This is a story of several genealogical threads of my family entwined with the enlarging tapestry of American history over a period of time from the landing of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock to present day. The Mayflower arrived on Cape Cod North America about 404 years ago, 128 years after the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. From a European point of view, looking at history from several hundred thousand years of human habitation, the time since the first European settlements in America by their brethren is a drop in the bucket, a blink of an eye.
It is said that approximately 10 million people alive today in the U.S. are descendants of Mayflower passengers.[2] Thomas and Joseph Rogers were two of those passengers that my family connects with.
Thomas Rogers (1572-1621), a signer of the Mayflower Compact and one of the Pilgrims from Leiden in Holland was the first of the family to arrive in New England.[3] [4] He was 48 years old when he and his 18 year old son Joseph Rogers (1602-1678) arrived on the Mayflower in November 1620.[5]
Thomas Rogers died in the winter after his arrival. He was one of the 45-50 people out of 102 Mayflower passengers that died that winter. He is buried at Coles Hill, in Plymouth Massachusetts.
His son Joseph Rogers lived to carry on the Rogers name. He survived that first winter and lived for many more years, dying at the age of about 76. A father to eight children over the course of his life he was a ferryman, farmer, and a town constable. He also was a lieutenant from 1647-1661, and again from 1664 throughout King Philip’s War until he died in Eastham Massachusetts in 1678.[8]
Joseph’s daughter Hannah (1652-1690), named after Joseph’s wife, married Jonathan Higgens (1637-after 1711). Jonathan was an ensign in Joseph Rogers’ troop in King Philips War.[9] Jonathan and Hannah Higgins’ daughter Mary Higgins (1682-1750) married James Young (1684-1750).
The Youngs had a daughter named Sarah Young (1709- ) who married Joshua Cowell 1 (1712-1756). Joshua Cowell (1) and his son John Cowell (1733-1820) both fought for Connecticut in the French and Indian War. Joshua Cowell (1) perished in that war in 1756.[10] [11] [12] After his father’s death John Cowell continued the fight in New York three years later. Later, after the Revolutionary War and the death of his wife he and his family left Woodbury Connecticut for New York.[13]
The Cowell family colonial background exhibits significant involvement with the establishing of the colonies. Joshua Cowell (1)’s grandfather Edward Cowel (1616-1691) was a Captain of Dragoons (mounted troopers) and saw heavy fighting in King Philip’s War.[14] [15] Joshua Cowell (1) was also the great-grandson of Edward Rawson, Secretary to the Massachusetts Bay Colony for 35 years, including during King Philips War.[16]
Before the John Cowell family moved from Woodbury Connecticut to Tioga County New York John Cowell and his wife Rebecca Hine (1739- ), had several sons and a daughter, including son Joshua Cowell 2 (1773-1848). John and Rebecca’s son Joshua Cowell (2) was an ensign in the New York military in 1807.[17]
Enos Cowell (1798-1851), one of the three sons of Joshua Cowell (2), perhaps a sergeant in the War of 1812.[18] Later as the Erie Canal was facilitating the opening of the midwestern U.S. Enos Cowell located in Weedsport New York, a city on the canal.
Enos Cowell’s daughter Nancy Cowell (1820-1906) married Alexander Bush (1817-1863) a descendant of Conrad Bush (1757-1854) the storied Revolutionary War soldier mentioned in one of my prior stories, Revolutionary War Christmas. Nancy and Alexander Bush had a daughter Adaline Bush (1840-1905) who married Edwin Lewis Travis (1838-1908). Their daughter Myrtie Travis (1864-1925) married Charles F. Wright (1856-1941), father to my grandfather William Edwin Wright (1900-1956).
Validated by the genealogists of the Mayflower Society, this documented line of my ancestors going back 400 years takes the family back to the Mayflower, counting us among the estimated 10 million people in the U.S. descending from that ship’s passengers.
[1] General Society of Mayflower Descendants, The Mayflower Compact, https://themayflowersociety.org/history/the-mayflower-compact/
[2] FamilySearch, Mayflower Descendants Search, (this page is an informational facility for searching for ancestral Mayflower connections), https://www.familysearch.org/en/collection/mayflower-descendants/
[3] Robert C. Anderson, The Great Migration, 1620-1635, v.3, p. 1597-1599, New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston, 1995.
[4] General Society of Mayflower Descendants, The Mayflower Compact https://themayflowersociety.org/history/the-mayflower-compact/
[5] General Society of Mayflower Descendants, The Rogers Family Passenger Profile, https://themayflowersociety.org/passenger-profile/passenger-profiles/the-rogers-family/
[6] T.H. Matteson, The pilgrims signing the compact, on board the May Flower, Nov. 11th, 1620, engraved by Gauthier, Library of Congress,1859. https://www.loc.gov/item/2005684450/
[7] Coles Hill sarcophagus, https://themayflowersociety.org/visit/mayflower-historic-sites/
[8] Jessica Wolpert, The Plymouth Colony Archive Project, University of Virginia, 1995. http://www.histarch.illinois.edu/plymouth/JRogers4.html
[9] Katherine Chapin Higgins, Richard Higgins and his Descendants, p. 42-45, by the Author, Worchester MA, 1918. https://archive.org/details/richardhigginsre00higg/page/42/mode/2up?view=theater
[10] Roger Barnes, Some Descendants of Edward Cowell, p. 10, Boston. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/29945/images/dvm_GenMono008541-00008-0?pId=10
[11] Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society, v. 9, Rolls of Connecticut Men in the French and Indian War 1755-1757, v.1, p. 105, 116, Hartford 1903. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Rolls_of_Connecticut_Men_in_the_French_a/7R4WAAAAYAAJ?
[12] David Chapin, Freshwater Passages, p. 19, University of Nebraska Press, 2014. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1244&context=unpresssamples
[13] Roger Barnes, Some Descendants of Edward Cowell, p. 14, Boston, 1972. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/29945/images/dvm_GenMono008541-00008-0?pId=14
[14] George Madison Bodge, A.B, Soldiers in King Philips War, p.229-230, by the Author, Leominster Ma, 1896. https://archive.org/details/soldiersinkingph00inbodg/page/n485/mode/2up?view=theater
[15] Roger Barnes, Some Descendants of Edward Cowell, p. 2, Boston, 1972. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/29945/images/dvm_GenMono008541-00004-0?pId=2
[16] Sullivan S. Rawson, The Rawson family. Memoir of Edward Rawson, Secretary of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, from 1651 to 1686, p.8, by the family, Boston, 1849. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89080570773&seq=18
[17] Hugh Hastings, State of NY Historian, Military Minutes of the Council of Appointment of the State of New York, 1783-1821, v.1, p.921, James Lyon, Albany NY, 1901. https://archive.org/details/militaryminuteso00coun/page/921/mode/2up
[18] National Archives, War of 1812, Microfilm Publication M602, Catalog ID 654501. https://www.fold3.com/file/307291002
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