THE PILGRIM WILLIAM WHITE SOCIETY AN ENDORSED FAMILY SOCIETY OF THE GENERAL SOCIETY OF MAYFLOWER DESCENDANTS ESTABLISHED 2013 VOLUME VIII JANUARY 2020 NUMBER 1 Message from the Governor Dear Cousins, Three years have flown by since I became governor of our Society. I am so amazed at what we have accomplished since 2013 under Prarie’s leadership and humbled at our accomplishments since 2017. 2020 through 2023 with our new Governor Alan Smith governor and the Board can only be greater yet. We are the Little Engine That Could. We have been able to place a bronze plaque IN THIS ISSUE honoring Susanna Jackson White Winslow and her father Richard and their legacy at Visiting Mystic Scrooby Manor. We helped sponsor an album of sacred and secular music brought by Rose Parade William Bradford, the nephew by marriage of Lena Thanks the Police William White, to Plymouth. Dorothy May Bradford, his niece, would have known and A Walk in London perhaps even sang some of it. Our credited sponsorship will be on the CD and our Society The Vassalls will be even more known. Our impact will Letters to the Editor continue into the distant future because of your dedication and your renewal of your Treasurer’s Report membership. Our support of Pilgrim Hall, ILGRIM ILLIAM HITE OCIETY OLUME UMBER P W W S V VIII N 1 Cadman-White-Handy House helps to support the memory of ancestors' commitment to a new world with its freedom to worship God. I encourage you if you haven’t already renewed to do so now. And I encourage you to sponsor a member of your family as a member. My grandchildren, my wife and my older son are proud members. 2020 is the year to commemorate our ancestors and their descendants. Happy 2020 and All Things Pilgrim, Alan Cousins, I have collected several postcards that depict places associated with William and Susanna White will share here and in future newsletters. Alan 8. The town hall of Boston (the Guildhall of St. Mary) is the site of the prison of the fleeing Separatist men in 1607. Their first attempt failed because of their betrayal by their hired ship captain, who was to transport them to Holland. Bradford does not give the names of the men held there; so, it is not known definitely that Richard Jackson was one of the men. Since he and Brewster were specifically names in a warrant for “Brownism” in 1607, it would seem likely that he would have been one of those fleeing to Holland. 2 PILGRIM WILLIAM WHITE SOCIETY VOLUME VIII NUMBER 1 We owe very much gratitude to these Visiting Mystic Pilgrims who began & successfully founded By Evelyn Layton this great Nation. And, we owe our very existence & religious/moral principles to their belief in God and the importance to live free with inalienable rights given to us by God. Thank you, as well, to the California Mayflower Society for keeping the Mayflower Pilgrims' dream alive as a true reality I travelled to Mystic, Connecticut for Thanksgiving. Here is a picture of me with two grandchildren. Left is Anna Bates 16 who lives in Mystic. Middle is me (not giving my age)! I live on Kent Island Maryland. Right is Riley Cochran (18 and a new Mayflower member) who lives in Leesburg Virginia. The Mayflower is in background. The Mystic Shipyard has spent several years on a restoration project (ship is 60 years old) so she can sail back to Plymouth in May. Mayflower in the Rose Parade Lena Thanks the Crandall By Charles T. Mangum Police Society young member, Lena We saw the Mayflower Float in the Danford, 12 years old, chose as her I am Tournament of Roses Parade. Very well done thankful for you project this past & attractive. As descendants, we can all be Thanksgiving the Crandall, Texas police proud of the float's appearance on the force. National Stage reminding our Citizens of the Lena says the Crandall Police importance of our Nation's beginnings as Department directs traffic at her school for the Pilgrims of the Mayflower landed at classes and football games, keep her Plymouth 400 years ago. Their willful community safe, and show up 24/7 actions to sail across the Atlantic for prepared to face whatever they are called on religious freedom followed by their strong to do. endurance against tremendous mental, To show her appreciation to the force physical, & health hardships are major of 17, Lena, with help from her mother and examples of the "true grit & determination" grandmother, prepared gift bags containing of our American people today. pens, small note pad, Kleenex packs, hand warmers (they stand out in the cold to direct 3 PILGRIM WILLIAM WHITE SOCIETY VOLUME VIII NUMBER 1 traffic, she says), candy bars, nut packs, and a $5 gift card to the mom and pop PILGRIMS, PROFIT AND coffee shop next door to the police department. She also had homemade