John Carver (governor)

Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall (1882)

John Carver was one of the Pilgrims who made the Mayflower voyage in 1620 which resulted in the creation of Plymouth Colony in America. He is credited with writing the Mayflower Compact and was its first signer, and was also the first governor of Plymouth Colony.<ref name="Stratton p. 259">Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620-1691, (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing, 1986), p. 259</ref><ref name="Pilgrim">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="profile">A genealogical profile of John Carver, (a collaboration of Plimoth Plantation and New England Historic Genealogical Society accessed 2013-04-21) Template:Cite web</ref>

Life in Leiden

Little is known about Carver's ancestry or early family life. Jeremy Bangs notes that Carver and his wife Mary were members of the Walloon church in Leiden, Holland on February 8, 1609. The Flemish Walloon community was fleeing religious persecution in their homeland (then part of the Spanish Netherlands, now split between Belgium and France), as were the Puritan separatists who came to Holland from England around 1607.

Carver was a deacon in Leiden about 1609 at about age 25, and he is believed to have been born sometime before 1584. Leiden records of St. Pancras ChurchTemplate:Clarify state that Carver buried a child on July 10, 1609. Sometime shortly after the death of the child, his wife Mary died.<ref name="profile"/><ref name="Stratton p. 18">Eugene Aubrey Stratton, Plymouth Colony: Its History and People, 1620–1691 (Salt Lake City: Ancestry Publishing, 1986), p. 18</ref> He later married Katherine White who was a prominent member of the Leiden English separatist church, though the exact date is not known. She was originally of Sturton in Nottinghamshire, eldest daughter of Alexander White. Carver became much more involved in the Leiden church after marrying Katherine, making a close association with Puritan pastor John Robinson, husband of Katherine's younger sister Bridget.<ref name="Banks p. 44">Charles Edward Banks, The English ancestry and homes of the Pilgrim Fathers who came to Plymouth on the Mayflower in 1620, the Fortune in 1621, and the Anne and the Little James in 1623, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 2006), p. 44</ref><ref>Nick Bunker, Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and their New World a History (New York: Knopf 2010), pp. 108–109</ref>

Preparing for the New World

Carver and Robert Cushman began negotiations with officials of the Virginia Company in London in 1617 for land in the Colony of Virginia where they could live and be self-governing. They came in contact with Sir Edwin Sandys, an acquaintance of church elder William Brewster and a leading member of the Virginia Company. They had to put together seven articles for the Council for Virginia, signed by all the senior Puritan church members, which acknowledged the supremacy of the king and the Church of England.<ref>Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War (New York: Viking, 2006), p. 19</ref>

To fund the Mayflower voyage, the Leiden congregation turned to Thomas Weston and the Merchant Adventurers, London businessmen interested in supporting the voyage in hopes of profit. Carver had the task of organizing the voyage and negotiating funding with Weston and the Adventurers along with Cushman as the chief agent. In 1620, they were in Aldgate, London where they negotiated with Weston for financial backing.<ref>Charles Edward Banks, "The English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers" (2006)</ref> Weston hired the Mayflower, and it sailed from London to Southampton to rendezvous with the Speedwell, which was carrying the Pilgrims from Leiden in Holland. Carver was in Southampton in June 1620 purchasing supplies for the Mayflower voyage, along with Christopher Martin.<ref name="Philbrick p. 42">Philbrick, p. 42</ref> Carver was very wealthy and provided much of his personal fortune to invest in the joint-stock company and in the Mayflower voyage itself.<ref name="Philbrick p. 42"/>

Mayflower voyage

Signing the Mayflower Compact 1620, a painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, 1899

