A few observations on this interesting new book - I have not read it but since statements were made on this list, I would like to comment (below with **). >All of Richard's siblings died in the crossing; he alone >survived to become one of the original Plymouth settlers. **I notice this statement is corrected in the book exerpt online but thought it should be corrected here as well - Richard's brother Jasper and sisters Ellen and Mary died during the sickness the first winter, not during the voyage. > Richard was not counted among the Separatists, as the >Pilgrims were then called, but among the so-called >Strangers, a secular crowd that had signed up for >passage at the last minute. That her entered the scene >under a cloud of scandal made him a stranger even >among the Strangers. That his assigned guardian was >William Brewster, nominal head of the Separatists, >rendered his dislocation complete. **I don't believe that Bradford, when he wrote his "Increasings & Decreasings", specified which passengers were "Saints" and which were "Strangers". The four children were put with the families of Brewster, Carver and Winslow - all three are known to have been a part of the Leyden congregation, therefore considered "Saints". It should also be noted that it is not known with certainty if the Pilgrims knew the history of the More children - Bradford certainly never hinted at it in his writings. (Carver and Cushman made the arrangements with Samuel More - even if they did know the story, would it have been made common knowledge?) Therefore, did these More children board the Mayflower in a "cloud of scandal" as stated, or is this a presumption? I find it interesting that the children were placed with good families and that each were regarded as shareholders. Their legal father, Samuel More paid 80 pounds (a double share per child) with an additional 20 pounds paid, therefore the childrens' passage was paid. At the end of 7 years, each child would receive 50 acres of land. In fact, Richard was included with the "Ancient Freemen" when he received a land grant in 1660 at Rochester and later at Swansea. >Richard's second born, Samuel, went as far as highway >robbery. **According to MF 15:155, Samuel2 More (bpt. 1642) was living in 1650 but nothing further is known about him after this date and he is not carried further. This is the case with two other sons as well, Thomas & Joshua. Has new research uncovered these children? Wonderful if this is the case, however I haven't heard of any. > The appointment of Andros as governor of New >England brought multiple hardships upon the Mores.... >And when it went looking for scapegoats, it found >Richard guilty of adultery. As punishment, this old >survivor of the Ancient Beginning had to wear the >infamous "A" on his chest. Knowing all too well of the >captain's wandering eye, the Salem church had little >choice but to follow suit and excommunicate him. The >following year, Boston rose up against the Andros >government, and not coincidentally, Richard was able to >regain his place in the Salem church **According to the records of the First Church in Salem, More had for some time been under suspicion for "lasciviousness" but all the Elders could do was talk to him because they had no direct proof of wrong doing. In 1688 this changed and he was convicted by three witnesses "of gross unchastity with another mans wife". In 1691 he repented and was forgiven by the church. I hadn't before heard of the Andros involvement (or the infamous letter "A"), however since the Andros government fell in 1689, I fail to see how it was a coincidence that More was reinstated in the church - as this occurred two years later in 1691. One last comment - Richard More was not a bastard and I would hazard a guess that his descendants might take exception to describing him as such. His legal father might not have recognized him as his son, but Richard was born to a legally married couple and I have never seen the More children referred to as "bastards" in the many legal documents cited in the article below. In fact, the article below states, "Any child conceived while the mother's husband was in England was considered in law to be legitimate (i.e., the husband's child)". An excellent 3 part article was written about the legal actions between Samuel & Katherine More and the fate of the children by Donald F. Harris of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England in the 1993 and 1994 issues of The Mayflower Descendant. Susan E. Roser, Governor & Historian Canadian Society of Mayflower Descendants www.rootsweb.com/~canms/canada.