The e book Angel Gabriel by Warren C. Riess is made up of details of interest to the descendants of the 3 Burnham boys, John, Thomas, and Robert, who traveled from England to the New Earth on the ship Angel Gabriel.
On August 15, 1635 the Bristol Merchantman Angel Gabriel, conveying settlers and supplies to the New Planet, wrecked in close proximity to the Pemaquid settlement in present-day Bristol, Maine. Settlements like this just one were being launched, equipped, and secured with early seventeenth-century armed merchant ships. Most of the ships have been a few-masted, superior-sided vessels, now referred to as ship-rigged English galleons. One this kind of ship was the Angel Gabriel that wrecked through the devastating hurricane of 1635 at the Pemaquid settlement in Maine.
Three distinct ships named Angel Gabriel were being noted in English information from the 1600s. The very first definite reference to the Angel Gabriel that wrecked at Pemaquid is found in the Bristol Port Records of 1619. But proof indicates that she was initially named Starre, renamed Jason by Sir Walter Raleigh, and finally acquired by two retailers from Bristol, England, who subsequently modified her title to Angel Gabriel.
As the ship named Jason sailed with Raleigh’s 2nd expedition to Guiana, in 1617 she was described as a ship of 240 tons. Sources describe the Angel Gabriel as a 240 ton ship which was particularly large in the early 1600s. In 1629 the age of Angel Gabriel was supplied as fourteen several years, which leads to a development day of roughly 1615. Accumulation of circumstantial evidence implies that these three ships have been a single and the similar. No situated details contradicts this concept.
In the early 1600s, Sir Ferdinando Gorges was convinced by John Smith’s arguments, that colonization of New England would be a productive venture. The settlements could be financed by a fishing and timber market that would fill returning emigrant and supply ships with important cargoes of dried cod and great timbers. From the Council for New England, Gorges secured a patent from King James in 1620 for the land among the St. Lawrence River and present working day Philadelphia. In convert, Robert Aldworth and Giles Elbridge gained a patent in 1632 from Gorges’s Council (which administered the New England Business) for 1,200 acres about their trading settlement at Pemaquid, in what is now Bristol, Maine.
With the arrival in Massachusetts Bay of additional than 1,000 settlers, the Fantastic Migration began in earnest. It was a 10 years of ship soon after ship of English family members leaving overcrowded, socially rigid England for the land and relative freedoms of New England. Most of them emigrated to what is now Massachusetts, but other folks settled in towns farther south and north.
In the course of the summer of 1635 Elbridge despatched Angel Gabriel to Pemaquid with settlers and supplies. Regretably, the merchants’ documents and the Bristol port records simply cannot be situated for this time interval, but Richard Mather’s journal and genealogical information of immigrants give lots of details of the voyage and aftermath. Richard Mather, was a devout Puritan minister who suffered spiritual persecution in Anglican England. In 1635 he prepared to emigrate from Bristol to Massachusetts on the smaller sized merchant ship James. Richard Mather turned the minister of Dorchester in the Colony of Massachusetts, his son the Reverend Improve Mather, D. D., the upcoming President of Harvard University, and the grandfather of Rev. Dr. Cotton Mather, minister of Boston. On Might 26, 1635, when waiting on board James at Kings Road, just down the Avon River from Bristol, he wrote, “The Tuesday morning… a different ship, also sure for New-England, came unto us which other ship was termed the Angel Gabriel.”
3 other ships joined Angel Gabriel and James at Kings Street for the Atlantic crossing. They set sail on June 4, but a contrary wind pressured them to anchor in the lee of Lundy Island, at the entrance to the Bristol Channel, for 4 days. They then proceeded to Milford Haven, an fantastic harbor in Wales, to await favorable winds, which at last came on June 22. The 5 ships sailed collectively from Milford Haven on that Monday early morning just before a potent east wind, trying to keep close jointly for the to start with working day in anxiety of “Turkish” pirates who have been raiding Bristol shipping at the time.
Quoting from Richard Mather’s journal:
This day, at evening, we missing sight of the a few ships sure for Newfoundland, which experienced been in firm with us from Kings Highway: and our master thought it most effective for us to keep for the Angel Gabriel, currently being sure for New England, as we were being, instead than leave her and go with the other 3. The Angel Gabriel is a robust ship, and very well furnished with fourteen and sixteen parts of ordnance, and as a result our seamen rather ideal her corporation, but nevertheless she is sluggish in sailing, and for that reason we went often with three sails much less than we could possibly have accomplished, so that we may not above go her.
