Roger Conant's Life in America
Roger Conant and his wife Sarah and son Caleb sailed from London to Plymouth Colony in 1623 or 1624
Can you imagine the culture shock that hit Roger when he arrived in Plymouth Colony with its vast wilderness, infighting and starvation? He must have felt like he was about three miles past the edge of the world after living in the cosmopolitan world of London.
Why would people from England want to go to America?
From “The Landing at Cape Ann” by John Wingate Thornton 1854
What we know about Roger's trip to America
Roger Conant and his wife Sarah and son Caleb sailed from London to Plymouth Colony in 1623 or 1624 on a ship.
Roger's brother came over on the Anne in 1623, but the passenger list does not include Roger and family. The Charity which sailed in 1624 lists an unnamed salter as a passenger, but does not mention Roger's name. There are other possible ships including the Prophet John, QE1, etc that may have brought Roger to Plymouth. In other words, who knows for sure?
The ship they sailed on probably looked like the Mayflower which arrived at Plymouth the day after Christmas 1620. About one half of the people died in the brutal New England winter.
Christopher Conant, Roger's Brother
Baptised in East Budleigh, Devon in 1588, son of Richard and Agnes Conant. Went to London in 1609, and became a freeman in 1616. Lived in the London parish of St. Lawrence, Jewry working as a grocer. He had one share in the 1623 land division as "Christopher Connant". Not in the 1627 'Division of Cattle, and may have left Plymouth with his brother (see below). Living in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. Probably returned to England.
Plymouth Colony
Roger did not like Plymouth at all. People were starving and fighting each other with no firm leadership. The colonists survived the first winter only because the local Indians helped them and then got deadly European diseases in return. So he did not stay more than a year or two in Plymouth before striking out about 40 sea miles north to Cape Ann.
Cape Ann
Gloucester (Gloucester, Massachusetts - Wikipedia) is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It sits on Cape Ann and is a part of Massachusetts's North Shore.
Stage Fort Park
1625 the Dorchester Company enticed Roger to their tiny settlement of Cape Ann that had been founded in 1623, but was in desperate need of help. Reverend White had been told about Roger’ personality and character by White’s good friend John Conant, Roger’s brother back in England.
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
Tablet Rock, Stage Fort Park, Gloucester, Mass.
“On this site in 1623, a company of fishermen and farmers from Dorchester, England, under the direction of Rev. John White, founded THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY. From that time the fisheries, the oldest industry in the commonwealth, have been uninterruptedly pursed from this port. Here in 1625, Gov. Roger Conant, by wise diplomacy, averted bloodshed between contending fractions, one led by Myles Standish of Plymouth, the other by Capt Hewes, a notable exemplification of arbitration in the beginnings of New England. Placed by citizens of Gloucester,1907.
Stage Head was named for a fishing "stage" dating back to the original settlement by the Dorchester Adventurers Company circa 1624. It was the most likely original site of Roger Conant's "Great House", which was moved to Salem circa 1628.
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Great House in Cape Ann was a seventeenth century structure built by colonists in present-day Gloucester, Massachusetts. It was later disassembled and moved to Salem, Massachusetts, to be the Governor's house. Shows 1792 alterations including addition of third floor.
In 1623 men from the Dorchester Company established a permanent fishing outpost in the area. At the Cape Ann settlement a legal form of government was established, and from that Massachusetts Bay Colony sprung. Roger Conant was the governor under the Cape Ann patent, and as such, has been called the first governor of Massachusetts. (see detail)
Life in this first settlement was harsh and it was short-lived. Around 1626 the place was abandoned, and the people removed themselves to Naumkeag (in what is now called Salem, Massachusetts), where more fertile soil for planting was to be found. The meetinghouse and governor's house were even disassembled and relocated to the new place of settlement.
Stage Head was named for a fishing "stage" dating back to the original settlement by the Dorchester Adventurers Company circa 1624. It was the most likely original site of Roger Conant's "Great House", which was moved to Salem circa 1628.
The Rescue Party By Mary Ellen Lepionka
Detailed account of Roger at Cape Ann
Salem
In the fall of 1626, Governor Conant moved himself, his wife and four young children (4 year old Caleb, 3 year old Sarah, 1 year old Lot and the young baby Johanna), along with 40 other ambitious pioneers (including his old friend Reverend Lyford, Humphrey Woodbury, John Woodbury, his future son-in-law John Balch, Peter Palfry, Walter Knight, William Allen, Thomas Gray, John Tylly, Thomas Gardner, Richard Norman and Son, William Traske, and William Jeffry) from Cape Ann to Naumkeag – the ‘fishing place’ (later to be renamed Salem). They cleared the forest, tilled the ground for farming and set about planting maize and tobacco.
