Notes for: Roger CONANT
Roger Conant was the first Conant to come to America on the ship Anne, six years after the Mayflower. Almost all of the Conant decendents can trace their genealogy back to this forefather. He also was the first governor of Massachutts before it became a state.
Roger Conant was born 1592 and died 1679 and was the first settler of Salem, Massachutts in 1626. The quote below is inscribed on the statue of Roger Conant that was erected in Salem in honor of his settling that area.
"It was a means, thu grace assisting me, to stop the flight of those few that when were here with me, and by my utter denail to go away with them who would have gone either England, or mostly Virginia." Emigrated from England
***************************************************************************************
"John F. Chandler, web page"
Roger Conant settled about 1609 in London, Eng. He may have married twice. There was a Mrs. Connant buried on Aug. 19 1618 in St Lawrence Jewry (in the south aisle near the lower end) i.e., just two month before Roger married Sarah Horton.
Roger Conant settled during 1623 in Plymouth, Plymouth Colony, MA. He was forced to leave Plymouth for his belief in episcopacy. There was a party that favored establishing the English church in the colonies. Roger was apparently one of them. Roger must have moved many times as he settled about 1624 in Nantasket, about 1625 in Cape Ann (Salam, MA), about 1627 in Naumkeag (Salam, MA) and resided 1673 in Beverly, MA.
He is said to have built the first house in Salam. He was appointed for the projected settlement by the "Western Adventurers" (The Dorchester Company) at Cape Ann in 1625 and was succeeded by Endicott in 1629. He was elected freeman May 18, 1631, MA.
Roger Conant served as a representative in the first General Court of the Massachusetts colony in 1634. He also served as a town officer at various times. He served regularly on the juries of the Essex County quarterly courts and was always known as Mr. Conant. He received a grant of 20 acres in 1640 (November 21, 1639). His family was recorded in the Salem book of grants about 1640 in his own hand, consisting of nine persons. He transferes membership to the new church in what became Beverly, September 9, 1667 but his wife did not. He sent a petition to the General Court, May 28, 1671 asking that the name of the new town of Beverly (formerly the Bass River section of Salem) be changed to Budleigh. In the petition he mentioned having been a colonist for 48 years and upwards.
Roger made a will on March 1, 1678. Inventory November 24, 1679, Beverly MA. The will mentions son Exercise, grandchildren, namely, children of son Exercise, 10 children of son Lot, John son of Roger, and Joshua; daughters Elizabeth, Mary, wife of William Dodge, Sarah___, and grandchild Rebecca, grandchildren John and 4 girls of Sarah, sousin, Mary, wife of Hilliard Verin, and others Adoniram Veren, Roger Clapp, Mary Leech. The cousin Mary was evidently his niece, daughter of Richard.
***************************************************************************************
The following is from the web page of Jana Ulrich:
http://members.aol.com/janau/conant.htm
Roger was the youngest of eight children born to Richard and Agnes (CLARK) CONANT. He and his family came to New England on the "Ann", arriving in Plymouth Massachusetts in Jul 1623. Though Puritan, he was non-Separatist in ideology and as such did not get along too well with the Pilgrims at Plymouth. The Chronological History of Massachusetts relates the role that Roger played in early New England:
"1623 - Myles Standish successfully conducted the first organized war against the Indians who had been stirred to form a conspiracy against the English by the behavior of Andrew Weston's men in June of 1621 and other troublemakers among the colonists. It was another lean year but boats came over from England every season. Some 200 or more Separatists would join the group on four different ships. .. Meanwhile, in England, a group of wealthy English merchants formed the Dorchester Company of Adventurers, of whom the less-radical Puritan conformist clergyman John White was prominent. Another member was Mistress Elizabeth Poole of Taunton, Somerset, who later founded Taunton, Massachusetts. With a patent from the council of New England, a group of fishermen and planters took the Fellowship to Cape Ann where they constructed a house and fishing stage at Stage Fort Point...Sometime during the year, non-Separatist Roger Conant and his wife arrived in Plymouth.