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sigalit Trichter" <strichter@idealog.com> To: <MAYFLOWER-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002 2:48 PM Subject: [MFLR] Mayflower Bastard - The Story of Richard More > Hello everyone, > > I'm writing from David Lindsay's (descendant of Richard More) literary agency to help spread the word about his new book, 'Mayflower Bastard: A Stranger Among the Pilgrims', which Caleb Johnson, author of The Mayflower Web Pages, says is, "thoroughly enjoyable, one of the best Mayflower passenger biographies to come out in a long time." > > Richard More was born in England, the product of an adulterous affair between his mother and a local rake. When he was six years old, his mother's lawful husband could no longer bear the disgrace of his four children having a very strong resemblance to this unsavory local character. As a solution, he shipped the children to the colonies on the Mayflower. All of Richard's siblings died in the crossing; he alone survived to become one of the original Plymouth settlers. > > Richard was raised through young adulthood as a foster child in the home of William Brewster. He then apprenticed himself as a shipboy to Isaac Allerton for the next seven years, and spent the rest of his life as a mariner and ship captain. In 1637 Richard married and left Plymouth for Salem, where he raised his family. He was also married to another woman in England, and spent his life in constant fear of having his bigamous marriage discovered by the Salem community. Richard survived to see his friends and neighbors getting arrested on charges of witchcraft during the famous Salem Witch Trials and died shortly thereafter. > > More information about the book, the author, and an excerpt can be found on the book's web site at http://www.idealog.com/books/mayflowerbastard.html > > If you post any questions about the book or Richard More to this list I will be happy to reply. I also look forward to any thoughts, reactions, comments, etc. you may have. > > > > Hope you enjoy the reading, > > > > -Sigalit. > > > > The following are introductory remarks by the author which are not in the book and were written exclusively for online readers: > > > > MAYFLOWER BASTARD: ONLINE INTRODUCTION, by David Lindsay > > > > > > As the 1600s drew to a close, Captain More was a common sight around Salem: grizzled gray beard, knife thrust into his belt, the loping gait of a man more accustomed to a deck than a floor. A veteran of the Ancient Beginning, he had seen New England grow from a single tenuous village into a sprawl of thriving colonies - seen indeed the whole span of the Atlantic coast, once solely the province of Indians, grow thick with English settlements. > > > > What did this old man know? What had he learned in his many travels? If we could talk to him today, what yarns would he tell? > > > > Certainly they would not include the standard story of the Thanksgiving dinner we know from textbooks. Like many since, More was drawn into the American dream before he knew what it meant or where it might lead. In so doing, he managed to be present for many of the high points of the 17th Century. From Mayflower passage to Salem witch trials, he was witness to the first stirrings of a nation. Yet because of his ignoble origins, he often found himself cast in the role of the outsider. And in cultivating his beginnings into a secret life of his own, he ultimately came to embody a conflict at the heart of the Puritan experiment. > > > > Born into Shropshire gentry, Richard no doubt would have assumed a life of ease had his legal father, Samuel More, not discovered that his wife, Katharine, was begetting her children by a local laborer named Jacob Blakeway. The Mores had been wed by arranged marriage, already an arcane practice by the early 1600s, and as time went by, there were fewer and fewer reasons to keep their union intact. Katharine continued to meet with Jacob while her husband was off in London, seeking advancement in the court of King James I. When at last Samuel inherited their combined estates, he waited for Katharine to give birth to her fourth child, Mary, then repudiated all four children (Richard being third in age) and put them in the charge of a tenant living on his land. Enraged, Katharine burst in and tried, unsuccessfully, to retake her children by force. > > > > Richard thus spent the remainder of his early childhood, from the ages of three to five, under the storm of marital discord. Samuel brought criminal proceedings against the lovers, which they defied as long as they could. Confronted at last with a large fine, Jacob fled, presumably never to be seen again. Samuel then filed for divorce. Katharine fought tooth and nail against him, hoping to retain either some income for herself, some chance at a normal life for her children, or both, but in the end even her appeal of the divorce ended in failure. Henceforth Katharine would be a dispossessed soul with no means of support. Worse, her children were to be shipped off to the New World, where, Samuel hoped (or claimed to hope), they might live free of the shame that family scandal had brought upon them > > > > After a few weeks, amidst much organizational disarray, Richard and his siblings were trundled aboard the Mayflower and shipped off to the west, beyond the end of the earth. > > The 1620 voyage, along with the killing winter and autumnal