Mrs. Chilton’s given name is declared by one
writer to have been Susanna,
but it is not clearly
proven. Whence she came, her ancestry, and
her age, are alike unknown.
Mary Chilton was but a young girl in 1620. She
married, before 1627,
John Winslow, and was
probably not then over twenty, nor over
fourteen when she came
with her parents in the may-Flower.
Thomas Rogers appears, from the fact that he had a
son, a lad well-grown,
to have been thirty
or more in 1620. His birthplace, antecedents,
and history are unknown,
but he appears to have been “of the Leyden
congregation.”
His wife and children came later.
Joseph Rogers was only a “lad” aboard
the may-Flower, but he left a
considerable posterity.
Nothing is surely known of him, except that
he was Thomas’s
son.
Degory Priest had the distinction of being “freeman”
of Leyden, having
been admitted such,
November 16, 1615. He was by occupation a
“hatter,”
a man of some means, who left a wife and at least two
children in Holland
when he embarked for America. His known age at
death gives his age
at sailing but a few months previous. At his
marriage in Leyden,
October 4, 1611, he was called “of London.”
He
was about thirty-two
when he married. His wife (a widow Vincent)
was a sister of Isaac
Allerton, who also was married at the same
time that he was.
Goodwin ("Pilgrim Republic,” p. 183) also gives
his age as “forty-one.”
His widow remarried and came over later.
Dexter ("Mourt’s
Relation,” p. 69, note) states, quoting from
Leyden
Ms. records, that
“Degory Priest in April, 1619, calling himself
a
‘hatter,’
deposes that he ‘is forty years of age.’”
He must,
therefore, have been
about forty-one when he sailed on the
may-Flower,
and forty-two years old at his death.
John Rigdale and his wife Alice afford no data.
They both died early,
and there is no record
concerning either of them beyond the fact
that they were passengers.
Edward Fuller and his wife have left us little record
of themselves save
that they were of Leyden,
that he is reputed a brother of Dr. Samuel
Fuller (for whom they
seem to have named the boy they brought over
with them,—leaving
apparently another son, Matthew, behind), and
that both died the first
winter. He must have been at least
twenty-five, judging
from the fact that he was married and had two
children, and was perhaps
somewhat older (though traditionally
represented as younger)
than his brother. Neither his occupation
nor antecedents are
surely known.
Samuel Fuller—the son of Edward Fuller
and his wife—is called by
Bradford “a young
child.” He must have been some five or
six years
of age, as he married
in 1635, fifteen years later, and would
presumably have been
of age, or nearly so.