PROPAGANDA: A London pumpkin bread for them made by her Mayflower 400 walk grandmother. The police force told Lena By Caroline Mongan they were delighted that a young person would recognize them in such a nice way. f you’re coming to London, we can offer I you something extra special. A Mayflower walk, led by qualified London Guides and recognised by Mayflower 400, the international network coordinating the celebrations. We have some scheduled walks starting in mid-March, but can also offer dates and times to suit you. WHY LONDON? It was the crucible of the American adventure. Without it, there would have been no Mayflower. Wealthy London merchants and politicians bankrolled the early American settlements, pumped out propaganda to promote them, Lena Danford with the Crandall Police and effectively ran them. Some of the key figures in the Mayflower’s history lived and worked here. The ship itself was berthed in Help needed at Congress London, sailed from London, its Captain is Check In buried here. WHAT YOU’LL SEE: You’ll visit medieval sites where the early American Because of the large attendance for colonies were plotted and funded. A church the Mayflower 400th commemoration and where some of the Pilgrims worshipped. A 2020 Congress in Plymouth in September, glorious 17th century hall where Pilgrim the 2020 Events and Meetings Committee is leader Edward Winslow was apprenticed - looking for some volunteer help with and which acted as ‘propaganda central’ for registration check-in. Check-in begins on the American settlements. See the locations Tuesday morning, September 15, 2020, at of grim prisons 8:00 am in the front lobby of Hotel 1620 and where Winslow closes that day at 5:00 pm. It reopens at and other 8:00 am on Wednesday, September 16, Puritans were 2020 and runs until noon. On Thursday incarcerated - morning, September 17, 2020 (the first day and which of 2020 Congress), registration check-in will transported be open only a couple of hours, from 7:45 orphans and am to 10:00 am. Any amount of time you prisoners to can spare on any of those days will be the New World. Follow in the footsteps of greatly appreciated. Please contact Prarie the Native American princess, Pocahontas, Counce at [email protected] to get your name swashbuckling Captain John Smith, and on the schedule. Thank you very much! the Pilgrims’ local guide, Squanto. See the 4 PILGRIM WILLIAM WHITE SOCIETY VOLUME VIII NUMBER 1 burial place of the Mayflower Captain, THE VASSALL FAMILY AND Christopher Jones. Finally, visit the ancient RESOLVED WHITE Mayflower pub close to where the ship set sail - and sample a pint of the pub’s special By Alton Rogers Scurvy Ale! The Vassalls link Resolved White Immerse yourself in the London of the descendants to the founding of Mayflower. A city of contrasts, where Jamestowne and the Massachusetts Bay drunkards rub shoulders with Puritans, Company and the sailing of the Winthrop religion with superstition, and Fleet in 1630. John Vassall is our imprisonment was often tantamount to a qualifying ancestor to join the death sentence. A hotbed of religious Jamestowne Society and William Vassall dissent - which would change the world our qualifying ancestor for the Winthrop forever. Society. The Vassalls were an ancient Catholic family of Normandy, which included two cardinals and a marshal of France; but John Vassall became a Huguenot (Calvinist Protestant) and fled to England a few years before the massacre of Huguenots by Catholics on St. Bartholomew's Day in 1572. In France, the Vassall family's origins were south of the Dordogne River, especially at Fraysinnet-le-Gourdonnais, Vaillac, and Creysse. It is in the Bordeaux area of south-west France. In England the Vassalls were against the authority of King Charles in the early 17th century and in America were loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolution. In consequence of being Loyalists, Vassall families were Logistics and Price: We meet in the exiled to England and their estates heart of The City by Bank tube station. The confiscated. After their return to England walk costs £25 per person, and will take in 1776, members of the family approximately 3 hours, including travelling distinguished themselves in the British by public transport to the Mayflower Pub for army and navy. our pint of Scurvy Ale. Contact Vassall/White Genealogy Caroline Mongan 1. Jean (John) de Vassall b. ca.1500s in Official London Tour Guide Caen, Normandy. A protestant T: 020 8658 9611 Huguenot of Normandy. descended M: 07866 072308 from the French house of de Vassall [email protected] which traces back to about the eleventh century Barons de Guerdon, en Quercy, Perigord in south-west 5 PILGRIM WILLIAM WHITE SOCIETY VOLUME VIII NUMBER 1 France.