At Naumkeag, the colonists built houses, cleared and prepared the land for the planting of corn and tobacco and other crops. It is believed that Conant built the first house in Salem, on what is now Essex Street almost opposite the Town Market, that year and his son Roger was also born that year, making him the first colonist born in Salem.
Conant was constantly involved in town government, he became a Freeman on May 18 of 1631, served on the General Court of Massachusetts in 1634, and served as a selectman, a justice on the Court of Quarter Sessions and a delegate to ordinations.
Facebook Post and Response
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I think it’s important to note that in 1626 this was an indigenous community named Naumkeag and the name “Salem” wasn’t even adopted until a few years later. By Nora of Salem, Mass
Response
Good point. Your comment was added to the website in the America page at the beginning of the Salem discussion. Many sources say Roger was founder of Salem, but there is always room for additional insights.
The Massachusett welcomed the settlers at Naumkeag (Salem)
by Benjamin Shallop
Before the settlers arrived, the Tarratine tribe unleashed a campaign of complete destruction upon the tribes of Southern New England. Using their newly acquired shallops, they soon proved capable of raiding and burning villages as far south as the Wampanoag people. One of those Tarratine raids that struck fear into the heart of the Massachusett occurred at Naumkeag in present day Salem, Massachusetts. . . .
After being so thoroughly decimated by disease and engaged in brutal warfare against an enemy with superior technology, it is no wonder that she viewed these new English settlers as valuable potential allies.
Years later, some of Salem’s very first European inhabitants recalled that:
“When we settled, the Indians never molested us…..but shewed themselves very glad of our company and came and planted by us and often times came to us for shelter, saying they were afraid of their enemy Indians up in the country, and we did shelter them when they fled to us, and we had their free leave to build and plant where we have taken up lands. ”
For additional information about New England's Native Americans, see excerpts from Chapter 1 of The Founding of Salem by Benjamin Shallop
Roger's Statue in Salem
Salem Statue Issues
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Current wording on the plaque under the statue
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"I was a means through grace assisting me to stop the flight of those few that then were here with me, and that by my utter denial to go away with them, who would have gone either for England, or mostly for Virginia."
Note that the plaque under the statue does not say anything about Roger Conant being the founder of Salem, the first governor of Massachusetts, a peacemaker and a mensch in a time a of very bad and greedy men. By being next to the Salem Witch Museum, it looks like he was a part of the witch trials. He wasn't!
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Roger's House
Note that the legend for the picture of Conant’s house is incorrect. Conant was never actually referred to as a governor and Mass. Bay Colony did not officially exist before 1630. (details)
How the name Salem was derived from the Hebrew Shalom
Detailed Descriptions of Roger's Life in America
Roger Conant in America
by Mrs Sarah S..Bartlet - June 1901
Roger Conant: Founder of Salem by Rebecca Beatrice BrooksRoger Conant: Founder of Salem - History of Massachusetts Blog
Beverly
In 1637, Conant moved to what is now modern day Beverly where he and four other Old Planters were granted 1,000 acres of land by the General Court.
In 1639, Roger Conant was one of the first to sign a contract to enlarge the meeting house in Town House Square for the First Church in Salem.
On November 19, 1679, Roger Conant died at the age of 87. It is not known where he is buried but it is believed he is buried in the Old Burying Point Cemetery in Salem.
Roger's Will and Inventory
Click for text and handwritten copy
Marker at the intersection of Cabot Street (Massachusetts Route 1A) and Roosevelt Avenue in Beverly
Planter's Path in Beverly
Exercise Conant's House
The Exercise Conant House (also the Reverend John Chipman House) is a historic First Period house in Beverly, Massachusetts, United States. Most of this 2.5-story wood-frame house was built after 1715 for the Reverend John Chipman, and contains many fine Georgian features. Attached to its north side is a two-story single-room ell that dates to c. 1695, and was probably built by Exercise Conant, son of early Cape Ann settler Roger Conant.
Salem and Beverly City Seals, Could that be Roger?
Miles Standish
A purported portrait of Myles Standish, allegedly painted in 1625, first published in 1885.
It seems that Miles Standish was not a nice guy. See Roger Conant 400: June 2020
An 1873 lithograph depicting the expedition against Nemasket led by Standish and guided by his Indian friend Hobbamock