Jump to content

Degory Priest

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lambpen (talk | contribs) at 04:44, 2 August 2012 (→On the Mayflower). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

There are no images of the actual Mayflower. This is a painting entitled Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall (1882)

Degory Priest, also known as Digory" "Gregory", "Degorie", or "Digorie" and "Preist", was born about 1579/80 in England. In a document signed in Leiden, Holland in April 1619 he deposed he was 40 years old.[1]

Life in Holland

Degory Priest was one of the first Separatists to arrive in Leiden, Holland, residing in that city by November 1611. He was a professional hatter. It is believed he came from one of the centers from which the earliest Separatists came - the London/Middlesex region. At his betrothal to Sarah Vincent in Leiden, he proclaimed that he was from London.[2][3]

"The Embarkation of the Pilgrims" (1857) by the American painter Robert Walter Weir at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City

On the Mayflower

Degory Priest departed Plymouth, England on the Mayflower on September 6/16, 1620 with 102 passengers and about 30 crew members in a small 100 foot ship leaving his wife and two daughters in Leiden, Holland. He had always planned to bring over his family later after the colony was established.[4][5][6]. The first month in the Atlantic, the seas were not severe, but by the second month the ship was being hit by strong north-Atlantic winter gales causing the ship to be badly shaken with water leaks from structural damage. There were two deaths, but this was just a precursor of what happened after their Cape Cod arrival, when almost half the company would die in the first winter.[7][8]

On November 9/19, 1620, after about 3 months at sea, including a month of delays in England, they spotted land, which was Cape Cod. And after several days of trying to get south to their planned destination of the Colony of Virginia, strong winter seas forced them to return to the harbor at Cape Cod hook, where they anchored on November 11/21. The Mayflower Compact was signed that day with Degory Priest as the 22nd signer.[9][10][11]

Bas-relief from the Pilgrim Monument depicting the signing of the Mayflower Compact.

Marriage and family

On November 4, 1611 Degory Priest married Sarah Allerton Vincent who was the widow of John Vincent and also the sister of Mayflower Pilgrim Isaac Allerton. Isaac Allerton was married to his wife Mary on the same date as Degory and Sarah. After the death of Degory Priest, Sarah married secondly, Godbert Godbertson in Leiden about November 13, 1621. They had one son, Samuel. In 1623 Godbert, Sarah, their son Samuel and his step-children Mary and Sarah Priest came to Plymouth on the ship Anne. Both Sarah and Godbert Godbertson died in Plymouth Colony in 1633.[12][13]

Death and burial

Degory Priest died in Plymouth Colony on January 1, 1621 and was buried in the Coles Hill Burial Ground in an unmarked grave as with so many who died that winter, of the general sickness that befell.[14] He is named on the Pilgrim Memorial Tomb, Coles Hill, Plymouth. The grave of his wife, Sarah Allerton Priest Godbertson[15] is unknown.[16][17]

Children of Degory Priest and his wife Sarah

  • Marah was born about 1612. She married Phineas Pratt by about 1633 and had eight children. She died in Charlestown, Massachusetts in 1689. Her name is often given incorrectly as “Mary”.
  • Sarah was born about 1614. She married John Coombs about 1632 and had two sons. By October 1646 she went to England and presumably may have died there.[18][19]

References

  1. ^ History of Degory Priest at mayflowerhistory.com/
  2. ^ profile of Degory Priest at plymouth,org/
  3. ^ History of Degory Priest at mayflowerhistory.com/
  4. ^ William Bradford. History of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford, the second Governor of Plymouth (Boston. 1856) Not in copyright p. 57
  5. ^ profile of Degory Priest at plymouth.org/
  6. ^ Family of Degory Priest
  7. ^ mayflowerhistory.com/
  8. ^ Allison Lassieur Peter McDonnall The voyage of the Mayflower (Pub. Capstone Press, ©2006 Mankato, Minnesota)
  9. ^ Eugene Aubrey Stratton. Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, (Ancestry Publishing, Salt Lake City, UT, 1986) p. 413
  10. ^ Allison Lassieur Peter McDonnall The voyage of the Mayflower (Pub. Capstone Press, ©2006 Mankato, Minnesota)
  11. ^ George Ernest Bowman. The Mayflower Compact and its signers (Boston: Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1920). Photocopies of the 1622, 1646 and 1669 versions of the document.
  12. ^ profile of Degory Priest at plimoth,org/
  13. ^ History of Degory Priest at mayflowerhistory.com/
  14. ^ William Bradford. History of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford, the second Governor of Plymouth (Boston. 1856) Not in copyright p. 454
  15. ^ Charles Edward Banks. ‘’The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers’’ (Grafton Press N.Y. 1929) p. 145
  16. ^ Sarah Allerton Priest Godbertson (Memorial for Sarah Allerton Priest Godbertson
  17. ^ Find a Grave Degory Priest/
  18. ^ profile of Degory Priest att plimouth.org/
  19. ^ Family of Degory Priest/

Template:Persondata

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Degory_Priest&oldid=505374551"