Christopher Martin

CHILDREN:
Nathaniel (bp. 26 February 1609/10, Great Burstead, Billericay, Essex, England; m. unknown; d. unknown)

On Easter 1612, the ecclesiastical records of Billericay, Essex record that Christopher Martin refused to kneel at the holy communion.  This shows that Christopher had some definite Protestant leanings in his faith.  On 3 March 1619/20, the Archdeaconry Court at Chelmsford cited Martin for "suffering his son to answer me . . . that his father gave him his name."  Christopher Martin's "servant", his step-son Solomon Prower, was also cited by the Court for refusing to answer questions properly "unless I would ask him some questions in some catechism".  

Christopher Martin invested £25 in the Virginia Company of London, and was a partner in Ralph Hamor's plantation on 15 January 1617.  On 15 May 1620 he purchased four shares in the Virginia Company of London from Capt. George Percy.

Christopher Martin was elected by the members of the London contingent to be the governor of the Speedwell. However, the Speedwell had to turn back because it was leaking, and the Mayflower went to America alone. Martin transferred onto the Mayflower and he, his wife, and step-son came to America. The passengers on the Speedwell did not form a particularly good impression of Martin, because he was generally profane and rude, as is recorded in a letter written by Robert Cushman prior to the sailing of the Mayflower:

Mr. Martin  . . . so insulteth over our poor people, with such scorn and contempt, as if they were not good enough to wipe his shoes. It would break your heart to see his dealing, and the mourning of our people; they complain to me, and alas! I can do nothing for them. If I speak to him, he flies in my face as mutinous, and saith no complaints shall be heard or received but by himself, and saith they are froward and waspish, discontented people, and I do ill to hear them. There are others that would lose all they have put in, or make satisfaction for what they have had, that they might depart; but he will not hear them, nor suffer them to go ashore, lest they should run away. The sailors are so offended at his ignorant boldness in meddling and controlling in things he knows not what belongs to, as that some threaten to mischief him . . .

SOURCES:

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, ed. Samuel Morison (New York: Random House, 1952).

Robert C. Anderson, The Great Migration Begins, 2:1224-1225 (Boston: New England Historical and Genealogical Society, 1995).

R.J. Carpenter, Christopher Martin, Great Burstead, and the Mayflower (Chelmsford, 1993).

Charles Edward Banks, English Ancestry and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers (Baltiore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1929).

Susan Myra Kingsbury, The Records of the Virginia Company of London, 4 vols (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1933).

Alexander Brown, Genesis of the United States, 2:943 (New York, 1964).