feast that followed, has of course been much documented. Richard's three siblings did not stand out for dying; only half the original party survived the mysterious epidemic that swept through their midst. The famous story, however, does not entirely gibe with Richard's experience. > > > > Richard was not counted among the Separatists, as the Pilgrims were then called, but among the so-called Strangers, a secular crowd that had signed up for passage at the last minute. That her entered the scene under a cloud of scandal made him a stranger even among the Strangers. That his assigned guardian was William Brewster, nominal head of the Separatists, rendered his dislocation complete. > > > > When the seven-year arrangement for Richard's guardianship came to an end, Richard went to sea, where he progressed from shipboy to deck hand and sailed the waters of the Northern Atlantic. It was during this time, no doubt, that he learned to hate the French, who were just then regaining several trading outposts on the Maine coast from Plimouth and other English groups. > > > > In 1635, Richard surfaced on a ship bound from England to Boston as "a laborer and retainer" for Richard Hollingsworth, a shipwright and fellow passenger. Before long, Richard More had struck a fancy for a young woman in Hollingsworth's care named Christian Hunter. As it turned out, their romance bloomed just as panic was sweeping Massachusetts: a sexually lax Christian sect known as the Familists appeared to be infiltrating the colonies by stealth. Richard and Christian accordingly married in Plimouth, in 1637, and lived for a time on a small parcel of land beside William Brewster's farm before moving to Salem. But in fact, Richard had picked up a thing or two from the Familists, because before long there was somebody else in his life. > > > > Exactly when and under what circumstances Richard met Elizabeth Woolnough in unknown. What is certain is that her father sailed to Virginia in the 1630s, only to be overtaken by Spanish pirates, and that he was still seeking for redress for that act on his deathbed in 1645, when Elizabeth married Richard in a mariners' church just outside London. Around them the successes of Cromwell and the Roundheads swelled the air. The Bigamous couple's daughter, also named Elizabeth, was baptized in the same church before half a year was out. > > > > Now Richard harbored a secret that, if discovered, was punishable by death. The appearance of pious Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow in London did much to keep him away from his English family after that. Back in Salem, he and Christian turned out children at a faster rate, ultimately producing a total of seven. Meanwhile, he shifted his mercantile focus to Manhattan and Maryland, trading mostly in tobacco. > > > > Richard did maintain ties to his London family, however. In 1653, once Cromwell's control over Great Britain was assured, the royal palace at Hampton went up for sale. A piece of this outrageously sumptuous estate was sold to one Joshua Woolnough apparently a relative of Richard's English wife, with whom Richard was then doing business through intermediaries in Maryland. Sadly, Richard never got to enjoy the windfall firsthand. By the time he arrived in England, Cromwell had appropriated the palace by fiat. As compensation, Richard was assigned as supply ship commander on a raid against the French in present-day Nova Scotia. > > > > Richard next encountered world history on his home turf. In the late 1650s, Massachusetts transferred its earlier fears of Familists onto the Quakers, who seemed only too happy to martyr themselves for their cause. Called to sit on a jury in a case involving some local Quakers, Richard watched as they entered the courthouse.with their hats on. > > > > Something of a blasphemer himself, Richard had to tread a careful balance during the Quaker hysteria. On the one hand, he was among the captains who famously refused to deport a pair of Quaker children into slavery. On the other, he had no qualms about transporting a virulently anti-Quaker minister into the colony. And all the while, he kept his eye on the main chance, using his jury appearances to parlay a personal debt into the acquisition of the Swan, a larger ship than any he had yet owned. > > > > With the Restoration of the monarchy in the 1660s, New England became isolated from the mother county, and Richard in turn lost touch with his London family. There is no evidence that he returned to England after 1667. Perhaps in response to this loss, he began to adopt wayward individuals from up and down the North American coast, at times bringing them into his household. Even a business voyage to the fledgling plantation of Carolina takes on a plaintive tone in this context. The colony was starving and terrified; Richard the rescuer sailed in with provisions. > > > > And so the autumn of his life arrived - minus the desired quietude. At the age of 60, Richard said farewell to the sea and opened a tavern