RogerConant.com
Roger Conant, Peacemaker
First Governor of Massachusetts Founder of Salem, Massachusetts Came to American 3 years after the Mayflower
Roger was governor (1625-1626) of Dorchester Company, the predecessor of Massachusetts Bay Colony (see details), founder of Salem, Mass, a peacemaker at Cape Ann (see below) and a reasonable man in a time of great discontent.
Roger's was born and reared in East Budleigh, Devon, England
Roger Conant was born in East Budleigh, Devon, England and baptized on April 9, 1592. He lived in the quaint and peaceful village until he left for London to apprentice as a salter. Sir Walter Raleigh was also born in East Budleigh 40 years earlier. There is no written documentation of their meeting, but it could have happened.
Roger Conant and Gary Canant (400 years later)
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Roger Conant arrived in Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts 400 years ago (3 years after the Mayflower) and founded Salem, Massachusetts a couple of years later.
Gary Canant is his 12th generation direct descendant about 400 years later. How did Conant become Canant?
Roger Conant's Statue in Salem, Mass
The statue was erected in 1913. The Salem Witch Museum next door was founded in 1972. Roger was a PEACEMAKER and had NOTHING to do with the Salem witch trials that started in 1692, years after Roger died in 1679. See Peacemaker items below.
Current plaque under the Salem Statue
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Roger Conant
Peacemaker
At Cape Ann there was a conflict rising out of the positions of fishing stages (little fishing huts) along the coast of the Bay. Captain Miles Standish of the Plymouth colony was an angry little man – “a man of very little stature, yet of a very hot and angry temper” – in 1625 he discovered that the settlers of Cape Ann were using abandoned fishing stages that the Plymouth fisherman and built two years prior – along an area now known Stage Fort Park in Gloucester. In a primarily territorial dispute, Capt Standish was sent over to Cape Ann to regain the huts. Mr Hewes, of the Cape Ann colony, barricaded his men “with hogsheads on the stage head” – hogsheads were large casks usually full of alcohol – while Captain Standish and his men stood on the land demanding the return of the stages. “The dispute grew to be very hot and high words passed between them; which might have ended in blows, if not blood and slaughter, had not the prudence and moderation of Mr Roger Conant“. He calmed the situation by offering to build new fishing stages for the Plymouth Pilgrims.
Blessed are the Peacemakers by John Washington, copyright 2021.
You can purchase prints of the painting by contacting John Washington at jccw1945@gmail.com
The Conant memorial window in the church at Dudley, Massachusetts.
This was the fine memorial window commissioned for the Conant Memorial Church in Dudley, Massachusetts, but sadly destroyed during a storm on 8 June 1946.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. – Mathew Chapter 9, verse 5
Of all the important Puritan forbearers of 17th century New England, none is more undeservingly unknown than Roger Conant. Or if he is known, no one is more unjustly misunderstood in the popular imagination.
A kind man, he was the first Englishman to bring to North America the virtues that became the bedrock of our great democratic experiment: Patience, Humility, Tolerance, Compromise and Civil Discourse.
Books, Websites, Blogs and Articles about Roger
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Author and Webmaster
Gary Canant12th Generation Descendant of Roger Conant
Also see Dear Maxie, Love Letters from Vietnam