Women passengers on the Mayflower are often spoken of only as the wives of their husbands. Humility Cooper, who is thought to have arrived as a toddler brought by her uncle and aunt, reportedly was sent back to England after they died of disease or starvation during the tragic first winter in the struggling Plymouth Colony.
The Tilleys and the Coopers
Little Humility Cooper was either a cousin or niece of Ann (Cooper) Tilley, the wife of Edward Tilley. This child, who may have been an orphan, was referred to in contemporary documents as their “cousin”, but “cousin” then was a more general term for relationship and did not always mean the specific relationship of today’s usage.
Accompanying Edward and Ann were his brother John Tilley and wife Joan (Hurst), as well as daughter, Elizabeth, and Henry Sam(p)son, another “cousin”. They were from Henlow in Bedfordshire, England. By spring, 52 of the 102 Mayflower passengers had died. Those remaining in the Tilley family were the three children, teenagers Elizabeth Tilley and Henry Sam(p)son and the youngest, toddler Humility Cooper.
The Three Surviving Children
There is a wealth of data on two of these children, but not for the waif they grew up with. Here is a cameo portrayal in words:
- Elizabeth Tilley was brought up in the Carver household where indentured servant John Howland, later a delegate to the General Court, married Elizabeth Tilley. They had 10 children and 88 grandchildren. Descendants include Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, politician Sarah Palin, poets Emerson and Longfellow and actors Humphrey Bogart and Chevy Chase.
- Henry Sam(p)son married Anne Plummer. A Pequot War soldier, he was a Duxbury constable, served on juries, was a tax collector and helped lay out land grants. They had eight children and at least 32 grandchildren.
- Humility Cooper was, according to Governor William Bradford’s account of Plymouth Colony and its people, sent back to England following the deaths of the adult Tilleys. She is believed to be the Humility Cooper , 19, daughter of Robert Cooper, who was baptized ca. 1639 at Holy Trinity Church in London. Most accounts say she died in England before 1651.
Plymouth Records for Humility Cooper
The Pilgrim Hall Museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the primary repository for items which belonged to the Mayflower pilgrims, cites these mentions of Humility Cooper:
- William Bradford names Humility Cooper on his list of “those which came over first, in the year 1620, and were by the blessing of God the first beginners.” [William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1637, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (New York : Knopf, 1991), p. 441-3.]
- The Plymouth settlement’s oldest record book begins with the 1623 land division, recorded in Gov. Bradford’s handwriting. The lands of "Humillitie Cooper" were among those designated as "their grounds which came first over in the May Floure.”
- Humility Cooper is also listed in the 1627 division of cattle, which implies that she remained in the colony several years after the death of her aunt and uncle.
The Mystery of Humility Cooper
The identification of Humility Cooper of the Mayflower as the same Humility Cooper baptized at London in 1638-9 at age 19 was not made until Eugene Stratton made the connection in his 1986 book, Plymouth Colony : Its History & People, 1620-1691 (Salt Lake City : Ancestry Publishing, 1986), p. 273.
Humility’s age at her arrival in Plymouth was only calculated as that of a toddler 25 years ago. It was arrived at by counting backward from the Stratton citation of the baptism of someone with the same name in London at age 19 in 1638-9.
Serious scholars may continue to wonder about the origin, age and fate of the Humility Cooper whom Gov. Bradford said was sent back to England.
Additional Sources:
- Mourt’s Relation (Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth), from the journals of pilgrims William Bradford and Edward Winslow, edited by Jordan D. Fiore (1985: Plymouth)
- History of the Plymouth Church, 1620-1680, by William Bradford and Nathaniel Morton
- Pilgrim Hall Museum website.
Rosemary E. Bachelor - Rosemary Bachelor, a prize-winning journalist, has had a career as an editor, feature writer, magazine publisher and author. Her latest ...
