The Women Who Came in the MayflowerMarble, Annie Russell
History
The Women Who Came in the Mayflower
Marble, Annie Russell
Massachusetts -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Mayflower (Ship); Women -- Massachusetts
Evidently, Bridget Fuller was very ill and not expected to recover when
her husband was dying, for in his will, made at that time, he arranged
for the education of his children by his brother-in-law, William Wright,
unless it “shall please God to recover my wife out of her weake estate
of sickness.” It is interesting also that, in this will, provision was
made for the education of his daughter, Mercy, as well as his son,
Samuel, by Mrs. Heeks or Hicks, the wife of Robert Hicks who came in
_The Ann_.[87] Not alone for his own children did this good physician
provide education, but also for others “put to him for schooling,”—with
special mention of Sarah Converse “left to me by her sick father.” This
kind, generous doctor left a considerable estate, in spite of the many
“debts for physicke,” including that of “Mr. Roger Williams which was
freely given.” One specific gift was for the good of the church and this
forms the nucleus of a fund which is still known as the Fuller
Ministerial Fund of the Plymouth Congregational Church. Its source was
“the first cow calfe that his Brown Cow should have.”[88]
Mrs. Alice Morse Earle says that gloves were gifts of sentiment;[89]
they were generously bestowed by this physician of old Plymouth. Money
to buy gloves, or gloves, were bequeathed to Mistress Alice Bradford and
Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; also to John Winslow,
John Jenny and Rebecca Prence. The price allowed for a pair of gloves
was from two to five shillings. Probably these may have been the fringed
leather gloves or the knit gloves described by Mrs. Earle. Another
bequest was his “best hat and band never worn to old Mr. William
Brewster.” To his wife was left not alone two houses, “one at Smeltriver
and another in town,” but also a fine supply of furnishings and clothes,
including stuffe gown, red pettecoate, stomachers, aprons, shoes and
kerchiefs. Mistress Fuller lived until after 1667, and exerted a strong
influence upon the educational life of Plymouth.
Is it heresy to question whether the sampler,[90] accredited to Lora or
Lorea Standish, the daughter of Captain Miles and Barbara Standish, was
not more probably the work of the granddaughter, Lorea, the child of
Alexander Standish and Sarah Alden? The style and motto are more in
accord with the work of the later generation and, surely, the necessary
time and materials for such work would be more probable after the
pioneer days. This later Lora married Abraham Sampson, son of the Henry
who came as a boy in _The Mayflower_.[91] The embroidered cap[92] and
bib, supposed to have been made by Mistress Barbara for her daughter,
would prove that she had
“hands with such convenient skill
As to conduce to vertu void of shame”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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