Richard More is not our direct ancestor, but he offers our family a connection to the arrival of the Mayflower to Plymouth in 1620. He is related to us as the father-in-law of his daughter Susanna 's third husband, John Knowlton II, our eighth great uncle, so not in our bloodline. Just to confuse things further, Susanna More Knowlton's daughter from her first marriage, Susanna Dutch, married her stepbrother, Benjamin Knowlton, our first cousin 8X removed. Got that? Okay.
When the names of four unaccompanied children showed up on the passenger list of the Mayflower, historians assumed they were orphans or street urchins picked up in London and were made wards of the Pilgrims, but, in 1959, Richard's descendant, Jasper More, solved the mystery when he found a legal document from 1622 in a trunk in an attic. It revealed a story of adultery and a scandalous divorce. On February 4, 1610, Katherine More was forced to marry her third cousin, Samuel. She was 23 and he was 16. They both came from wealthy families, but her father died and left no male heir to inherit Larden Hall, the family estate, so their marriage was arranged to keep the property in the family. Katherine bore four children in the first five years of their marriage. Samuel noticed that the children bore a strong resemblance to their neighbor, Jacob Blakeway. Katherine did not deny the relationship, claiming they had been betrothed before the arranged marriage intervened and Jacob was her true husband. Samuel filed for divorce on the grounds of adultery and was granted custody of four children, who were not his. There were approximately twelve legal filings between December 1619 and July 18, 1620, but all were dismissed. Samuel made arrangements through his employer, privy councillor Lord Zouche, who had investments in Virginia settlements, to place the bastards with the colony of Virginia to spare them "great blotts and blemishes that may fall upon them. " A stipulation of the divorce was that neither would be allowed to remarry while the other lived. Katherine's fate is unknown, but Samuel remarried in 1626 and fathered seven children, so Katherine may have died by the time of his marriage. Larden Hall was demolished in 1967. Thus the Pilgrims took the four children, ages four to eight, as indentured servants on the Mayflower, which landed in Massachusetts instead of Virginia due to stormy seas. The children were: Ellen: baptized May 24, 1612, and was assigned as a servant to Edward Winslow. Died November 1620 after arriving in Plymouth. Jasper: baptized August 8, 1613, and was assigned as a servant to John Carver. Died November 1620. Richard: baptized November 13, 1614, and assigned as a servant to William Brewster until mid-1627 when his term of indenture ended. Died between 1694-1696. Mary: baptized April 16, 1616, and assigned as a servant to William Brewster. Died the winter of 1620-1621. Although he lost his brother and sisters soon after arriving in Plymouth, Richard thrived. After leaving the Brewster household, he apprenticed to a sea captain. He moved to Salem and was living there during the Salem Witch Trials. By the 1640s, he was a seasoned sea captain who traded tobacco and supplies in Virginia and the West Indies as well as making trips back and forth to England and Nova Scotia. England passed the Staples Act in 1663 that stated only England and Wales could ship European goods. American traders had to be a bit creative in filling out their ship manifests to survive. In fifty years in his career at sea, both in trading commercially and in military expeditions, More never lost a vessel or had charges brought against him. Hs personal life was a bit dicier Like mother, like son, perhaps? He married Christian Hunter (1615-1676) on October 20, 1636, in Salem. They had seven children: Samuel, Thomas, Caleb, Richard, Jr., Joshua, Susanna More Knowlton (our ancestor), and Christian. His wife had arrived in 1635 on the ship the Blessing. He joined the Salem Church in 1642 and was able to vote in the affairs of the town. On October 23, 1645, while still married to Christian, he wed Elizabeth Woolnough in London. They may have had one daughter. Elizabeth appeared in court to answer charges against Richard. He had most likely already escaped England by then. The charge was that he was intoxicated in the company of a woman of easy virtue and of an eight-year-old girl, probably his wife and daughter. He married again in Salem in 1678 to a widow, Jane Hollingsworth Crumpton. Richard suffered some financial setbacks later in his life. He owned a tavern in Salem after retiring from the sea. On July 1, 1688, the church elders brought charges against him. The church recorded, "Old Captain More having been for many years under suspicion and common fame of lasciviousness, and some degree at least of inconstancy, but for want of proof we could go not further. He was at last left to himself so far as that he was convicted before justices of peace by three witnesses of gross unchastity with another man's wife and was censured by them." They had spoken to him several times in the past, but their warnings went unheeded. This time, Richard was excommunicated from the church. The judge was Reverend Nicholas Noyes, the same judge who presided over many of the witch trials in Salem four years later. Richard accepted the judgment and made a public repentance. He was then probably admitted back into the church. He died at the age of 84, the last survivor from the sailing of the Mayflower. His tombstone is the only original one left standing of the Mayflower passengers.
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Bonnie EastonHi! I am a Jones cousin, daughter of Evelyn Jones Easton. Since retiring as a reference librarian after 20 years, I have become a genealogy addict. Our ancestors want to tell us their stories.
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