Passengers to the New Globe paid out a hefty sum for the crossing, but most experienced no greater quarters than the crew. The voyage ordinarily value five or 6 lbs per grownup, which provided very simple food stuff. This was a substantial sum of revenue, quite possibly representing a long time of preserving for an normal Englishman. There had been no distinctive cabins crafted for them, so to rest they would come across space concerning decks wherever they could involving the guns, cargo, and other passengers. If there were being only a several travellers, they may well be berthed in the great cabin or a single deck below near the tiller (therefore the term in steerage).
In the 1630s quite a few publications were in print to recommend settlers what outfits, food stuff, instruments, and weapons to deliver for their voyage and their farms in America. Writers prompt that emigrants deliver additional, better food items for the voyage, like reside animals when probable (and provisions for the exact same) to consume on the vacation and to start their farms in America. For the latter, dwell animals were being out there in the founded American settlements, but at a steep price tag. They encouraged bringing a year’s offer of this sort of staples as flour, peas, oil, vinegar, oatmeal, gun powder, and musket shot. All fashion of farming resources and kitchen area utensils were being required and upper human body armor was prompt. Collectively, these may cost involving 10 and fifteen pounds, additionally transport rates of involving a person and two pounds.
Shortly right after June 29, those people on James made the decision that it was protected ample to go away the slower Angel Gabriel behind and, having edge of a robust wind, parted company. Nevertheless, when they achieved America, contrary winds together “the main” cost them a week of really hard sailing to proceed a hundred miles. On Friday, August 14 James sailed into the harbor at the Isles of Shoals, a team of small islands off Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Kittery, Maine. Roughly eighty miles to the northeast, on the similar day, Angel Gabriel sailed north into John’s Bay in between Pemaquid Stage on the east and Thrumcap Island on the west. The Passengers would have observed the Pemaquid Peninsula largely lined with tall trees and lined by a steep, rocky shore for two miles. Then they would have found a tiny Pemaquid Indian encampment in close proximity to a sandy beach front. Just beyond that, at the northeast corner of John’s Bay, was Pemaquid Harbor, guarded by smaller islands and ledges. Elbridge’s compact settlement lay at the shores of the harbor. In 1635 Pemaquid was the northeastern-most English settlement in The united states.
Along the northern New England coastline that night all the things seemed regular but as the crews of the two ships anchored for the night, to their southwest a fatal storm was moving up the coastline. This was not a usual summer time storm, but a effective early-season hurricane, possibly the most effective hurricane to hit New England in recorded time. It struck southern New England in the evening, causing a storm surge in Narragansett Bay fourteen toes earlier mentioned the usual high tide line.
In Plymouth, William Bradford later on recorded:
This yr, the 14th or 15th of August was these a mighty storm of wind and rain as none residing in these parts, both English or Indians, at any time saw. It commenced in the morning a tiny before working day, and grew not by levels but arrived with violence in the commencing, to the great amazement of several. It blew down sundry homes and uncovered many others. Divers vessels were shed at sea and a lot of much more in serious hazard. It blew down quite a few hundred countless numbers of trees, turning up the more robust by the roots and breaking the larger pine trees off in the center.
The crew and terrified passengers on James were helpless in the deal with of the storm, apart from to go down below deck and pray for deliverance, which they did. Immediately after staying tossed and beaten by the storm for hrs, they survived and at some point made it to shore with their more sails. Points ended up even worse at the subsequent settlement, Pemaquid. There the storm most likely strike just soon after dawn taking the inhabitants and new arrivals, as in all places else, fully by shock. Mather wrote:
And the Angel Gabriel, becoming then at anchor at Pemaquid, was burst in parts and forged away in this storm, and most of the cattle and other goods, with just one seaman and 3 or 4 travellers, did also perish therein.
Some local lore maintains that most of the passengers and crew arrived ashore in excess of rocks in the eye of the storm, when Angel Gabriel wrecked on both Fish Level or on the rocks by the continues to be of Fort William Henry. Mather and Trelawny claimed the ship at anchor at the Pemaquid settlement when the hurricane struck. Staying Elbridge’s ship she was most probable bringing provides to their trading settlement. This could indicate at minimum a couple days of unloading, and quite a few passengers and most of the crew may well therefore have been ashore for the night time when the storm struck early in the early morning of August 15, 1635.
