by
Stacy B. C. Wood, Jr.
Reprinted from the Spring 2005 "JR Pennsylvania
Mayflower" newsletter of the Society of Mayflower
Descendants in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
At
Compact Day and Thanksgiving Day celebrations when we
are asked to stand as the names of our Pilgrim ancestors
are read from the list of Compact signers, Henry Samson
is often omitted. Have you been one of the ones not
invited to "rise to the occasion" and honor your Pilgrim?
Why do he, Richard More, and others get left out?
The
probable answer: Neither Henry Samson nor Richard More
signed the 1620 "Mayflower Compact." They were both
too young. Henry was then a teenager of the age of sixteen.
Governor William Bradford, in his list of the passengers,
states that "Henery" was one of two children who accompanied
Edward and Anne Tilley, the other child being the baby
girl Humility Cooper. Bradford further states that Samson
was a cousin of the Tilleys. There is evidence that
Edward Tilley, his wife Anne (now believed to be "Agnes"),
and Humility Cooper had lived in Leiden, and it is probable
that Henry Samson was there too. There is no known "census"
listing all the English Separatists who settled in Leiden.
As the Tilleys had no children of their own, he was
probably asked to accompany them to help them and later
have his own land.
At
the time of our State Society's 100th Anniversary celebration
in 1996, only 25 of our approximately 2250 members had
proven descent from Henry Samson. Of course, there may
have been member descendants who had joined and chosen
to use a more famous Pilgrim. Currently only four members
of the Pennsylvania Society of Mayflower Descendants
have used Henry as their primary Pilgrim ancestor. Thirteen
other members have supplemental memberships based on
descent from him. Others may also be able to claim descent
and not chosen to prove it.
Henry,
a son of James and Martha (Cooper) Samson (also spelled
Sampson), was baptized in January 1603/4* in St. Mary's
Church, Henlow, Bedfordshire, England. Henlow was also
the hometown of the Pilgrim brothers Edward and John
Tilley. Henry was fortunate to survive the first winter
of 1620-1621 when half of the Pilgrims, including Edward
and Anne Tilley, died. He is one of the twenty-six male
Mayflower passengers for whom there are living descendants.
Except for appearing in the "increasings" list written
in 1651 by the Governor, he does not appear elsewhere
in Bradford's history, Of Plimoth Plantation.
Two other major sources of the early history of the
Plymouth Colony, Mourt's Relation published
in 1622 and Edward Winslow's 1624 Good Newes from
New England, also fail to mention him. His earliest
mention is in the Plymouth Colony Records where it states
that in the division of land in 1623, having been a
passenger on the Mayflower, he was granted an acre on
the south side of First (Shaw's) Brook. The brook ran
from west to east from where Cushman Street now ends
at Court Street, down to Plymouth Harbor.
In
1626, at age 22, he became one of fifty-eight "Purchasers."
The Purchasers were members of the Colony who bought
out the interests of the "Adventurers" or entrepreneurs
who had originally provided the financing for the Colony.
As a Purchaser, Henry, at the age of about 22, became
one of a privileged group when it came to future individual
land grants.
On
6 February 1635/6, now 31 years old, he married Anne
Plummer. We do not know when Anne Plummer arrived in
the Colony. There was no Plummer family in the Colony
at this time so she and an assumed cousin of about the
same age, Mary Plummer, probably arrived with another
family. In 1651 Governor Bradford summarized what had
happened to the passengers in his "increasings" section
of his Plantation history: "But the youth Henry Sampson
is still living and is married and hath seven children."
We know now that two more were born after that. They
had four sons (Stephen, John, James, and Caleb) and
five daughters (Elizabeth, Hannah, Mary, Dorcas, and
one whose name has been forgotten). If you are a descendant
of Henry, do you know which child is your ancestor?
Henry acquired a large amount of land in Plymouth. In
October 1647 he purchased one third of a lot in Duxbury
to the north of Plymouth that had previously belonged
to another Pilgrim, Peter Brown. Other Pilgrims who
moved to Duxbury were John Alden and Captain Myles Standish.
There he served as constable, tax collector, and surveyor.
Apparently
knowing that he would not live much longer, he made
his will in December 1684. By 5 March of the next year
he was dead. An inventory of his estate shows a value
of 106 pounds and 14 shillings, of which 70 pounds was
land. Among his possessions were a number of books.
Unlike
many of the Pilgrims, there seem to be no statues, historic
houses, personal artifacts, plaques, known gravesite,
Pilgrim Henry Samson Society, or other memorials for
Henry Samson. There is a short "Sampson St." in Duxbury.
This may, however, be named for Abraham, a possible
cousin, who also lived in Duxbury.
A
number of his descendants served in the American Revolution,
however the famous Deborah Samson was not one of them.
This particular soldier who dressed as a man and was
able to hide her secret for three years, was a descendant
of Governor William Bradford and Captain Myles Standish.
Among today's notable living descendants of Henry are
President George W. Bush and former "First Lady" Barbara
(Pierce) Bush.
·
*In the past two issues we explained "double dating"
and "Old Style - New Style" dating.
·
Sources: The Pilgrim Migration by Robert Charles Anderson,
Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2004;
Plymouth Colony by Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Salt Lake
City: Ancestry Inc., 1986; Family of Henry Samson, Plymouth,
MA: GSMD Vol. 20-1, 2000; The Pilgrims & Plymouth Colony
1620: sites.rootsweb.com/~mosmd;
Peggy M. Baker, James Baker, Caroline L. Kardell and
Jeremy D. Bangs, PhD correspondence. |