The First To Come To the Promised Land

Fuller/Heath/Watts/Neeley/Cornwall
On this Thanksgiving holiday we flash-back to the very first Thanksgiving and the Mayflower pilgrims. There were 4 Fullers on the Mayflower when it landed  nearly 400 years ago which are related to our ancestors through the Neeley line.
 

On August 5th 1620 Edward Fuller, his wife and 12 year old son Samuel set sail for Northern Virginia from England.  The Fullers left behind their oldest son, Matthew who was 15.  They started their journey from Leiden, Netherlands, a gathering place for Puritans seeking freedom to worship “in purity”.  On board also was Edward’s brother, Samuel. Their fellow Pilgrims, with food and supplies for the journey and colony were boarded on two ships, the Mayflower and the Speedwell.  After the two ships had sailed about 300 miles the Speedwell began leaking and both ships returned to the port at Plymouth, England.  Unable to make the Speedwell seaworthy and not wanting to have any more time lost the Speedwell was left behind.  Edward’s family, with the rest of their group, had already been on-board ship for a month and half as many of the passengers and most of the cargo of the two ships were crammed aboard the small 100-foot Mayflower. The Mayflower was built for cargo, not passengers so the quarters were uncomfortable and ill-suited for the journey.

Finally on September 6th, the Mayflower with 102 passengers departed for America.  The Atlantic crossing took 66 days.  The first half of the voyage went fairly smoothly, with only a bit is sea-sickness.  In October strong Atlantic storms were encountered.  The ship was buffeted by westerly gales, causing the ship‘s timbers to be badly shaken with caulking failing to keep out sea water, and with passengers, even in their berths, lying wet and ill. A main ship beam was broken, which almost prompted their return to England.  The extended sailing, with a lack of proper rations and unsanitary conditions for several months, attributed to what would be fatal for many, including all but four of the women. The storms hindered their progress and took them off course. Finally, Cape Cod was sighted on November 9th, 1620.


Edward probably helped explore Cape Cod, for the next month and a half trying to decide where they would build their plantation.  The women and children stayed on board the Mayflower caring for the sick and having some protection from the harsh New England winter.  On December 25, 1620, they finally decided upon Plymouth, and began construction of their first buildings.   The rest of that winter of 1620-21 was spent on-board the ship.  Edward Fuller was one of 41 who signed the Mayflower Compact.  The hard voyage, extreme conditions, close quarters and disease took their tole.  Almost half the passengers perished by the end of that first winter.

Signing the Mayflower Compact on the Mayflower

Some years later the governor of the colony, William Bradford, recorded in his history that, “Edward Fuller and his wife dyed soon after they came ashore; but their sone Samuell is living, and married, and hath *4* children or more."   Edward and his wife were buried in a mass grave with others who died that first winter on the hill overlooking Plymouth Harbor.

Cole's Hill, Plymouth, MA

After the death of his parents, Samuel was taken into the household of his uncle, Dr. Samuel Fuller.  The boy Samuel and his uncle worked and toiled the next year, built homes and planted crops and enjoyed the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth.

Matthew Fuller, the elder son (and our ancestor)  followed his parents and brother and came to the Plymouth Colony. perhaps after finishing his education,  arriving sometime before 1640.   He came with his children to date and wife, Frances, whom he married in about 1625 in England.   He was granted 10 acres in Plymouth in 1642. Within the next 10 years he removed to Barnstable, where his brother Samuel lived.  He served as Capt. Miles Standish's lieutenant in 1654, and later as Captain of the Plymouth forces in his own right. During the period of King Philip's War, he served on the United Colonies Council of War, and also as Surgeon General of the colonial forces against the Indians.  Matthew’s date of death is not recorded, but his will and inventory of his estate was made in the summer of 1678.  His second child, probably born in England, is a son Samuel (our ancestor).  Samuel's 3rd son, also named Samuel eventually moved to Mansfield, Connecticut, where he married. The family line remained in Conn. for several generations then from there the line went to Pennsylvania, then Mississippi, where Elizabeth Heath Watts and her husband joined the LDS Church, moved to Nauvoo and eventually to "Zion" in 1847".  (See This Post.)