A checklist of crew or travellers aboard Angel Gabriel has not been located, but a blend of archival documents and recorded household lore point out twenty-6 of those people aboard – 20-5 passengers and the captain. When Mather mentions a hundred passengers aboard the James, the assumption really should not be built that the 240 ton Angel Gabriel experienced a equivalent selection of travellers. Elbridge experienced a increasing trade settlement to source at Pemaquid, and may possibly have located transporting his personal products far more lucrative than shipping settlers’ possessions and materials. In addition, the house essential for fourteen or sixteen guns and their equipment would have been a major thought on the key deck, in which travellers usually were berthed. Elbridge might have transported only a number of passengers with their belongings as space permitted. These days, major archival information assist only the presence of the Cogswell family, William Furber, and Samuel Haines.
Other people listed are derived from materials in spouse and children genealogies.
Andrews, possibly Robert Andrews
John Bailey
John Jr.
Joanna
Ralph Blaesdell (42)
Elizabeth (wife)
Henry (3)
Thomas Bradbury
John Burnham
Thomas Burnham (16)
Robert Burnham (11)
John Cogswell
Elizabeth Cogswell (wife)
William (16)
John Jr. (12)
Edward (6)
Mary (16)
Abigail
Hannah
Sarah
Elizabeth
William Furber (21)
Samuel Haines (33)
Henry Simpson
John Tuttle (17)
Temporary Information and facts about Some of the Travellers
Andrews
I could not find archival substance about the ship’s master (captain), but a secondary source promises that Robert Andrews, uncle of John and Thomas Burnham was grasp of the ship when she was missing. Robert Andrews was born in Norwich, England and was married to an Elizabeth. Having said that, the same Robert Andrews previously was dwelling at Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1635, was granted freeman status (1 who could vote and hold business office) in May well 1635, and was given a license to operate an inn on his farm in September 1635. It is possible, that this Andrews was Angel Gabriel’s master. He could have been living in Ipswich and created a spherical journey to England, returning as the ship’s learn.
Bailey
Family genealogies, but no principal archival information, relate that John Bailey, a weaver from Chippenham, still left his spouse Elizabeth and a few youngsters in England and took passage aboard Angel Gabriel with his son John Jr. and daughter Joanna. They lived in what turned Newbury, Massachusetts for two yrs soon after the wreck. In 1637 they settled on a fifty-acre plot on the banks of the Merrimac River in Salisbury where by John fished and farmed. John Jr. And Joanna inevitably still left Salisbury and moved again across the river to Newbury. John Jr. married Eleanor Emery and Joanna married William Harrington or Huntington. Elizabeth, John Sr.’s wife who had stayed in England, never ever came to The us. Loved ones lore relates that the loved ones was so terrified by the hurricane experience that neither group would cross the Atlantic to be with the other. Patricia Bailey, a present-working day member of the household and singer, has composed a touching ballad of the family’s awful ordeal.
Cogswell
Details from the Cogswell’s account of their journey offers some exciting insights. Mr. Cogswell took with him in addition to his spouse and eight sons and daughters, a number of farm and household servants, an volume of precious furnishings, farming implements, housekeeping utensils, and a substantial sum of funds. He observed in his writings, “the Angel Gabriel turned a whole wreck, passengers, cattle, and goods were all solid upon the indignant waves.” Mr. Cogswell and his family achieved the shore with their life, but nicely drenched by the sea and despoiled of valuables to the amount of money of 5 thousand pounds sterling. They ended up a lot more fortuitous than some who sailed with them, whom the angry waves gathered to a watery grave. On leaving England Mr. Cogswell experienced taken alongside with him a huge tent, which now came into fantastic services. This they pitched, and into it they collected by themselves and this kind of outlets as they could rescue from the waves. The darkness of that 1st night of the Cogswells in The us observed them housed beneath a tent on the seaside. The up coming working day they picked up what much more of their merchandise they could, which experienced appear ashore throughout the night time or lay floating about on the drinking water. As soon as possible Mr. Cogswell, leaving his loved ones, took passage for Boston. He there created a contract with a sure Capt. Gallup, who commanded a small barque, to sail for Pemaquid and transport his household to Ipswich, Massachusetts.
It is tricky for us to envision the scene of the storm. It was not unusual for people today on the shore to observe a ship break into several parts and crew and travellers thrown into the wild sea as they had been helpless to offer you any form of rescue. Traces of this storm remained for a long time. In thinking how Robert Andrews and his three nephews attained Ipswich, one particular descendant living presently in Essex mentioned that they walked all the way. What an introduction to America and their new journey for these 3 English boys!
