate. 1854. The Landing at Cape
Ann: or, The charter of the first permanent colony on the territory of the Massachusetts
Company. New York: Gould and Lincoln.
[12] Adams, Herbert B.
The Fisher Plantation of Cape Anne, 1882. Part I of The Village Communities of Cape Ann and Salem, Historical Collections of the Essex Institute: 19. (Salem, MA).
Webber, Carl and Winfield
S. Nevins. 1877. Also Gardner, Frank A. 1907. Thomas Gardner, planter (Cape Ann, 1623-1626; Salem, 1626-1674)
Essex Institute, Salem, MA.
