Was Roger Conant Governor of Mass Bay Colony?
Roger Conant was not Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The Mass Bay Colony did not exist until 1629-1630. Roger was governor of the Dorchester Company which he led in 1625 and 1626 and which makes him the First Govenor of Massachusetts.
Facebook Post
Roger Conant was not Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Gary Canant Here is a list of the governors of the Massachusetts Bay Colony: Wikipedia
Donna (lives in Salem)
Response
No, Roger was not the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony which did not exist until 1929-1630. Roger was governor of the Dorchester Company which he led in 1625 and 1626 and which makes him the First Governor of Massachusetts.
Note that the Wikipedia listing starts in 1628, Roger's term as governor started in 1625.
Documentation
.jpg)
Note that the legend for the picture of Conant’s house is incorrect. Conant was never actually referred to as a governor since Mass. Bay Colony did not officially exist before 1630.
From Roger Conant on Cape Ann, Part III: Conant at Naumkeag and Salem Village By Mary Ellen Lepionka, February 2020
They disassembled their meetinghouse on Fisherman’s Field and carried the framing timbers and boards to Salem Village, where it was re-erected as Roger Conant’s dwelling place.Legend has it that in 1628 the structure was disassembled again and carried across the Danvers River to Salem as a temporary residence for John Endecott (Endicott), who was sent to relieve Conant as governor of Rev. John White’s New England Company.
In 1629 the New England Company morphed into the Massachusetts Bay Company, and in 1630 the Company sent John Winthrop to replace Endicott as governor.
In 1630 Roger Conant was made a freeman and a voting stockholder of the Massachusetts Bay Company . The next year he left Salem to form a trading company with Peter Palfrey and others. That enterprise established, Conant returned to become a key figure in the new government, representing Salem in the General Court. He was several times elected Selectman, served on the juries of quarterly courts and courts of assistants, and oversaw surveys establishing the boundaries of land grants and towns
Roger Conant as Governor from:The Conant Family by Frederick Odell Conant - 1887
.jpg)
The Salem News
“The pilgrim authorities — in particular Gov. (William) Bradford — seemed to have made a conscious effort to write him (Roger Conant) out of history 400 years ago,” said Shallop, a Salem resident, member of the Salem Housing Authority Board, and local labor representative with the Screen Actors Guild. “That’s an injustice not only to Conant but the legacy of Salem that I’d like to see corrected.”
“The Founding of Salem: City of Peace,” published by Arcadia Publishing, is a book by local author Benjamin Shallop. The Salem News
You can order the book at Wiked Good Books
“Roger Conant in America”, Mrs. Sarah S. Bartlet 1901
.jpg)
Conant family, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Roger Conant, the youngest child of Richard, emigrated to the Plymouth Colony in 1624, establishing the North American line of the Conant family. Disliking the increasingly repressive government at Plymouth, he soon left and was appointed the first governor of an English settlement on Cape Ann, subsequently founding the town of Salem, Massachusetts.