in Salem, where he quickly became embroiled in the growing tumult on land. The Narragansetts and New England fell to war - the first full-scale example of a conflict that would continue across the continent in later centuries. Internally, Massachusetts was becoming fractious enough as well. The thunderings of the preachers did little to quell the bar fights, drunkenness and incessant squabbling. Richard's second born, Samuel, went as far as highway robbery. > > > > Meanwhile, harsh trading laws imposed by the king (who in fact was taking a page from Cromwell) had more or less assured that the colonies would develop smuggling into a way of life. A seasoned seafarer, Richard aided the colonial cause as a surveyor of "damaged" goods, but in this he was hardly exceptional. More notable was the attitude of his fourth-born, Richard junior, who, while in the good port of Manhattan, openly taunted the authority of Edmund Andros, the royally appointed governor of New York. > > > > The appointment of Andros as governor of New England brought multiple hardships upon the Mores. When the Andros government went looking for smugglers, it seized one of the More family ships. When it decided to appropriate real estate (as a way of funding its operations), Richard was forced to sell off most of his land to friends. And when it went looking for scapegoats, it found Richard guilty of adultery. As punishment, this old survivor of the Ancient Beginning had to wear the infamous "A" on his chest. Knowing all too well of the captain's wandering eye, the Salem church had little choice but to follow suit and excommunicate him. > > > > The following year, Boston rose up against the Andros government, and not coincidentally, Richard was able to regain his place in the Salem church. But was it secure? By the 1690s, the chaos of Massachusetts was bearing strange fruit. Girls playing games began to act oddly, then more so, and soon the Devil was in it. As accusation followed upon accusation, the Salem jail swelled with accused witches, among them some of Richard's longtime friends and acquaintances including John Proctor and Giles Corey. This was no mere political jockeying: men and women were going to the gallows. > > > > It was a spectacular climax to a life that, if gritty and at times even grim, nevertheless stood as a fully realized example of the penchant for self-invention that the following generations would come to exalt. >

This is in response to Susan Roser's comments. I will do my best to address the issues she has brought up. I'm writing my responses in CAPS so that it doesn't get confusing. > A few observations on this interesting new book - I have not read it but > since statements were made on this list, I would like to comment (below with > **). > > >All of Richard's siblings died in the crossing; he alone >survived to > become one of the original Plymouth settlers. > > **I notice this statement is corrected in the book exerpt online but thought > it should be corrected here as well - Richard's brother Jasper and sisters > Ellen and Mary died during the sickness the first winter, not during the > voyage. THIS WAS MY MISTAKE - I FOR SOME REASON REMEMBERED THAT THE SIBLINGS DIED DURING THE CROSSING, BUT THE FACTS ARE PRESENTED CORRECTLY BOTH IN THE BOOK AND IN THE AUTHOR'S ONLINE INTRODUCTION...SORRY. > > > Richard was not counted among the Separatists, as the >Pilgrims were then > called, but among the so-called >Strangers, a secular crowd that had signed > up for >passage at the last minute. That her entered the scene >under a > cloud of scandal made him a stranger even >among the Strangers. That his > assigned guardian was >William Brewster, nominal head of the Separatists, > >rendered his dislocation complete. > > **I don't believe that Bradford, when he wrote his "Increasings & > Decreasings", specified which passengers were "Saints" and which were > "Strangers". The four children were put with the families of Brewster, > Carver and Winslow - all three are known to have been a part of the Leyden > congregation, therefore considered "Saints". It should also be noted that > it is not known with certainty if the Pilgrims knew the history of the More > children - Bradford certainly never hinted at it in his writings. (Carver > and Cushman made the arrangements with Samuel More - even if they did know > the story, would it have been made common knowledge?) Therefore, did these > More children board the Mayflower in a "cloud of scandal" as stated, or is > this a presumption? I find it interesting that the children were placed > with good families and that each were regarded as shareholders. Their legal > father, Samuel More paid 80 pounds (a double share per child) with an > additional 20 pounds paid, therefore the childrens' passage was paid. At > the end of 7 years, each child would receive 50 acres of land. In fact, > Richard was included with the "Ancient Freemen" when he received a land > grant in 1660 at Rochester and later at Swansea. THE QUESTION OF WHO KNEW WHAT AND HOW MUCH IS ADDRESSED IN THE BOOK. I WON'T GET INTO THE DETAILS HERE (YOU CAN READ ABOUT IT IN THE BOOK...)