John Carver
BORN: probably c1580, based on estimated marriage dates
DIED: April 1621, but after April 5.
MARRIED:
CHILDREN:
| NAME | BIRTH | BURIAL | MARRIAGE |
| unknown | unknown | 10 July 1609, St. Pan., Leyden, Holland | unmarried |
| unknown | unknown | 11 November 1617, St. Pan., Leyden, Holland | unmarried |
John Carver was elected
the first governor of the Plymouth Colony, and re-confirmed on 2 April 1621.
He witnessed the will of William Mullins on 21 February 1620/1, and
certified it on April 2, 1621, shortly before the Mayflower left Plymouth
to return to England. Carver died a few days later, apparently of a
stroke, while working on a hot day out in the fields. He came on the
Mayflower with his wife Katherine, 15-year old
Desire Minter, three
men servants (Roger
Wilder, John
Howland, and William
Latham), "adopted" child Jasper
More, and
Dorothy, a
maidservant who married
Francis Eaton.
John Carver's first wife Marie de Lannoy is possibly the aunt to Philip de Lannoy (i.e. Delano) who came on the ship Fortune in 1621. The couple is recorded on 8 February 1609 in Leyden records as "Jan Carwer" and "Marie de Lannoy", and she is listed as coming from L'Escluse, near Lille, France where she was a member of the Walloon church (as was Francis Cooke's wife Hester Mahieu). They had a child buried in Leyden on 10 July 1609. Possibly she died in childbirth, or shortly thereafter, as no future children or records of her exist. Presumably the child buried in 1617 was from Carver's second marriage to Katherine.
John Carver's wife Katherine, who was the sister of pastor John Robinson's wife Bridget, died about five or six weeks after her husband. Katherine was the daughter of Alexander and Eleanor White of Sturton le Steeple, Nottingham, England.
The Great Migration Begins 1:320-321, and the introduction to Mayflower Families: Francis Cooke states that the only evidence that John and Katherine (White) Leggett married was that John Robinson called John Carver "my brother" in a letter; and that since "brother" was a common term for a pastor to call a deacon, this was not enough evidence to show they were brother-in-laws. This is not a correct interpretation. Robinson's letter continues on to say "Now what shall I say or write unto you and your goodwife my loving sister?" This is clearly not a simple Christian address, and since John Robinson's wife Bridget did have a sister named Katherine (Mayflower Descendant 43:183-186), and John Carver's wife was named Katherine, there is no doubt Katherine Carver and Bridget Robinson were sisters--daughters of Alexander White of Sturton-le-Steeple, Nottinghamshire.
By Katherine's her first husband, Mr. Leggatt (possibly the George who witnessed the will of Alexander White's widow Eleanor) she had one child, Maria, who was under ten years old in 1599 when she is mentioned in Eleanor's will.
The claim that Robert Carver of Marshfield, Massachusetts was either a brother or a nephew of Governor John Carver does have some antiquity (the nephew claim being published as early as 1760, the brother claim as early as 1767). These claims remain unverified by genealogists, and there is no published documentation to show that Robert and John were indeed related. Research in English records to investigate the possibility of a relationship is certainly warrented, however.
A chair thought to have been owned by John Carver is preserved in the Pilgrim Hall Museum.
SOURCES:
Robert S. Wakefield, "The Family of Alexander White," Mayflower Descendant 43:183-186.
Charles Edward Banks, English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers, (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1929).
William Bradford and Edward Winslow. A Relation or Journal of the Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation settled at Plymouth . . . (John Bellamie: London, 1622).
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Morison (New York: Random House, 1952).
Jeremy D. Bangs, preface of Mayflower Families for Five Generations: Francis Cooke, volume 12 (Plymouth: General Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1996).