September 11, 2024
Introduction: In this article, Melissa Davenport Berry continues her series on Mayflower descendants, focusing on the family lines of William Brewster, the spiritual leader of Plymouth Colony. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
Today I continue with my series on “Mayflower Descendants: Who’s Who,” focusing on Mayflower passenger William Brewster, the spiritual leader of Plymouth Colony.
Recently I have been working with two separate Massachusetts families on their applications for membership into the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. Both descend from William Brewster through his daughter Patience, who married Governor Thomas Prence.
The ancestors of each of these applicants left Plymouth for Nova Scotia in the early 19th century and returned to New England a few generations later.
My first subject, Elizabeth Anne (Annis) Coughlin, descends from William Brewster through her paternal side via the marriage of her second gr. great grandmother Sarah Jane Worthylake to Arthur H. Annis, son of Elisha Gardner and Jane Ewart (Bryden) Annis.
Here is Elizabeth’s lineage match to William Brewster.
Before Elizabeth discovered her Mayflower connections, she explored her Italian heritage and visited Terlizzi, Italy, with her parents and son Thomas, and while there connected with her cousins. You can read her magical genealogy journey on her website under “Opening the Door to Awareness and Finding Family.”
Here are two photographs of Elizabeth’s family taken on 4 July 1942, when her grandparents Rupert and Angela married in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Here we see (left to right): maid of honor Rita McCarthy; bride Angela “Angie” Maria Gesmundo (1922-1990), daughter of Giuseppe “Joseph” and Maria “Mary” (Sardo) Gesmundo; groom Rupert Ellsworth Annis II (1915-1991); best man Gerald “Jed” William Cleversey; and flower girl Grace Sciuto.
Here are the groom’s parents, Rupert Ellsworth Annis I (1888-1976) and his wife Annie Caroline Carlman (1888-1971), Elizabeth’s great grandparents on her paternal side, at the wedding.
Here is a newspaper clip on some history of William Brewster from columnist “Cholly Knickerbocker” (Maury Henry Biddle Paul) from his “First Families” series published in the New York American.
This article reports:
William Brewster was one of the Pilgrim Fathers and he was accompanied on the hazardous voyage across the Atlantic [on the Mayflower in 1620] by his wife, Mary Brewster, and two young sons [Love and Wrestling].
Elder William Brewster, as he later was known, first saw the light of day at Scrooby, England, during the last half of the year 1566, or the first half of 1567, the date being fixed by an affidavit made by him at Leyden [Leiden, Netherlands], June 25, 1609, when he declared his age to be forty-two.
The name of Brewster appears among the “English Landed Gentry.”
In 1575-76, William Brewster Sr., father of Elder William Brewster, was appointed by Archbishop Sandys as receiver of Scrooby and bailiff of the manor house in that place.
Sometime in the year 1588 he became “postmaster under the crown” and was hailed as a person of the utmost importance in the community.
That William Brewster Sr. possessed a fair amount of wealth is certain, for he sent his son William to Peterhouse, the oldest of the fourteen colleges grouped into the University of Cambridge.
In the year 1590 William Brewster Sr. was gathered to his fathers, and his son William Jr. inherited his estate and became the postmaster of Scrooby, He affiliated himself with the Pilgrim Church.
The story of the persecution of the Pilgrims by English authorities is far too well known to need repeating here.
Eventually, William Brewster reached Holland, where he endured untold hardships, not being as well fitted as the other Pilgrims for the hard labor which was their common lot.
During the latter part of the twelve years he and his family spent in Holland, he increased his income by teaching and by the profits from a printing press which he set up in Leyden.
When, after twelve years, it was decided the Pilgrims who had found haven at Leyden should emigrate [sic] to Virginia, Brewster, who already had been chosen an elder, expressed a desire to go with the first contingent of emigrants.
For more information, check out Caleb H. Johnson’s website Mayflowerhistory.com. Below is a picture of the book he edited and transcribed, “The Brewster Book Manuscript,” which is a journal kept by the Brewster family for more than 250 years, packed with genealogical information.
To be continued…
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Note on the header image: “Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor,” by William Halsall, 1882. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
