Up a Tree

John Howland of Fenstanton preceded his brother Henry, subject of the last post, to America, catching passage on board the Mayflower, of all ships, as an indentured servant. I said in that post that he had staked out his own claim to fame, not including possibly being my 10th great grandfather, and now that I've mentioned the Mayflower, you may be inclined to think that my intent here is to brag about his being one of the earliest English settlers, etc. I've found lots of materials to suggest that he had a stellar part in the early founding of our nation, but I want to focus on a couple of specific things involving him and remembering a well known piece of history we should remember. Of course this latter event is one of those I vaguely remember from my school days but well. You may remember some of this first item from a previous post on what it was like to cross the Atlantic during colonial times ("Come Sail Away With Me," Feb. 21). I mentioned that one person was s...

Well, I found my first family scofflaw. He is listed in the family tree as Henry Howland of Fenstanton, and he has a small rap sheet that includes entertaining a married woman in his house, to which the husband objected, and aiding and entertaining Quakers. Didn't know those were crimes? Welcome to the early Plymouth colony in Massachusetts, where being a Quaker could result in a variety of punishments, including hanging. First a quick bit about Henry.  He was born in Fenstanton, Huntingdonshire, England in about 1603. I'm not sure when he immigrated to America, but he appears in a list detailing an allotment of cattle to the settlers in 1624. He and two of his brothers, John and Arthur, all came over, but not on the same ship. John, who is my great-to-the-x grandfather, has his own claim to fame that I'll look at next week, so Henry is a many times removed uncle.  We know John came as a servant, something many immigrants did in order to afford passage, and presumably his b...