Carver and his wife Katherine boarded Mayflower with five servants<ref name="Banks p. 44"/><ref name="Philbrick p. 42"/><ref>Stratton, p. 407, (in Bradford's own words)</ref><ref>Stratton, p. 405</ref> and seven year-old Jasper More, one of the four children of the More family who were sent in the care of the Pilgrims.<ref>David Lindsay, Mayflower Bastard: A Stranger amongst the Pilgrims (New York: St. Martins Press, 2002), pp. 30, 53, 222 n. 21</ref> Carver seems to have been elected governor of the Mayflower for the duration of the Atlantic crossing.<ref name="Philbrick p. 42"/>

The Mayflower anchored off Cape Cod in November, 1620, and the Mayflower Compact was signed aboard ship on November 11; it became the first governing document for Plymouth Colony.<ref>George Ernest Bowman, The Mayflower Compact and its signers, (Boston: Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1920). Photocopies of the 1622, 1646 and 1669 versions of the document pp. 7–19.</ref> Carver may have been the author of the Compact, and was definitely its first signer. He was subsequently chosen to be governor of Plymouth Colony.<ref>Stratton, pp. 142, 413</ref>

Life in Plymouth

Template:Main The first winter in Plymouth Colony was exceedingly difficult, as the colonists suffered greatly from lack of shelter, diseases such as scurvy, and general conditions on board ship.<ref name="rothbard1975">Template:Cite book</ref> Nearly half the Mayflower passengers died in the course of a few months. The first will drawn up in New England was that of William Mullins, and it was written on his behalf by Carver while Mullins was on his deathbed. It was signed as the last will and testament of Mullins by Carver, Mayflower's captain Christopher Jones, and the ship's surgeon Giles Heale. This is the only known copy of Carver's signature.<ref name="Banks p. 44" />

On March 22, 1621, Governor Carver and Wampanoag leader Massasoit worked out a treaty of peace and mutual protection. This treaty lasted for more than half a century.<ref>Dana T. Parker, "Reasons to Celebrate the Pilgrims," (Orange County Register, Nov. 22, 2010) [1], Retrieved 28 Jan. 2011.</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Carver died in April or May 1621, aged 56 years, and his wife died five or six weeks later.<ref name="Stratton p. 259" /><ref name="Banks p. 44" />

Family

John Carver married Mary de Lannoy sometime before February 8, 1609.<ref name="profile"/> She was a Walloon (Huguenot) of L’Escluse, France. She may have been related to Philip de Lannoy (Delano), who came to Plymouth on the Fortune in November 1621. The couple buried a child at St. Pancras in Leiden on July 10, 1609;<ref name="Stratton p. 18"/> Mary died soon after in July 1609.

He married Katherine (White) Leggatt sometime before May 22, 1615. She was the widow of George Leggatt. Mayflower genealogist Robert S. Wakefield spells her name as Catherine, but seventeenth century documents use Katherine. She died sometime in May 1621, some 5–6 weeks after Carver's death.<ref name="Stratton p. 259"/><ref name="Banks p. 44"/><ref>Nick Bunker, Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and their New World a History (New York: Knopf 2010), pp. 108-110</ref> John and Katherine buried a child at St. Pancras in Leiden November 11, 1617.<ref name="Stratton p. 18"/> He had no known surviving descendants.<ref name="profile"/>

Death

Carver had been working in his field on a hot day in April 1621 when he complained of a pain in his head. He returned to his house to lie down and soon fell into a coma, and he died within a few days, not long after April 5, 1621. William Bradford was chosen to replace him as governor; Bradford was recovering from illness, so Isaac Allerton was chosen to be his assistant.<ref name="Philbrick p. 102">Nathaniel Philbrick, p. 102</ref><ref>Stratton, p. 143</ref><ref>David Lindsay, Mayflower Bastard: A Stranger amongst the Pilgrims (New York: St. Martins Press, 2002), p. 46</ref> After all the secret burials that were performed all winter, the settlers wished to bury the governor with as much ceremony as possible. Bradford wrote in April 1621:

He was buried in the best manner they could, with some vollies of shot by all that bore armes; and his wife, being weak, died within five or six weeks after him.<ref name="Stratton p. 259" />

External links

• Plimoth Plantation Web site