- BUT I WILL SAY THAT BREWSTER DEFINITELY DID KNOW HIS CHARGE'S HISTORY. THE PARTICULARS OF HOW THE PASSAGE WAS ARRANGED AND HOW IT CAME TO BE ARRANGED THE WAY IT WAS ARE ALSO IN THE BOOK - AS WELL AS ON THE BOOK'S WEB SITE SINCE THIS IS PART OF THE EARLY CHAPTERS THAT ARE EXCERPTED AT: http://www.idealog.com/books/mayflowerbastard.html > >Richard's second born, Samuel, went as far as highway >robbery. > > **According to MF 15:155, Samuel2 More (bpt. 1642) was living in 1650 but > nothing further is known about him after this date and he is not carried > further. This is the case with two other sons as well, Thomas & Joshua. > Has new research uncovered these children? Wonderful if this is the case, > however I haven't heard of any. THE STORY OF THE ROBBERY COMMITTED BY SAMUEL MORE (SON OF RICHARD), FOR WHICH HE WAS PROSECUTED IN 1677, IS RELATED IN THE BOOK AND CITED AS WELL. > The appointment of Andros as governor of New >England brought multiple > hardships upon the Mores.... >And when it went looking for scapegoats, it > found >Richard guilty of adultery. As punishment, this old >survivor of the > Ancient Beginning had to wear the >infamous "A" on his chest. Knowing all > too well of the >captain's wandering eye, the Salem church had little > >choice but to follow suit and excommunicate him. The >following year, > Boston rose up against the Andros >government, and not coincidentally, > Richard was able to >regain his place in the Salem church > > **According to the records of the First Church in Salem, More had for some > time been under suspicion for "lasciviousness" but all the Elders could do > was talk to him because they had no direct proof of wrong doing. In 1688 > this changed and he was convicted by three witnesses "of gross unchastity > with another mans wife". In 1691 he repented and was forgiven by the > church. I hadn't before heard of the Andros involvement (or the infamous > letter "A"), however since the Andros government fell in 1689, I fail to see > how it was a coincidence that More was reinstated in the church - as this > occurred two years later in 1691. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN RICHARD'S EXCOMMUNICATION AND THE ANDROS GOVERNMENT IS EXPLORED IN CHAPTER 13 OF THE BOOK. JUST TO QUOTE BRIEFLY FROM THAT CHAPTER: "SHORTLY BEFORE JULY 1, 1688, CAPTAIN RICHARD MORE WAS SUMMONED TO APPEAR BEFORE SEVERAL JUSTICES OF THE PEACE...FOR COMMITTING THE ACT OF ADULTERY...AFTER THE THREE WITNESSES DELIVERED THE TESTIMONY AND THE JUDGES HANDED DOWN THEIR SENTENCE, RICHARD WAS TAKEN OUTSIDE THE COURTHOUSE, TO A SPOT BESIDE THE ADJACENT WATCH HOUSE, AND TIED TO THE WHIPPING POST THERE. AFTER RECEIVING HIS LASHES, HE WAS SENT ON HIS WAY, WITH THE INSTRUCTIONS TO AFFIX THE LETTER A - THE INFAMOUS SCARLET LETTER - IN A CONSPICUOUS POSITION ON HIS UPPER GARMENTS, THAT HE MIGHT BROADCAST HIS CRIME WHENEVER HE SHOWED HIMSELF.... WITH THE OUSTING OF ANDROS, A COMMITTEE OF SAFETY WAS FORMED...AND IN EARLY MAY 1690 THE CONVENTION VOTED TO RESTORE THE FORMER COLONIAL GOVERNMENT TO MASSACHUSETTS...IT WAS PRECISELY AT THIS TIME THAT RICHARD BEGAN APPROACHING THE CHURCH ELDERS ABOUT HIS CHANCES OF BEING READMITTED TO THE CONGREGATION." THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ANDROS GOVERNMENT AND RICHARD'S EXCOMMUNICATION GOES DEEPER THAN THIS SHORT QUOTE. IN THE BOOK THE POLITICAL AGENDAS AND POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS OF THE JUDGES AND ELDERS DURING ANDROS' TERM, AND THEIR HISTORIES WITH RICHARD MORE ARE FURTHER EXPLAINED. > One last comment - Richard More was not a bastard and I would hazard a guess > that his descendants might take exception to describing him as such. His > legal father might not have recognized him as his son, but Richard was born > to a legally married couple and I have never seen the More children referred > to as "bastards" in the many legal documents cited in the article below. In > fact, the article below states, "Any child conceived while the mother's > husband was in England was considered in law to be legitimate (i.e., the > husband's child)". > > An excellent 3 part article was written about the legal actions between > Samuel & Katherine More and the fate of the children by Donald F. Harris of > Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England in the 1993 and 1994 issues of The Mayflower > Descendant. > FUNNY YOU SHOULD MENTION THAT - CHAPTER 1 OF 'MAYFLOWER BASTARD' TELLS OF DAVID LINDSAY'S TOUR OF SHROPSHIRE, ON WHICH DON HARRIS ACTS AS HIS GUIDE. THEY DISCUSS THE EVENTS BETWEEN SAMUEL & KATHARINE TOGETHER, AND LINDSAY DOES ADDRESS THE 'BASTARD' ISSUE - HE IS OF COURSE AWARE THAT THE MORE CHILDREN WERE NOT BASTARDS ACCORDING TO ENGLISH LAW. YOU SHOULD FIND THIS CHAPTER INTERESTING - IT IS ALSO POSTED ON THE WEB SITE IF YOU'D LIKE TO READ IT: http://www.idealog.com/books/mayflowerbastard.html HOPE THIS WAS HELPFUL, -SIGALIT.