"1624 - Plymouth colonists, tired of their 'common course and condition,' convinced Bradford to end the annual practice of drawing for plots of land and, instead, to grant permanent allotments. Later expanded, the new practice spurred colonists to work harder and produce more as they were assured of enjoying the fruits of their own labors. In July, when a fierce drought threatened to destroy the crops, the colonists were driven to "seek the Lord in humble and fervent prayer," according to Bradford, "and He was pleased to give them a gracious and speedy answer, both to their own and the Indians' admiration that lived among them." The gentle rains came and stayed so that, as Bradford wrote, "instead of famine now God gave them plenty ... so as any general want or famine has not been among them since to this day (1644)." Excluded by the Separatist Pilgrims, a disgruntled Roger Conant drew a number of non-Separatists to himself and removed up the coast to found Nantasket.
"1625 - In England, Charles I succeeded the wildly extravagant and scandalous James I whose reign had encouraged a rampage of the rich and opportunistic, unsettling the balance of the economy. Now Charles gave ear to the highly ritualistic, anti-Puritan, Anglican Bishop William Laud. Those Puritans who had wished to reform England and its Church from within began to lose hope. Bradford wrote friends in his homeland that the colonists had 'never felt the sweetness of the country till this year.' Roger Conant was summoned from Nantasket to Cape Ann to manage the floundering outpost, followed by his loyal group of non-separatist Puritans. Having unknowingly acquired a scurrilous title to a part of Cape Ann, the Plymouth residents commenced building in the area a fishing stage of their own which was seized by the Cape Ann interests. Captain Myles Standish almost fought the group but Conant cooled the soldier's temper by offering to build a new fishing stage for the Pilgrims. Hostilities continued to build between the Separatists and non-Separatists. The same year, Captain Wollaston founded a colony at Passonagessit. Among the colonists was Anglican Thomas Morton who would change Mount Wollaston to Merrymount and cause grave concern among settlements from Maine to Nantasket.
"1626 - ...In the autumn, Roger Conant led the remnant of the Cape Ann expedition, some 20 to 30 persons, down the coast to a place the Indians called Naumkeag, where a number of rivers formed a safe harbor and good farmland was close by. Soon to be known as the Old Planters, these were the hardy souls who declined the dissolved Dorchester Company's offer of return passage to England.
Meanwhile in England, the undaunted clergymen John White and John Conant looked for new settlers and capital." The settlement called Naumkeag by the Indians and founded by Roger Conant and his group of "Old Planters" was renamed Salem in 1628 by a consortium of the old group and a new one headed by John Endicott. The "Old Planters" were allotted land in what is now Beverly Massachusetts. Salem erected a statue of him, a picture of which can be seen on Welcome to Salem Biographical information, undoubtedly penned by a descendant and submitted to the 1903 Biographical tome for Tolland and Windham Counties, Conn reads as follows: "His reputation was that of a pious, sober and prudent gentleman and as he was more strongly Puritan than the people around him he was chosen to head the settlement at Cape Ann, near Stage Head, on the north side of what is now Gloucester Harbor. Though not recognized as the first governor of Massachusetts, it seems he should be, as the colony over whose destinies he so ably provided made the first real advance toward a permanent settlement within the limits of what is now the State. Roger Conant was a man of intelligence, and historians pay glowing tributes to his ability, integrity and honor. He was a member of the second representative assembly ever held in America, very shortly following a similar gathering in Virginia.(Apparently refers to the October, 1630 meeting of the General Court of Boston. Though in violation of their charter, leaders of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts decided that the governor and deputy governor would be elected by the freemen of the Colony, including the "Old Planters", by demand of those in attendance, granted May 1631) The record of his active labor in forming that system of government which has made the U.S. great and mighty in every field of labor, or department of thought, was the noblest heritage he could leave his children. Many important offices were held by him in Salem, and for many years his services were continually in demand by the people. He and his wife were among the members who assisted in forming the 1st Church at Salem in 1637, and both signed the Covenant.
Fellow Conant researcher, Betty I. Ralph tells me that Roger Conant was mentioned in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Main Street, Salem" and that Governor's Island in Boston Harbor was once known as Conant's Island.
Sources: "Chronological History of Massachusetts", Flying the Colors: Massachusetts Facts: John Clements, 1987; Tolland and Windham Counties, Connecticut Biographies - 1903; Mayflower Gedcom; LDS Ancestral File; Research of John F. Chandler and Betty I. Ralph